Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to make all parole board hearings available to the public.

Any Parole Board hearing may be heard in public if the Chair of the Parole Board decides it is in the interests of justice to do so. Applications for public hearings can be made by anyone directly to the Parole Board. The criteria used by the Chair to decide public hearing applications has been published by the Parole Board on its website and the individual decisions are also published.

Not all cases will be suitable to be heard in public due, for example, to particularly sensitive evidence or the concerns of the victims, and the government believes it is right that the Parole Board has the discretion to decide which cases should be heard in public.