Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on the (a) number and (b) trends in the level of prisoners released through early release on compassionate grounds in each of the last five years.

As detailed in Prison Service Order 600 and Prison Service Order 4700, the Secretary of State may use his executive power to release prisoners early on compassionate grounds. An application may be made by or any behalf of any prisoner, but early release is granted only in exceptional circumstances, where a prisoner is suffering from a terminal illness or is experiencing tragic family circumstances and where releasing the prisoner on licence would not place the public at risk. The Secretary of State for Justice has recently decided to take all decisions personally; previously, decisions were delegated to officials.

Please find below the number of prisoners released early on compassionate grounds in England and Wales, in the last nine calendar years.

Please note that the data for 2021 is up to and including September 2021 as data beyond this are a subset of our releases data, due for future publication as part of Offender Management Statistics Quarterly.