Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average proportion of sentence served in prison was by (a) men and (b) women serving mandatory life sentences who were released from prison in the last year for which information is held.

We have taken the reference in the question to ‘average proportion of sentence served’ to be a reference to the average length of time served as a proportion of tariff in prison. This will comprise the offender’s original tariff period plus any additional time spent in prison prior to release by the Parole Board. The average length of time served in prison as a proportion of tariff by individuals serving mandatory life-sentences who were released in 2017 was:

(a) Men = 146%.

(b) Women = 113%.