Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of recalls to prison have been fixed-term recalls in the last year for which information is available.

The number of recalls to prison that were fixed-term, in England and Wales for the period 1 January 2017 to 31 December was 9,609, this equates to 44% of the total number of recalls for the period which was 21,915.

The only basis for recall is the breach of one or more licence conditions. In some cases, this may involve further offending. The information in the table below is taken from table 5.10 of the licence recalls workbook (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-october-to-december-2017). Whereas the published table provides reason for recall for all recalled offenders, the table below only includes prisoners who have been recalled on a fixed term recall.

Anyone who commits a crime while on licence may, in addition to recall, face prosecution and potentially a further prison sentence. For more serious offences, they can be held in prison on remand until trial. Committing an offence while on licence is an aggravating factor the court should take into account when sentencing for the new offence and may lead to a longer further sentence.

Fixed-term recalls (FTRs) are only issued to offenders who do not pose a risk of serious harm to the public.

Reason for recall for offenders given an FTR in 2017

The figures in these tables have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. Recall reasons do not sum to the total number of recalls as more than one reason can be recorded against each recall.