Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to enable the use of polygraph tests by probation officers in the management of serious offenders.

The Probation Service has used polygraph testing for high risk sex offenders since 2014 and for terrorist offenders since 2021. In July 2021, the Ministry of Justice commenced a three-year pilot of polygraph testing with high risk domestic abuse perpetrators.

We will close three operational gaps in the use of polygraph through the Criminal Justice Bill.

Currently, certain offenders convicted of murder cannot be polygraph tested on licence even if they have also been convicted of a serious sexual offence, where the sentence for the sexual offence has expired before they are released on licence. The Bill will permit polygraph testing with those offenders convicted of murder who are assessed as posing a risk of sexual offending on release.

It will also make sure that an offender sentenced concurrently for a sexual and a non-sexual offence, where the sexual offence expires before or during the licence period of the non-sexual offence, can be polygraph tested throughout their entire licence period.

Finally, the Bill also extends polygraph testing to a cohort of serious offenders who committed a non-terrorism offence, such as conspiracy to murder, as an act of terrorism or for the purposes of terrorism but did so before the relevant legislation came into force, which enables the Court at the point of sentencing to make a formal ‘terrorist connection’ determination.