Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress his Department has made on implementing the recommendations in the report entitled Root and branch review of the parole system: the future of the parole system in England and Wales, published in March 2022.

We have made significant progress.

Parole Board hearings can now be heard in public – there have been three so far. We have reformed the way indeterminate sentence prisoners are moved to open prison conditions by making sure that moves only happen if there is evidence they can be safely managed and there is low risk of them absconding. The Secretary of State will reject any recommendation from the Board where he is not satisfied there is a wholly persuasive case for transferring a prisoner.

Regarding release decisions, the Secretary of State can now provide the Parole Board with an overarching view which takes account of all reports and available evidence, including any professional opinions offered by report writers pertaining to the prisoner’s suitability for release. In these cases, the Secretary of State will be represented at an oral hearing.

In Part III of the Victims and Prisoners Bill, we are making the statutory release test more prescriptive and making clear that an offender must not be released unless the Board is confident there is no more than minimal risk to the public.

We are increasing the number of Board members with a law enforcement background and the Bill will introduce the power to require them to sit on panels concerning the most serious offenders – the ‘’top-tier’’. The Bill also creates a power that will allow the Secretary of State to take a second look, on behalf of the public, at any decisions to release a top-tier prisoner.

Another key recommendation was to establish a Parole System Oversight Group to explore and resolve whole-system operational issues across the parole system in England and Wales, such as delays. This Group has now been established and the inaugural meeting was held in June 2023.