Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners were released on temporary licence in each of the last four years (a) on compassionate grounds or to receive medical treatment, (b) to engage in work, paid employment or volunatry work, (c) to receive instruction or training which is not available in prison, (d) to take part in court, tribunal or inquiry proceedings, (e) to consult with his legal adviser, where this cannot reasonably be done within the prison, (f) to help the police with their enquiries, (g) to facilitate the prisoner's transfer between prisons and (h) to help him maintain family ties or to ease the transition from prison life to freedom.

Releases for each of the reasons a) to h) given in the question - which are the purposes for which temporary release may be authorised under the Prison Rules - are captured under one or other of the four types of temporary release. Data on the number of temporary releases by type of licence are published annually in table A3.10 of the Offender Management caseload statistics at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-october-december-2013-and-annual

The data for the last four years are as follows:

(1) A new prison database system was introduced mid 2009 which affected the supply of data for statistical purposes from July 2009 to February 2010. Therefore, data for 2010 cannot be provided and are left blank in the table above.

There are four types of temporary release:

• Resettlement day release, which allows people to train, work, maintain contact with their families and undertake general resettlement activities;
• Resettlement overnight release, which allows prisoners to spend time in the proposed release address;
• Childcare Resettlement Licence, which allows the release of sole carers of children under 16; and,
• Special purpose licence, which covers a range of necessary activities not linked to resettlement, such as medical treatment, attending funerals or indeed transferring between prisons, attending court or helping the police.