Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have received an Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence in each of the last three years.

The Courts have handed down one Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence in the last three years. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act abolished the IPP sentence for offences committed on or after 3 December 2012. However, the offender in this one case committed the offences prior to abolition of the IPP sentence.

Prisoners serving an IPP sentence have no fixed date of release. At the time of sentencing, the Court set a tariff – that is, the minimum custodial period to be served before the prisoner would be eligible for release. At the end of September 2018, 2,319 IPP prisoners had served more than their minimum tariff period. The number of tariff-expired prisoners serving an IPP sentence, and the time they have served over tariff, is published in table 1.9b of the OMSQ Prison Population publication:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2018

Figures for Quarter 4 of 2018 will be published at the end of January 2019.

These figures 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.

Public protection is our priority. Prisoners serving IPP sentences will only be released if the independent Parole Board is satisfied that it is safe to do so based on a thorough assessment of risk. Those who have served their minimum tariff have the opportunity to apply to the Parole Board and demonstrate that they are no longer a risk to society.