Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the additional cost will be, in (a) money, and (b) staff hours, to the Probation Service as a result of the ten tranches of early released prisoners under the Sentencing Act 2026 progression model.

The Government assessed the impact of the Sentencing Act 2026 reforms through its published Impact Assessment and is working with probation, policing and local partners to manage implementation. The Impact Assessment can be accessed here: Sentencing Act Impact Assessment.

This Government is committed to ensuring the Probation Service has the capacity it needs to manage offenders safely in the community, including those released on licence from October 2026. We are investing up to £700 million in probation and community services by the final year of the spending review period to support the expansion of tagging, accommodation provision and increasing capacity. We have committed to onboarding at least 1,300 more trainee probation officers in 2026/27. This builds on the success of previous years’ campaigns with 1,057 trainees onboarded in 2024/25, and 1,389 in 2025/26.