Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders currently serving standard determinate sentences for offences related to domestic abuse may become eligible for release after serving one third of their sentence under the proposed sentencing reforms; and how many such offenders are managed by probation services in the West Midlands.

Changes to the Progression model announced this summer has excluded many more crimes, building on the 18,000 prisoners who were already excluded.  Sadly, the scale of the prison crisis inherited in 2024 does mean difficult action is needed after a net increase of just 500 prison places in the previous 14 years.

We have already opened 3,300 prison cells since the election and we are investing £700 million in probation and community services to manage offenders with a strengthened package of measures including a presumption of electronic monitoring for progression model releases, full rollout of Domestic Abuse Perpetrators on Licence GPS monitoring, and enhanced supervision safeguards which prevent domestic abuse offenders from being allocated to the lowest supervision tiers. Measures will be applied on a case-by-case basis to ensure they are necessary and proportionate to the risk presented.

Information on releases from determinate sentences is published in the Ministry of Justice's quarterly Offender Management Statistics. However, there is no single domestic abuse offence defined in legislation as domestic abuse can be associated with a wide range of criminal offences. From 5 October 2026, the Judicial Finding of Domestic Abuse requires courts to formally identify where domestic abuse was a factor in offending. This will improve the identification and management of domestic abuse offenders and respond to the risks they pose.