Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what minimum period of notice will be given to victims before the release of a domestic abuse offender under proposed sentencing arrangements; and whether a new domestic abuse risk assessment will be mandatory before such an offender is released.

The Sentencing Act 2026 contains provisions which change the proportion of a standard determinate sentence which must be served in prison before the offender serving such a sentence is released automatically on licence. This is known as the Earned Progression Model.

Eligible victims who opt into the Probation Service Victim Contact Scheme are informed of an offender's release date and have the opportunity to make representations about licence conditions before release. There is no statutory minimum notice period.

For releases under the Earned Progression Model, victim notification letters, confirming whether a release date had been changed, began to be issued from 1 September 2026 in tranche order. Victims in the earliest release tranches have generally been provided with around four weeks' notice, broadly in line with normal pre-release arrangements, with those in later tranches receiving a longer notice period. Victims are informed of licence condition decisions prior to release, and any approved protective measures, such as exclusion zones or non-contact requirements, take effect from the point of release.

Before offenders convicted of domestic abuse are released from custody, including under early release arrangements, probation practitioners will conduct a thorough risk assessment, taking account of information which they receive from enquiries made of the Police in order to identify the licence conditions and other controls needed to manage the risks which offenders present to their victims and to the general public.