Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison places are required to end early prisoner release schemes.

In July 2024, the Lord Chancellor announced a change to the automatic release point for those serving eligible Standard Determinate Sentences (SDS) from 50% to 40%. SDS40 is a necessary measure to avoid prison capacity pressures causing gridlock in the Criminal Justice System.

Whilst the SDS change provided the intended medium-term relief to the system, this is not intended to be a long-term solution. To ensure we are never in a position where we run out of prison places again, the Lord Chancellor announced the Independent Review into Sentencing, alongside a series of prison capacity measures. This included reforming our recall practices to target the unsustainable growth in the recall population since the pandemic and an extension of the maximum period offenders can spend on Home Detention Curfew from 6 to12 months.

We also recently published our 10-year capacity strategy which sets out our ambition to build 14,000 prison places by 2031. This includes our new prison of nearly 1,500 prison places at HMP Millsike, which received its first prisoners this week.

The Independent Sentencing Review published its Part 1 report on 18 February. The Review’s final report is expected to be published in the spring of this year and will set out the immediate and longer-term recommendations for reform.

As the Lord Chancellor has previously announced, the SDS40 policy will be reviewed after 18 months.