Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether her Department informs victims when perpetrators of crimes against them are due to be released under her Department's scheme to temporarily reduce the proportion of some custodial sentences served in prison from 50% to 40%.

Ministers and officials regularly meet with the Victims’ Commissioner. I can confirm recent meetings have included discussions about the impact on victims of the prison capacity measures announced on 12 July, and the processes in place to ensure that victims have access to information and support they may need.

Victims who are eligible for and have opted into either the Probation Service’s Victim Contact Scheme or Victim Notification Scheme are provided with updates about an offender that perpetrated crimes against them, including when these offenders are due to be released from custody. This includes providing these victims with the opportunity to make representations as to the licence conditions that they would like to be in place on an offender’s release such as an exclusion zone.