Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing restrictions on serious (a) sexual and (b) violent criminals.

It is crucial that we have a justice system that punishes offenders and supports victims. That’s why increasing restriction on serious sexual and violent offenders is part of our Plan for Change to cut crime and make streets safer.

For most sentences, we will introduce a new model inspired by Texas where offenders will serve at least one-third of their sentence in custody subject to their behaviour. However, certain serious violent and sexual offenders will still serve at least half their sentence before release and could serve up until the end of their sentence in custody if they do not comply with rules and restrictions.

After prison, offenders will face tougher post-custody supervision – with a presumption that they will be tagged. We are introducing a new power which will allow probation to impose these restriction zones on offenders on licence and serving community sentences, where appropriate. These will restrict certain offenders to specific areas – so their victims know they are safe wherever else they want to go.

Also, in November last year, we launched new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs) in selected areas. DAPOs bring together the strongest features from current protective orders into a single more comprehensive order that goes further to protect victims of domestic abuse.