Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of whole-life order sentences.

A whole life order (WLO) is the most severe form of sentence that the courts can impose and is used to ensure the most serious cases of murder are properly punished and to guarantee public safety.

As of September 2022, 64 offenders were serving WLOs. Due to the risk posed by these offenders, they are generally held with other high-risk offenders at higher security establishments, where the average cost per offender is £73,085 and £74,236 for males and females respectively per year.

This means that the cost of all offenders currently serving WLOs is in the region of £4.7m per year.