Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that all relevant (a) intelligence and (b) behavioural evidence is available to the Parole Board it makes release decisions.

Qualified prison and probation officers, together with qualified psychologists, assess the relevance of all available evidence about a prisoner’s risk in the reports which they are required to submit to the Parole Board, when the Board is considering whether to direct that prisoner’s release. This includes evidence about behaviour, both past and present, and any intelligence gathered.

Additionally, the Parole Board may direct production of other reports where they, or other report writers, consider it necessary to inform the Board’s assessment of the prisoner’s risk – for example, a report from a qualified forensic psychiatrist.

Public protection remains the number one priority, and the Parole Board will release a prisoner only where it judges that the Probation Service may manage the prisoner’s risk effectively, using the licence conditions which the Board itself sets.