Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent progress his Department has made on implementing the reforms in the Root and Branch Review of the Parole System published on 30 March 2022.

We have increased Ministerial oversight of moves of certain prisoners to open prisons and introduced a process for Ministers to submit a view on release.

We have allowed for some parole hearings to be held in public and commenced a testing phase for victims to attend parole hearings if they wish.

Reforms to the release process, including the Ministerial power to refuse release, require primary legislation. We will introduce this when parliamentary time allows.