Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the new Early Release Scheme on the families of those released.

The Government was forced to introduce SDS40 to avoid the collapse of the criminal justice system. At the point when SDS40 came into effect on 10 September, the use of End of Custody Supervised Licence came to an end. In designing the SDS40 measure, we took every possible step to communicate with victims about the change and the impact it could have. We also put in measures to mitigate risk including an 8-week implementation period, clear offence exclusions, and a huge amount of collaboration with partners across the Criminal Justice System.

We considered the impact of SDS40 on the families of those released in our Impact Assessment highlighting how it may help resettlement and rehabilitation of eligible offenders, as earlier release into the community will mean they will be able to support themselves and their families earlier in their sentence.