Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of recent changes to the early release scheme.

SDS40 is a necessary measure to avoid the collapse of the Criminal Justice System. In designing the measure, we took every possible step 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.

Once released, offenders will be closely monitored by probation and subject to strict licence conditions, which if breached could lead to their immediate recall to prison.

Following the first tranche of SDS40 releases that took place on 10 September, the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service have consulted our frontline and cross government partners on how things went. Following the release of prisoners under Tranche 1 on 10 September 2024 and Tranche 2 on 22 October, we are determined to continue to take every step possible to bring the prisons system under control, reduce reoffending and to keep the public safe.

As the Lord Chancellor has previously announced, the change will be reviewed in 18 months.