Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many prisoners sentenced to detention for public protection (1) have never been released, (2) have been returned to prison on breach of licence, (3) are currently in the community under supervision on licence, and (4) were released on licence for the first time within the last three years.

We have provided the data requested, as follows:

1. As of 30 September 2023, 36 prisoners serving a DPP sentence have never been released.

2. As of 30 September 2023, 49 prisoners are serving a DPP sentence in custody having been recalled.

3. As of 30 June 2023, 99 offenders are serving a DPP sentence on licence in the community.

4. Table 1: Shows the number of people sentenced to DPP released for the first time from prison, in each of the last three years.

Please note:

(1) The numbers provided in table 1 result from a matching between two databases - Prison National Offender Management Information System (NOMIS) data and Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD) data. A total of 13 prisoners identified in the PPUD data did not have an associated NOMIS identifier and so were not included. The figures provided here are an estimate based on these two sources and as inconsistencies in recording between these two sources exist, the figures should be treated with caution.

(2) The figures in table 1 represent 'first releases' only, and do not include re-releases following a period of recall.

(3) All figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

(4) All figures represent the most recent available data.

(*) Data for 2023 only include releases up to end of June 2023 - reflecting the most recent published data period.

On 16 October 2023, the Lord Chancellor announced he would be looking at options to curtail the licence period to restore greater proportionality to IPP/DPP sentences in line with recommendation 8 of the report by the Justice Select Committee (JSC), published on 28 September 2022.

The Lord Chancellor announced on 28 November 2023, that these changes are being taken forward in the Victims and Prisoners Bill.

The new measure will:

1. Reduce the qualifying period which triggers the duty of the Secretary of State to refer an IPP/DPP licence to the Parole Board for termination from ten years to three years;

2. Include a clear statutory presumption that the IPP licence will be terminated by the Parole Board at the end of the three-year qualifying period;

3. Introduce a provision that will automatically terminate the IPP/DPP licence two years after the three-year qualifying period, in cases where the Parole Board has not terminated the licence; and

4. Introduce a power to amend the qualifying period by Statutory Instrument.

The Lord Chancellor was persuaded by the Committee’s recommendation to reduce the qualifying licence period from 10 years to five years and is going further: reducing the period to three years. These amendments will restore greater proportionality to IPP/DPP sentences and provide a clear pathway to a definitive end to the licence and, therefore, the sentence.

In addition to these changes, the actions this Government are taking are working; the number of prisoners serving the IPP/DPP sentence who have never been released now stands at 1,269 as of September 2023, down from more than 6000 in 2012.