My Lords, in the first quarter of last year, 88 references were made from the Parole Board, and 80 were accepted. The change over the past year can have nothing to do with whether the Parole Board is following the Ministry of Justice criteria, which say

“the prisoner is assessed as low risk of abscond; and … a period in open conditions is considered essential to inform future decisions about release”.

The Parole Board is following the criteria laid down by the MoJ, but the MoJ is following a different route, and the question is: why?