To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to review all cases of persons held for more than five years beyond their judicial tariffs.

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to reduce the number of persons imprisoned for reasons of public protection; if so, how they will achieve this; and whether they will require that reasons for recalls to prison need additional detail rather than being classified as “other”.

The Government is committed to the protection of the public and the effective management of offenders. Prisoners serving indeterminate sentences, both those serving life and Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP), who have completed their tariff will be released only when the Parole Board concludes that it is no longer necessary on the grounds of public protection for them to remain confined. Where the Parole Board decide not to release the prisoner, the prisoner’s suitability for release must be considered at least every two years thereafter.

In line with the Justice Select Committee’s report into the continued existence of the IPP sentence, the Government committed to update and refresh the HM Prison and Probation Service’s IPP Action Plan, to which may be attributed the very significant numbers of IPP prisoners released for the first time in each year since 2016. The Action Plan already mandates a formal case review led by HMPPS Psychology Services for every IPP prisoner who has spent five years in prison following tariff expiry and has never been released.

The Action Plan remains the embodiment of the Government’s aim to reduce the total IPP prisoner population – that is the combined figure of those who have never been released and those returned to prison following recall. Specifically, by way of response to the Committee’s assertion that offenders serving an IPP sentence on licence in the community are being recalled unnecessarily, the Government has requested that the Chief Inspector of Probation carry out an independent thematic inspection on the proportionality of recall decisions made. In cases where ‘other’ is listed as a reason for recall, there is always at least one additional, specific reason as recorded in the published recall statistics.