Prisoner Releases in Error

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Statement

12:12

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Tuesday 11 November.

“With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a Statement on releases in error from prison.

On Armistice Day, let me begin by paying tribute to those we honour: Members of both Houses and parliamentary staff who gave their tomorrow for our today. Whatever divides our politics, today we remember what binds us together: our belief in service and the pursuit of the common good.

On Wednesday 5 November, I answered Prime Minister’s Questions. As someone who has served in this House for 25 years, I take my responsibilities to Parliament incredibly seriously. The House will recall that I was asked repeatedly whether any asylum-seeking offender had been released in error. At that time, I had been alerted of the release of Brahim Kaddour-Cherif from His Majesty’s Prison Wandsworth. Details about the case were still emerging throughout Wednesday. Importantly, my officials had not had confirmation about whether or not he was an asylum seeker. Indeed, it was not until later that afternoon that the Home Office confirmed to the Ministry of Justice that he was not.

Given the nature of the Opposition’s questions, I made a judgment that I would wait until I had all the detail, rather than risk giving an inaccurate, incomplete or misleading picture to the House about a sensitive case. Conservative Members may argue that they would have handled the situation differently. All I can do is to be open about the factors I was weighing at the time and that the data in the system we inherited is painfully slow. I thank Mr Speaker for the opportunity to update the House in full today.

Members will recall that, following the release of Hadush Kebatu on 24 October, I put in place stronger release checks. I can confirm that the error leading to Mr Kaddour-Cherif’s release happened in September, before those checks came in. He was charged with burglary at Snaresbrook Crown Court and a warrant was issued to HMP Pentonville for his remand. Contrary to the set down process, it was then forwarded by email to HMP Wandsworth when Mr Kaddour-Cherif was transferred. However, staff did not pick it up and he was released on 29 October. Mr Kaddour-Cherif was taken back into custody on 7 November by Haringey police. I am grateful to officers from my part of north London again, after they also re-arrested Mr Kebatu. I am grateful too to the wider Metropolitan Police and to the public who assisted them.

I can tell the House that there were around 57,000 routine releases from prison in the year to March 2025. In that same time, there were 262 releases in error from prison. New data my department published today shows that from April to the end of October this year, there were 91 releases in error from prison. Further data on the breakdown of offences are official statistics that need to be combed through in detail before being put into the public domain. That data is not due for publication today, but we recognise the public interest in being transparent about the overall number. It is important to note that this number may be revised as additional cases are subsequently recorded, but this is the very latest that I have been provided.

We understand that three mistakenly released prisoners are currently unlawfully at large. Their prison records show that none of them are convicted sex offenders. I have been informed this afternoon that His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service is investigating a further case of a potential release in error on 3 November of a person who may still be at large. It is symptomatic of the data issues that we inherited that this is all the information that I have been given, while police and HMPPS investigate.

On the confirmed cases, case one was in prison for failing to surrender to the police and was released in error in December 2024. Case two was in prison for a class B drug offence, and was released in error in August 2024. Case three was in prison for aggravated burglary, and was released in error in June 2025. Two are British nationals, and one is a foreign national offender. I will not provide any further details on individual cases. In each case, we have to consider the welfare of victims and the judgment of our law enforcement agencies.

Of the 262 releases in error from prison in the year to March 2025, 87 were of offenders whose main offence was one of violence against the person, and three were of offenders whose main offence was a sexual offence. I am clear that we must bear down on these numbers, which are symptomatic of a prison system under horrendous strain. As the shadow Justice Secretary, the right honourable Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), admitted last week,

‘the state of the prison service has been unacceptable for a very long time … including under the Conservative government’.

Prisons are still struggling with violence. The safety in custody statistics show an 8% rise in the rate of assaults in the year to June 2025. Systems are archaic; every prisoner’s sentence is worked out on paper. Consideration is given to the type of offence and the legislation that covers it, and there are more than 500 pages of sentence management guidance.

I pay tribute to prison officers, who are doing an incredibly important job, but as the Prison Officers’ Association has said:

‘Prisons throughout the country are underfunded, understaffed and operating under relentless strain’.

Front-line prison officers were cut by a quarter between 2010 and 2017. That is around 6,000 fewer people, and it means that there are fewer experienced staff, which places more pressure on the system. Unsurprisingly, mistakes happen in those circumstances. Indeed, from 2010-11 to the end of 2023-24, under the previous Government, there were 860 known releases in error from prisons.

We must recognise the distress that is caused to victims who learn that the person who harmed them is free when they should be behind bars. In the worst cases, such as that of William Fernandez back in 2021, prisoners have committed further horrific offences. I give an unequivocal apology to all who have faced worry or worse as a result of releases in error, especially Hadush Kebatu’s victims, whom I have offered to meet. I hope that the right honourable Member for Newark will join me in that apology to all who have suffered because of releases in error under this Government and previous Governments.

Human error will always exist, and no Justice Secretary could prevent every mistake, but we must reduce the risk and reverse the trend over the course of this Parliament. We must be honest: the release process requires a radical overhaul, and establishing the facts in individual cases is complex. Decisions about public statements rightly rest with the police. Issuing details too early could frustrate covert inquiries, or put police officers or the public at risk. These are judgments for experienced operational leaders to make, and parliamentarians must give them the space in which to make them.

This is a complex issue—we must be straight with the public about that—and I am clear that we have a mountain to climb in response. First, I am chairing a new justice performance board, which will give a comprehensive view of prisons and criminal court performance, including releases in error, to drive a step change in how we respond. The first monthly meeting took place yesterday. Secondly, I am making sure that we understand the issues. Following the release of Kebatu, I asked Dame Lynne Owens to carry out a review, which will conclude by the end of February next year. That review will now include the adequacy of data collected and published on releases in error, and we fully expect to uncover additional incidents. I can also announce that we will set up a team of data scientists to review historical releases in error in order to understand what is going wrong.

Thirdly, I am improving processes. Because some of these errors originated not in the prison process, but in the court process, I will implement an urgent warrant query unit, supported by court experts, so that prisons can escalate queries and get rapid clarifications to reduce the risk of releases in error that emanate from the court system. We are also issuing instructions to court staff to reinforce mandatory requirements for imprisonment orders to be confirmed verbally with judges before they are finalised. This measure has been shared with the judiciary. The court and prison services are also scoping a joint exercise on live warrants. It will initially take place in the London region. That exercise will identify errors and ensure that prisoners are subject to the correct warrants.

Fourthly, I am accelerating upgrades. I stood up a digital rapid response team last week to reduce human error with cutting-edge technology. Over the next six months, we will provide up to £10 million to deliver artificial intelligence and technology solutions, which will help front-line staff avoid mistakes and support them in calculating sentences accurately. Finally, I am simplifying the release policy. One of the aims of the Sentencing Bill is to standardise how cases are treated, and following Dame Lynne Owens’s review, we will consider whether amendments to operational policy are required. These are the initial steps to address this issue, but I will update the House where further changes are necessary. I commend the Statement to the House”.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, on Wednesday last week, the right honourable David Lammy, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Justice, appeared at Prime Minister’s Questions to not answer questions about inadvertent prisoner release. The Speaker in the other place sought his recall. On Tuesday this week, the Secretary of State for Justice gave himself up and returned to the Parliamentary Estate, where—despite what was, no doubt, his officials’ careful preparation—he told Members in the other place that the previous Government had inadvertently released prisoners at the rate of 17 per month. This would have involved the release of 2,856 prisoners. The true figure, as recorded in the Ministry of Justice’s own official record, is 860, or about three each month—three too many, but a fraction of the number that the Secretary of State for Justice gave to his colleagues in the Commons. Can the Minister reassure this House that the most stringent measures will now be taken to prevent the inadvertent release of any further erroneous statistics by the Secretary of State for Justice, given the alarm that these are liable to engender in the general public?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, the release in error of Kaddour-Cherif from Wandsworth and all other such accidental releases, which have been far too numerous, are symptomatic of a system woefully prone to error. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, has seriously criticised the answer given by the Deputy Prime Minister to the House of Commons on 5 November. It may be that the Deputy Prime Minister made the wrong call in withholding more detail because he felt he did not have the full picture, and it may also be that there were errors in the detail of his response, but if he made a wrong call on that decision to give less detail, I accept that it was a difficult call and a call made in good faith. Of itself, it has had no consequences. The more important question is how and in what timescale we improve the system now.

We on these Benches applaud the appointment of Dame Lynne Owens to conduct a full review. Accidental releases and the systems for avoiding them are very important, not just of themselves but for the confidence of the public in our systems. The Statement says that Dame Lynne’s report will come at the end of February, three months from now. I have to say that we think that is a long time. Is there scope for an interim report? Within days of Mr Kebatu’s release, the MoJ took some urgent steps, set out in the Statement, to tighten up the system and introduce, for one measure, a more robust checklist. May we ask for a further action plan, pending Dame Lynne’s final report, from her and her team if possible?

We expect, as I think the Minister does, that much of the improvement required will involve the introduction of more robust digital procedures—initially, no doubt, alongside strengthened paper procedures. Will he give an undertaking that the implementation of those of Dame Lynne’s recommendations that the Government accept will be treated with the greatest urgency? Only in that way and with that urgency can the serious loss of public confidence in our prison security that flows from these accidental releases be recovered.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for the points they have made on this important issue. On Tuesday at 3.30 pm, the Deputy Prime Minister set out in the other place that we were aware of three releases in error from prison. We were also investigating a further case of a potential release in error on 3 November of a person who may have still been at large.

I can now tell your Lordships’ House that the potential case to which the Deputy Prime Minister referred was indeed a release in error. I can also confirm that this individual was swiftly returned to police custody on the same day and returned to prison the following morning. I thank Leicestershire Police for its diligent work.

Finally, the foreign national offender, who was one of the three the Deputy Prime Minister referred to, was today classified as a lawful release, following additional checks that took place. What I have just set out means that the current total of releases in error from prison stands at two, as of 9 am today. These are all operational matters and, as I am sure noble Lords appreciate, things can change quickly. The Deputy Prime Minister and I get regular updates on the situation.

Releases in error are symptomatic of a system stretched to its limits. Prisons are full, almost to breaking point, which makes them an even more challenging environment. I pay tribute to the prison staff working under incredibly difficult circumstances.

What we are talking about here is a paper-based system, with individual prisoners’ sentences worked out every time they arrive to a new prison. Prison staff must consider the type of offence committed and each individual piece of legislation it comes under. This process has become increasingly complex in recent years, owing to the previous Government’s early release programme and the scheme this Government were forced to put in place upon coming into office to prevent the collapse of our prisons. A 2021 review found more than 500 pages of sentence management guidance. Of course, prison staff go through full and proper training before they start their jobs, but the reality is that prisons suffered staffing cuts of around a quarter between 2010 and 2017. That is around 6,000 fewer people. The knock-on effect is that, today, over half of front-line prison staff have less than five years’ experience. That makes mistakes more likely.

The previous Government had 14 years to sort this problem out. The reason they did not is not because they did not try; it is because it is a complex and difficult task. I have taken on this challenge and what we are putting together is a sensible and achievable plan. I can tell noble Lords that, of the 57,000 or so routine prison releases in the year to March 2025, there were 262 releases in error. That is clearly too many. Typically, prisoners are flagged for release based on sentence length and statutory release points, usually at 40% or 50% of the sentence for standard determinate sentences and two-thirds for serious offences. Life and indeterminate sentences require Parole Board approval before release. Eligibility checks, identity verification, outstanding legal orders and exclusion criteria, such as sexual offences and terrorism, are all reviewed before release.

I accept that there has been uncertainty around the precise number of releases in error. This is down to the data challenges this Government inherited. It is why, on Tuesday, we published new data showing 91 releases in error from prisons from April to October. Further data on the breakdown of offences are official statistics that need to be combed through in detail before being put in the public domain. Publication was not due this week, but we recognised the public interest in being transparent about the overall number. I can tell noble Lords that further breakdowns will be published in the normal way through our regular statistics, and Dame Lynne Owens will be looking at data and transparency as part of her independent review. As the Lord, Lord Marks, inferred, it is important that we learn from her review.

As noble Lords will recall, following the release in error of Hadush Kebatu in October, the Deputy Prime Minister announced stronger release checks. There is now more senior accountability, including a new checklist to be completed by duty governors the night before a release. In the case of Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, the error leading to his release—a warrant for his remand being incorrectly forwarded by email from HMP Pentonville to HMP Wandsworth—took place before the new checks were put into place. Human error will, of course, always happen. It would be impossible to eradicate it completely, and no Government should pretend otherwise. I believe our staff turn up every day to do their best.

What we must do now is modernise the release process with digital systems that reduce the scope for error. Over the next six months, we will provide up to £10 million to deliver AI and technology-based solutions to support prison staff to detect mistakes and calculate sentences correctly and to ensure that they have accurate data available to them.

Public safety is, of course, this Government’s top priority. The Deputy Prime Minister has already given an unequivocal apology to all those who have faced fear, distress or worse as a result of the accidental release of prisoners, and I echo that apology. On those released in error who are still at large, victims eligible to receive services provided under the victim contact scheme will be notified by their victim liaison officer when the offender is apprehended and returned to prison custody.

Releases in error are the consequence of a system pushed beyond its limits. It is a legacy this Government are determined to fix, and we are already doing so. This Government have gripped this issue where others have failed to act.

12:23

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, but on this occasion also to the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, for the bipartisan nature of his question focusing on this lack of digitisation, which I find completely flabbergasting in the context of such a massive prison estate when we live in such a digital world. This is not just about record-keeping; it is about sentence calculation as well in the context of an incredibly complex statute book. I am sometimes sceptical about artificial intelligence, but on this occasion I think it is an obvious fit for something that is essentially a complex mathematical equation that could be greatly assisted by AI. Can the Minister assure the House that that aspect of his answer will be prioritised, that the contract for the development of this technology will be firmly gripped in the context of procurement and that the sovereign capacity will be beefed up?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that we have an opportunity to simplify and make more accurate decisions in the justice system. We have to grasp this, and we have to grasp it quickly. AI is one of the most important factors that we need to embrace. My noble friend is right that we need to ensure that we do the procurement process correctly and that we do not take so much time that we miss the opportunity. I have been fortunate to work with a number of colleagues within the Ministry of Justice who are AI experts. In fact, in meetings I have, people ask for the AI team on probably a far too regular basis thinking it is going to solve lots of problems. Essentially, when you have multiple bits of paperwork and staff in the offender management unit are literally dealing with boxes and boxes of paperwork, it is unfair to expect them to get it accurate 100% of the time. I would like to walk into an offender management unit and see computer screens rather than boxes of paperwork. One of the things that I have been interested in, coming from a business environment into government, is the opportunities across government for embracing AI—I think we will end up delivering much better public services as a result.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lord, we heard that, in the seven months April to October this year, there have been 91 mistaken releases, which is 13 a month. How many of those 91 had been convicted of sexual or domestic abuse offences and whose victims would have been unaware that they were now loose?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I will not be giving a running commentary on the numbers, but we will be publishing the breakdown of all that detail in the normal way in July next year. It is important to recognise that 91 released in error is too many. We need to learn from what Dame Lynne Owen’s review finds out and act upon it, but we also need to get going now. That is what we have done. We have had the first board meeting of the justice performance board. We have set up the urgent warrant query unit, which is going to be helpful because we recognise that is where a number of the issues occur. The digital rapid response unit has gone into Wandsworth and—this is where the AI element comes in—it has already recognised that there are four common points of failure that it thinks AI will significantly help, although it will not help all those issues. We have an awful lot to do, and it is a challenge I am looking forward to embracing.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a considerable sympathy for the Minister. I am certain that under previous Secretaries of State for Justice and Home Secretaries, including me, there have been frequent inadvertent releases of prisoners. My noble friend is right that the past 14 years and the cuts of thousands of prison officers cannot have helped this situation, so I wish him well. My question to him concerns the victims, because I am sure all noble Lords can imagine, perhaps even understand, the fear and distress that victims and their families suffer when they learn of such mistaken releases. Can the Minister assure us that everything has been done to inform victims and their families promptly and fully if an offender is mistakenly released? Will he say something about the measures that have been taken to ensure that that is the case?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question, especially referring to victims. Victims always have to come first. I appreciate what a difficult time it must have been for victims and their families knowing that prisoners who they thought were in prison were actually out in the community. Where a victim has a victim liaison officer and is part of the victim contact scheme, they will be engaged in that process. It is important to me that that happens. I refer to my noble friend’s initial comment around the fact that this has been a problem for some time. That is one of the reasons why in my speech I specifically said that I know that the previous Government were trying to improve this. Across government, politicians and civil servants have been trying to improve accuracy and systems. This is something that we need to embrace, but as part of the process, we need to understand that victims come first, and the damage this does to victims is significant.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, as has been said, prisoners have been released in error for decades. I know because I used to advise on sentence calculation in the 1990s in the Home Office legal advisers branch and I was the Prison Service legal adviser. It was difficult then; it is now fiendishly difficult because of all the changes to the statute book that have happened since then, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, knows well, because she was with me at the Home Office.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

The noble Lord was my boss.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

I was indeed. The statute book is a total mess as far as trying to calculate when a release date applies for a particular prisoner. Prisoners are all in a different position. Some have additional days; some have served a different remand time. All these factors need to be taken into account. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, a digital answer has to be the way forward. As the noble Baroness said, it will obviously work here because you can punch in the details of the sentence to work out exactly when the release date is. It will have to be updated, of course, as additional days are added to the sentence and so on. We must go to a digital solution, but how long will it take for that to be up and running? There needs to be a procurement process. These things take ages, and we do not have ages. We have identified a crisis taking place. Is there any estimate of when this will be up and running and functioning to stop these releases?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The digital team that has gone into Wandsworth is confident that it can do some quick fixes. I do not have an exact timeline, but we have given it up to £10 million to do those quick fixes. The nature of digital technology is such that we will be able to roll that out across the prison estate very quickly. One relevant point some noble Lords were discussing with me in your Lordships’ House last night is the Sentencing Bill, which we hope will make things simpler. I also want to touch on the point the noble Lord mentioned about how complicated it is. It is unfair on our hard-working staff to expect them to get this right all the time, especially those who have just started. We need to support them not just with digital solutions but with a lot of training because, even though we are going to simplify things, it will still be a complex process. I hope that the Sentencing Bill will simplify things for everybody involved in the justice system.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I genuinely welcome the quick action by the Government and the measures that have been proposed—in particular, as just discussed, the use of AI. The Minister refers to the hard-working staff, but the truth is that although we have more and more prisoners, we have fewer and fewer prison officers. They are leaving at an alarming rate, so we need to address some of the staffing issues. The Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee and the Chief Inspector of Prisons have been highly critical of the recruitment procedure for prison officers, which is done via Zoom with no face-to-face interviews; of the in-service training of those officers; and, in particular, of the assessment of the in-service performance of those officers—often, no records are kept of any discussions with them. Does the Minister accept that all those issues relating to staff in our prisons also need to be addressed to ensure that we have a higher calibre of staff who are less likely to make mistakes, including mistaken releases?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that we are 100% dependent on the good will and ability of our staff. Our staff in the Prison and Probation Service have been heroic over the past few years, dealing with Covid, early releases and so on. We expect a lot of them and we need to improve their training. That is why we have the Enable project, which I worked on before I came into government. We also need to up our game on retention, because we do not want to lose experienced prison officers. One of the challenges I have set myself is that, before I was in government, I ran a company that was generally known as a good company to work for. I am determined to try to instil that sense of direction in the Prison and Probation Service.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his characteristic frankness in the way that he is responding to these questions, for his commitment to make sure that the Prison Service works better than it has hitherto, and in particular for his positive remarks about prison staff. My question is about the checklist, which I welcomed when we asked questions about this last week. I assume that this is currently a paper checklist. Since we are rightly putting a reasonable amount of faith in this checklist, could we fast-track ensuring that it is in the right place in terms of digitisation? Everything else needs doing but the checklist could potentially be a game-changer.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that the checklist is important. It may sound like a basic process but it is vital. At the moment, it is a combination of paperwork and computers. It is about inputting data, but one of the problems is that there are lots of opportunities to input the wrong data. For example, a number of prisoners arrive to us with different aliases. How do we manage that? It is a process of simplifying everything, simplifying the checklist, digitising as much as we can, using AI and other technology wherever possible, but also listening to the staff on the front line who are doing this job. This should not be a change driven by head office; it needs to be after careful thought and discussion with those who do the job day in, day out.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, in my PNQ on Monday, I asked the Minister, for whom I have enormous respect, two questions. He was then reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, that he had not answered one of the two questions. Much of this discussion has related to moving away from a paper-driven system to something with more technology. The Minister answered the noble Lord, Lord Young, by saying that he would write to him and to me, giving details of the timing when officials were first notified of the accidental release. I suggest he moves away from the paper-driven solution he suggested at the time of writing to me by asking his officials to send me an email or by picking up a phone, because as yet I have not received any response.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for speaking to me after the debate a couple of days ago. He quite rightly asked me to phone him. I will phone him as soon as I have that correct information. I am very aware of the need—I get told this regularly by officials—to make sure that I get it 100% right.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had a great deal of expertise demonstrated in the questions we have heard today, from the MoJ and from people dealing with offenders. I want to pass on my own experience as a sentencing magistrate. When I started 20 years ago as a sentencing magistrate, when I sent someone to jail I said that they would be released at the halfway stage. That was something I was unable to say as the complexity of the various sentences that were available grew. Instead, towards the end of my period as a magistrate, I said that they would be released when the governor said they could be released after the calculations had been made. Does my noble friend agree that it is a reasonable aspiration, with all this technology and trying to review the system, that at the point of sentencing, the sentencing judge or magistrate should be able to say what the release date is?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend, and former room buddy, for that question. One conversation that we have a lot in the Ministry of Justice is the tie-up between the courts and prisons. I am hoping that the Sentencing Bill will make the whole process much simpler, because it is important not just for offenders to know when they are going to be released but for victims and their families. The clearer we can be, and the more quickly that information can get to magistrates, judges, offenders, victims and their legal teams, the better.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister made comments earlier this week about Wetherby Young Offender Institution serving the community. I visited a number of years ago and was appalled to see that respect for prison officers was taken away from them as they were being asked to wear tracksuits, which did not distinguish them from the young offenders they were trying to hold to account. Does the Minister agree that when there have been issues such as that which harm the morale of prison officers, that needs to be addressed on an ongoing basis?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I have been to a number of young offender institutions over the years, and they are quite challenging—I would describe them even as harrowing places sometimes—but also places of hope. Sadly, a few of the foster children who I lived with when I was growing up ended up in young offender institutions and then came back to us; in fact, one of them still works in the Timpson business and is doing very well. It is important to understand what was said in the Rademaker review, which was a look into some of the behaviours and actions that happen in HMPPS. Some of them we are not proud of regarding the way that individual staff treat each other. We should have a culture of care because we are trying to rehabilitate people so that when they leave, they do not come back.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The Minister referred to the importance of having experienced prison officers, yet prison officer unions point out that 2,600 prison staff face deportation because the Home Office has raised the salary threshold to £41,700. Is the Minister talking to the Home Office about this situation and seeking a solution?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that these staff are doing fantastic work and we are lucky to have them, but it is also important that net migration comes down. We are supporting those colleagues and having ongoing conversations.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am conscious that release in error is but one of many complex challenges that managing our prison estate throws up. In that context, does my noble friend the Minister have a plan to tackle the scourge of drones coming into our prisons to deliver drugs, phones and weapons, and in so doing making our prisons less safe? He should know that the UK military is actively developing and implementing counter-drone capabilities, and that recently it has been granted authority to bring down unauthorised drones, a number of which have been identified over sensitive military sites. If he is not already doing this, I suggest that he has a conversation with our noble friend Lord Coaker and that they form an alliance to find a way of dealing with this drone scourge using the capabilities that are being developed.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to bring up drones. Not a day goes by in my office without that subject coming up. Yesterday I had a meeting with a number of governors of our high-security prisons, and drones are a real concern for the governors, the staff and actually a lot of prisoners too. The physical things that drones bring in are drugs, phones and weapons but what they actually bring in is violence because, whenever you have drugs in a prison, you end up with violence. We are taking a proactive approach. Some of the things we are doing are to do with national security so I cannot mention them, but the links we have with military colleagues are vital. As the technology changes so quickly, we need to make sure that we run very safe prisons. There are a number of things we are doing that are starting to make a difference, but this issue is very much on our list of concerns.