Written Statements

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Written Statements

Wednesday 15 April 2026

Employment Rights Act 2025: Non-disclosure Agreements Consultation

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kate Dearden)]

We are delivering our plan for change by ensuring employment rights are fit for a modern economy, empowering working people and contributing to economic growth. Our plan to make work pay will extend the employment protections already given by the best British companies to millions more workers across the country.

The Government are making tangible progress in implementing this generational change in employment rights, while ensuring impact on businesses is minimised. Already this April we have: expanded statutory sick pay to up to 1.3 million of the lowest paid employees in society and ensured that it is paid from the first day of sickness absence; supported working families by implementing a day one right to paternity leave and unpaid parental leave; and established the new Fair Work Agency.

Today, we are making further progress in our commitment to protect workers from abuse in the workplace by launching a consultation on non-disclosure agreements. Alongside a programme of direct stakeholder engagement, this consultation will support us in determining how best to put our plans into practice.

Non-disclosure agreements consultation

The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduced a new measure that will address the misuse of NDAs, by employers who want to silence workers about harassment and discrimination in the workplace. While NDAs can have legitimate purposes such as to protect sensitive commercial business interests, they should not be used to cover up workplace misconduct.

The NDA measure will void any provision in an agreement, such as a contract of employment or settlement agreement, between a worker and their employer in so far as it prevents a worker from speaking out about relevant harassment or discrimination. The Government acknowledge that workers may sometimes want confidentiality in cases of harassment or discrimination. We will set conditions in regulations under which NDAs can still be valid (an “excepted agreement”) and will prescribe individuals that a worker with an excepted agreement can still speak to (for example, the police, a doctor, or close family members) subject to consultation. This consultation is split into three parts:

Part 1 seeks views on the Government’s proposed conditions under which an NDA can still be valid in cases of relevant discrimination and harassment, known as an “excepted agreement”. For example, whether a worker should receive “independent advice” on the terms and effect of an excepted agreement, or an explicit time-limited right to withdraw from an excepted agreement without penalty (a cooling-off period).

Part 2 seeks views on who those who have signed an “excepted agreement” should still be able to speak to, known as a “permitted disclosure”. The intention is that where a worker has signed an excepted agreement, they are still able to disclose information relating to relevant harassment and discrimination to certain individuals or bodies to seek advice or support.

Part 3 seeks views on whether this new NDA measure should, in the future, apply to other individuals that may be vulnerable to the misuse of NDAs and who do not meet the standard definition of “worker” in the Employment Rights Act 1996, including certain groups of self- employed.

The Government want to ensure that they protect workers against the misuse of NDAs where employers are using them to cover up relevant harassment and discrimination and to enable workers to have a greater say in whether they want confidentiality and, if they do, a better understanding of what they are agreeing to.

The consultation will run for 12 weeks and close on 8 July 2026. Following consultation, the Government will consider the responses carefully before developing a final policy position. Any changes will be delivered through secondary legislation, with regulations expected to enter into force in 2027.

Next steps

The insights gained through this consultation will be critical to helping the Government to deliver reforms that are both effective and inclusive. It is in everyone’s interest to get the relationship between employer and worker right. This consultation will help us make work pay for both.

[HCWS1513]

Post Office Network Transformation Programme: Independent Investigation

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Blair McDougall)]

Parliament was notified last year of the Government’s intention to commission an independent review into allegations surrounding the Post Office’s network transformation programme (2010 to 2019).

I can now update Members that the investigation has begun. Adam Tolley KC has been appointed to lead the investigation, supported by an independent legal team. The terms of reference for the investigation have been published online, and Members and their constituents are welcome to write to the investigation team at: [e-mail].

I will update the House on the investigation’s findings once the final report has been produced.

[HCWS1512]

Experts at Hand and Local Authority SEND Transformation Fund

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Education (Bridget Phillipson)]

As part of the Government’s long-term reforms to strengthen the special educational needs and disabilities system in England and improve life chances, the schools White Paper, “Every child achieving and thriving”, announced around £1.8 billion of funding over the next three years for local areas to develop and deliver a new experts at hand offer. We also confirmed £200 million of local transformation funding for the next three years. These measures form a central part of the Government’s wider programme to strengthen mainstream inclusion, expand specialist expertise, and ensure children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities receive timely and effective support.

Today I am confirming how funding for the 2026-27 financial year, £429 million, will be allocated to local authorities through the experts at hand and local authority SEND transformation grant.

This funding is for local areas to work in partnership, led by the local authorities working jointly with integrated care boards, to start to deliver the new experts at hand offer. This will provide mainstream education settings across early years, primary, secondary, and 16 to 19 with improved access to additional, evidence-led support, advice and guidance from health and education professionals, so that children can receive the help they need earlier and more effectively. Local areas will draw on the expertise of a broad range of professionals, including speech and language therapists and occupational therapists, as well as educational psychologists, and specialist teachers, including those based in specialist settings. It will take time to transform the system, but we anticipate that by 2029 this funding means a typical setting could benefit from additional support equivalent to 40 days per average primary school and 160 days per average secondary school per year.

The funding will also enable the establishment of speech and language therapist advanced practitioners in every integrated care board area.

Finally, the transformation element of the funding will support local authorities to design and deliver their local SEND reform plan. This includes strategic planning and data work to integrate the experts at hand offer alongside existing services, and the local area’s wider approach to SEND reform preparation, as articulated in their local plan. Funding transformation in this way will ensure that every local authority can produce high-quality plans to ensure their local area builds a more inclusive mainstream system.

Today we have published local authority level indicative allocations, which will be confirmed in May, and a methodology document setting out how these allocations have been calculated. The document introduces the purpose of the grant and our expectations for how this funding should be spent locally.

Local authorities will be required to set out their delivery model and use of funding within their local SEND reform plans. These plans will provide assurance on appropriate use of the grant and demonstrate effective partnership working across education, health and care. Future support for high needs dedicated schools grant deficits will take into account progress against approved plans, including the establishment of a strong and effective experts at hand offer.

The Department for Education will publish the detailed experts at hand guidance later in spring 2026, including minimum delivery expectations, examples of best practice, and further information to support local planning. Final funding allocations for 2026-27 will be confirmed and published in May 2026 and payment will be made at the end of June.

Full details of this announcement, including the grant methodology and indicative allocations, have been published on the Department for Education section on the gov.uk website, here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/experts-at-hand-local-authority-send-transformation-fund

[HCWS1514]

Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

Today the Government are publishing the renewed women’s health strategy for England. The health system is failing women across the country. This strategy will tackle medical misogyny and give greater choice, voice and power to women. This ambitious strategy renewal is made possible by the record £26 billion in funding for the NHS, secured by the UK’s first female Chancellor.

Women across England have repeatedly told us the same stories: that their symptoms are dismissed, their pain normalised, their concerns not believed, and that their voices carry too little weight in decisions about their own care. These experiences are not isolated or incidental. They reflect a healthcare system that has not been designed around women’s needs. That failure to listen has contributed directly to worsening outcomes, poorer experiences and widening inequalities.

The consequences are clear. Women are living longer but spending more of their lives in poor health. Many face long waits for gynaecology services, repeated appointments without answers, delayed diagnosis of conditions such as endometriosis, and avoidable pain during procedures. These failures are felt most acutely by women living in deprivation, disabled women, and by women from some ethnic minority backgrounds, who are least likely to be heard and most likely to experience harm as a result.

The previous Government first published its women’s health strategy in 2022. This plan was underpinned by substantial engagement, including almost 100,000 individual responses and over 400 submissions from organisations and experts to a call for evidence. Those submissions starkly demonstrated the many ways in which we have a health service that is not built for women.

However, its actions have not translated into meaningful improvements in women’s access, quality of care, experience or outcomes—or reductions in inequalities. This renewed strategy is our response to that failure. It recognises that this approach did not deliver for women, and sets out how change will happen through more fundamental reform as we deliver the 10-year health plan.

Through this strategy we will ensure our NHS transformation delivers for women: the community shift, with new neighbourhood women’s health services enabling faster diagnosis and treatment; the digital shift, with women’s health pathways prioritised in NHS Online; and the prevention shift, seizing opportunities from genomics to help manage lifetime risk of breast and ovarian cancer as well as major conditions like cardiovascular disease. These reforms will be underpinned by a new diverse and devolved operating model with women’s voices and choices at its heart, including rolling out patient-reported outcome and experience data in core women’s health pathways. This transformation will be bolstered by our focus on research and innovation. Through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Government are funding research into areas of unmet need for women’s health—including to improve care for young women living with intense period pain, and first of its kind technology to treat threatened miscarriage. The NIHR is also embedding new sex and gender policies into health research, so that findings are genuinely representative and no woman is left behind by science.

We set out clear accountability for delivery and will be transparent on progress in improving women’s services, outcomes and experience. An overall metric against which we will judge progress is to improve healthy life expectancy in the poorest parts of the country to at least 61 years, delivering our commitment to halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions, while increasing it for everyone. Other improvements will start immediately and continue over the next 10 years including:

shorter waits for gynaecology care,

fewer painful procedures without informed consent or a choice of pain relief,

easier access to contraception and screening close to home,

better information and more control over their health through digital services,

being listened to and taken seriously at the first time of asking,

more digital therapeutics bespoke to women,

more women in life science and tech leadership.

Women’s voices are the foundation of this strategy. This Government have listened to what women want and need. The renewed women’s health strategy puts the 10-year health plan’s new care model into action to deliver faster, tangible improvements across four outcomes that matter most to women across England. The renewed strategy sets out how the Government will:

make women’s voices and choices central in healthcare: investing in new ways for women’s voices to be heard and acted upon throughout the NHS including action to tackle outdated and misogynistic practices around pain relief and a new trial in gynaecology services which would vary the amount NHS trusts are reimbursed depending on women’s feedback on their experiences, including pain management.

transform NHS performance in services that matter most to women: women will be directed to the right professional first time, along with marrying redesigned local services with online support to cut waiting lists and ensure women no longer face years-long waits for diagnosis and treatment for conditions like endometriosis.

support all women to lead healthy, prosperous lives including a new programme to improve education for girls about their menstrual health, and expanding access to musculoskeletal hubs in the community, supporting long-term health and tackling a major driver of health-related economic inactivity.

create an approach to research and development that works for and empowers women, including launching a Femtech challenge fund to accelerate adoption of innovations that could transform women’s healthcare and an accelerator for female founders with innovations addressing women’s health priorities.

This marks a decisive shift from identifying problems to delivering change. By listening to women’s voices, improving performance where it matters most, and tackling the drivers of poor health and inequality, we will ensure women and girls receive the care, respect and outcomes they deserve.

This work builds on the Government’s action to reform women’s health, including free emergency contraception in pharmacies, at-home HPV testing kits, gynaecology as the first specialty for NHS Online and the introduction of bereavement leave for miscarriage. From this year, the standard NHS health check offered to all adults aged 40 to 74 will also include a question about menopause symptoms, giving up to 5 million women an easier route to advice and support.

[HCWS1517]

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025: Statutory Guidance

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)]

Today, the Government are publishing, and laying before Parliament, the statutory guidance for the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 (also known as Martyn’s law), in accordance with section 27 of the Act. To enable this, the Government commenced section 27 on 10 April 2026.

As committed to during the passage of the legislation, the Government are issuing this guidance “in good time” ahead of the commencement of the requirements of the Act. It is important to note that the requirements set out in the Act, and clarified in this guidance, are not yet enforceable. The Government will provide a further update on the date on which the requirements of the Act itself will come into force.

This guidance is intended to support those responsible for qualifying premises and events that fall within scope of the legislation, helping them to understand and prepare for their new statutory obligations. Publishing the guidance at this stage enables those responsible to familiarise themselves with the requirements and begin planning for commencement.

As the substantive provisions of the Act have not yet commenced and are therefore not enforceable, the Government strongly advise against using third-party providers who claim they can make premises or events compliant with the Act at this time. No third-party product is endorsed by the Home Office, or by the Security Industry Authority, which will act as the regulator for Martyn’s Law.

The guidance has been subject to detailed consultation with other Government Departments, operational partners and association and sector body representatives, in line with the requirement under section 27(3) of the Act. I would like to thank all those who contributed to the consultation for their valuable input into the guidance.

The statutory guidance has been laid before Parliament and will also be published on www.gov.uk'>www.gov.uk . The guidance is supported by three non-statutory supplementary documents, copies of which will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and published on www.gov.uk'>www.gov.uk .

[HCWS1515]

Council Tax Administration

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)]

A fair and effective system of local taxation underpins good public services and maintains trust between local taxpayers and elected councils. Council tax plays a vital role in funding the services that communities rely on every day and is paid by approximately 25 million households in England.

After 14 years of cuts and mismanagement, this Government have taken decisive action to stabilise councils’ finances, increasing investment by more than £5.6 billion over the next three years and providing the first multi-year settlement in a decade. As well as boosting funding, we have reformed how money is distributed around the country, reconnecting funding to need and deprivation—ending the unfair, irrational system that kept deprived places poor. We have taken the hard decisions dodged by previous Governments. But we know there is more to do.

Last year, the Government launched a consultation on proposals to improve and modernise the administration of council tax. Council tax plays a vital role, funding over 800 vital public services on which communities rely. It is therefore right that taxpayers expect a system that is clear, accessible and simple to navigate that supports people to pay what is due and helps them access support when it is needed. However, the system we inherited, introduced in 1993, has been largely unchanged over the last three decades. Over time, this has left parts of the system outdated, to the detriment of taxpayers and councils alike.

Councils must have reasonable powers to recover unpaid council tax and tackle avoidance. However, at its worst, the current arrangements can operate as one of the harshest enforcement regimes in the country, treating those who are unable to pay in the same way as those who wilfully choose not to. Missing payments can lead to immediate demands for large lump sum payments, liability orders, and the use of bailiffs.

Those in debt are often among the most vulnerable in society, including people on low incomes, those experiencing ill health, or households facing sudden financial shocks. Rapid escalation to aggressive enforcement action on council tax can push people deeper into hardship, compounding debt rather than resolving it. Under this Government, it will end.

Enforcement must be proportionate and treat people fairly and with dignity, particularly at a time when they are grappling with significant cost of living pressures. At the same time, the system must be fair and clamp down on deliberate tax avoidance.

This is why we consulted on a range of proposals and sought evidence on options to make the administration of council tax fairer for both taxpayers and councils. The consultation received over 3,000 responses from the public, local government and interest groups. I am grateful to all who took the time to share their views. I would also like to use this opportunity to put on record my gratitude to Martin Lewis and Money Saving Expert, and Martin’s charity, Money and Mental Health, for their tireless campaigning on these issues. Their work has been instrumental in shining a light on the real-world impact of council tax debt and the harm that poor administration and aggressive enforcement can cause, informed by the experiences of people who turn to them for help.

Through this consultation we have heard clearly that the current council tax administration system is not keeping pace with the realities faced by households and councils across the country. Consultation responses showed strong support for our proposals that will make day-to-day interactions with the system easier, reduce unnecessary escalation and provide better protection for the most vulnerable households in England.

Today, the Government are publishing their response to the consultation, setting out a wide programme of reforms to be delivered over the course of this Parliament. These represent significant reforms to the council tax system and will make a tangible difference for many of the most vulnerable households in England by making bills easier to manage, making support easier to access, and ensuring enforcement activity is fair and proportionate.

We will make it easier for households to manage their bills by making sure those who want to spread payments over 12 months can do so automatically, while those wishing to pay over 10 months can continue to do so. This will help households spread payments across the year and avoid sharp financial pressures at particular points in the year while maintaining flexibility for taxpayers to decide on the arrangement that suits them best. Councils will also be required to present clearer and more consistent information on the support available both on bills and on council websites, so that people can more easily understand their entitlements and options for support and seek help at an earlier stage.

We are also taking action to make collection and enforcement fairer. Our reforms will introduce additional safeguards for vulnerable households by extending the period before liability for the annual bill is triggered after a missed payment, requiring councils to take further steps to work with taxpayers during this period, and capping liability order costs at £100. Together, these changes will slow the escalation of enforcement, reduce stress and anxiety for households struggling to pay their debts, and give people more time to engage with their council and agree sustainable repayment plans.

We have heard many accounts of vulnerable taxpayers facing aggressive enforcement action, including by bailiffs. The Government support the work the Enforcement Conduct Board is doing to raise standards in the enforcement industry and ensure in particular that vulnerable people are treated fairly. The Ministry of Justice has consulted on introducing independent statutory regulation of the enforcement—bailiff—sector to build on the Enforcement Conduct Board’s excellent work. They will announce next steps in due course.

The consultation set out our proposal for a long overdue update to the title of the “severely mentally impaired” council tax disregard and to tackle barriers to access for those eligible. We will take forward our proposal to amend the name and definition to modernise this disregard and remove the stigma associated with the previous name that can deter people from claiming support to which they are entitled when parliamentary time allows. We will also take forward proposals to tackle wider barriers to access, including through a universal application form to reduce complexity and make the process clearer and more consistent for applicants and their families.

The consultation also sought views on the wider taxpayer experiences, including the effectiveness of the carers and apprentice disregards and the scope for additional support. These options carry cost implications which the Government will consider ahead of a future spending review.

This package will help protect the most vulnerable taxpayers in England, support households through ongoing cost of living pressures, and restore a greater sense of fairness and compassion in the council tax system. By making support easier to access, bills easier to manage, and ensuring fairness and empathy for those in council tax debt these reforms represent a significant step towards a system that treats people fairly, recognises genuine hardship and still ensures that council tax is properly collected to fund the delivery of services that communities rely on.

[HCWS1511]

Prison Releases

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lammy)]

On 27 February 2026, Dame Lynne Owens submitted to me her independent review into releases in error. I want to place on the record my personal thanks to Dame Lynne for the thoroughness of her findings and recommendations. I will deposit a copy of Dame Lynne Owens’ independent review into releases in error in the Library of the House.

I made a commitment to this House that I would be transparent on this issue, and today I have fulfilled that promise through the publication of Dame Lynne’s review in full, our immediate Government response, and a further ad hoc data release on this issue.

While the overwhelming majority of offenders are released correctly, I have been clear that the number of errors is unacceptably high, and recent cases have exposed deep-rooted issues across the criminal justice system. I am grateful to the police for all their work returning those mistakenly released to custody, and also want to express my profound sympathies to the victims of those prisoners who were released in error, especially to Hadush Kebatu’s victim, whose family I met last December.

As Dame Lynne states in her review, releases in error are simply one

“symptom of a broken system”.

As a result of 14 years of austerity, staffing cuts, failure to build prison places, and under-investment in digital infrastructure, the system was pushed to breaking point. This Government do not cover up failure—they fix it. We took immediate action to bring our prisons back from the brink.

These errors are still unacceptably high, but the numbers are coming down. More must be done, so today we are accepting Dame Lynne’s recommendations for any changes covered by this spending review period, and making up to £82 million investment to do so. We will go further on several of them, and I am committed to all remaining recommendations, subject to future funding decisions. We will work to bring down the number of errors over the medium term, with a plan to reduce them to pre-capacity crisis levels, and we will drive down the numbers year on year until we get there.

This is why I announced on 11 November 2025 my national five-point action plan to bear down on these errors. As part of this, I commissioned Dame Lynne Owens, the former deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to undertake an independent review and make recommendations to prevent similar mistakes in the future.

While the review was under way, this Government have made substantial progress against this five point plan:

My new Justice Performance Board first met in November and most recently on 4 March. Chaired by myself, it brings together Ministers and the most senior officials within the Ministry of Justice to ensure greater oversight of the system and drive improvements in prisons and criminal courts, laser-focused on addressing key metrics, including releases in error.

To improve human processes and checks, an urgent query process with a dedicated unit and court experts was introduced, allowing prisons to quickly escalate warrant-related queries and reduce release errors. Since 2 December 2025, this unit has supported prisons with over 1,000 warrant matters. In March, we introduced new hourly checks in the Crown court to flag all cases where custodial status has changed. As of 13 April, this has already prevented 10 releases in error since 13 March.

I announced up to £10 million to deliver artificial intelligence-based solutions. The Digital Rapid Response Unit has been established and is developing digital and AI products to reduce the main causes of releases in error. Following successful prototyping and testing in selected prisons, we have begun deploying new tools across the estate. This includes using AI-enabled tools to automatically extract key information and ensure it reaches the right prison promptly, as well as linking data to prevent offenders from concealing information by using multiple aliases. These tools have been built by forward-deployed engineers at an unprecedented pace.

My Department is working closely with partners to simplify the release process to reduce the scope for errors through the implementation of the Sentencing Act, which secured Royal Assent on 22 January.

Dame Lynne Owen’s independent review was commissioned to examine the mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford, to consider the wider causes of releases in error, to identify any systemic factors, to assess whether current discharge protocols are robust, and to consider whether the data collected and published is adequate.

Dame Lynne proposes 33 recommendations to reduce the number of releases in error. These recommendations span data and digital; governance; system and process improvements; policy and procedure; and training and culture.

These fixes of systemic problems cannot happen overnight, and as Dame Lynne rightly warns,

“it would be foolhardy to suggest that all risk in a highly challenging operational environment can be mitigated or negated”.

But our ambition is clear: to drive down the number of errors.

Today, I am setting out a clear and comprehensive plan to address Dame Lynne’s recommendations, and to go further to bring releases in error back down to pre-prison capacity crisis levels. I will now set out how we will deliver this work in the immediate, short and medium-to-long term, guided by the key themes underpinning these recommendations.

Immediate term

Immediately we will simplify complex process across the system. We are spending £8 million to bolster manual checks across both Crown and magistrate courts. This will involve the recruitment and training of 90 additional Crown court clerks and 75 extra administrative staff in magistrates’ courts. This is alongside the joint His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and Ministry of Justice digital delivery team, established in November to improve information sharing between HMCTS and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service systems. This has enabled early progress against Dame Lynne’s recommendations, with the team on track to begin transmitting court documents directly to the appropriate prison record this month.

We have already revised the early removal scheme operational guidance to improve clarity for staff, and this updated guidance has been published. In addition, in line with recommendation 1 of Dame Lynne’s review, we are extending the use of body-worn cameras to all uniformed prison personnel working with prisoners and in the discharge process, and have invested heavily in increased training. Since the beginning of this year, over 6,000 key staff have received foreign national offender training, including instruction on Home Office protocols.

Short term

In line with recommendation 11 of Dame Lynne’s review, we are improving communication with victims in the event of a mistaken release, alongside increased digitalisation, and strengthening system-wide data collection and information-sharing.

We recognise the distress that is caused to victims who learn that the person who harmed them is free when they should be behind bars. I give an unequivocal apology to all who have faced worry or worse as a result of releases in error.

Ensuring victims of crime have the information and support they need remains a Government priority. We continue to invest in vital victim and witness support services, providing a record £550 million over the next three years to help these specialist services meet the rising cost pressures of delivery-facing services.

Last year, we introduced the Victims and Courts Bill to Parliament. The measures in this Bill will help victims get the justice they deserve and ensure victims are better protected than ever. They will also give victims greater confidence about the routes available to receive information about their offender’s release.

We also fully recognise and share the emphasis Dame Lynne placed on the importance of victim notification. To reflect this shared priority, we will accelerate our work to talk with the victims sector and ensure that victims’ views are heard as we clarify our policies on victim contact.

Our digital transformation programme is already delivering substantial progress. Several of Dame Lynne’s recommendations build on this and recognise that “technology is essential”, not only to reducing releases in error, but to the effective functioning of a modern criminal justice system. In total, we have already allocated up to £20 million for the financial year 2026-27 for the digitalisation of processes that underpin manual sentence calculations. This includes accelerating staff-facing tools and increasing digital and AI investment in prisons.

We are investing up to an additional £4 million towards accelerating the expansion of the calculate release dates service, automating sentence calculation to directly address releases in error. This service already covers 98.5% of sentence types with exceptional accuracy. Within two years, this acceleration will deliver a fully end-to-end system, with court data flowing straight into the correct prison record—even when there are aliases or spelling mistakes.

Medium to long term

In the medium to long term, we will build on the foundations created through increased digitalisation to drive reform across the criminal justice system, in line with recommendation 15 of Dame Lynne’s review. This will be driven forward by a new digital justice board, which will be established shortly. Dame Lynne’s recommendations underscore the need for a coherent, system-wide CJS strategy, including exploring how the use of biometrics could support tracking individuals across the whole system.

We are already working closely with the Home Office to develop Justice ID, which will provide a set of building blocks that together allow staff to consistently identify and track the same individual from arrest, through the courts and custody, and into the community. This will be supported by up to £50 million of investment in data foundations and in developing Justice ID, with initial uses to be rolled out this year. This represents a major transformation that goes far beyond simply issuing a new single identification number.

Justice ID will allow agencies to share trusted data that is complete, consistent and up to date. It will reduce duplicated data entries and minimise the risk of information being lost as cases progress through the system.

We are also actively exploring how biometrics, such as fingerprints and facial scans, could further strengthen Justice ID. This work builds on existing uses within policing to help verify and assure the identity of individuals subject to criminal proceedings as they move through the system. This transformation will also underpin work to develop a plan to phase out the use of paper records in prisons, as recommended by Dame Lynne, helping to reduce the risk of omissions, inconsistent record-keeping, and the need for staff to navigate both physical and digital records. We will begin rolling out biometric fingerprint and facial recognition trials within the next six months, and we expect full roll-out of biometrics across prisons before the end of this Parliament. We expect this to translate into a system where a single Justice ID allows us to reliably track individuals end to end, core data flows are automated, and there is measurable improvement in public protection, timeliness and productivity.

Dame Lynne’s review also highlights the shortcomings in recording releases in error under the last Government and since the general election, which led to under-reporting under successive Governments. We are working with the Office for National Statistics to ensure our statistics reflect the totality of releases in error, and will explore every tool available to ensure data shared with the public is robust and reliable.

In the meantime, I recognise that it is in the public interest to publish new ad hoc data, which is why we are publishing this today alongside Dame Lynne’s review and the Government response. These numbers show that from April 2025 to March 2026, there have been 179 recorded releases in error from prisons. Compared with last year, this represents a 32% decrease.

This Government have already accepted the blueprint set out in Sir Brian Leveson’s “Independent Review of the Criminal Courts” for bold, structural reform in our criminal courts. It is our intention to rebuild the system through investment, structural reform and modernisation.

Several of the broader recommendations in Dame Lynne’s review align with the cross-criminal justice system reform already under way following the reviews led by David Gauke and Sir Brian Leveson. My Department is driving this programme forward, and I am committed to ensuring that Dame Lynne’s recommendations are part of a coherent, phased approach to wider system transformation, recognising both current financial pressures and the need for alignment across the system.

To support this long-term programme, I have appointed a new second permanent secretary, specifically tasked with providing leadership across the whole criminal justice system. The Ministry of Justice will continue to work closely with other Government Departments and stakeholders to deliver these recommendations.

Public safety is the Government’s first duty, and I remain committed to bearing down on releases in error. The steps we have already taken and will take in response to Dame Lynne Owens’ review are leaving no stone unturned. We are backing this up with up to £82 million investment over this spending review period.

Through a combination of reform, improved technology and better practice, we will reduce the number of releases in error to pre-prison capacity crisis levels, and drive them down year on year.

[HCWS1518]

Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery Review

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)]

The Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery commenced its work in May 2024 under the last Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. Since then, under the leadership of Sir Declan Morgan, the ICRIR has worked hard to build trust so that it can start delivering answers for victims and families. More than 270 cases have already been referred to the ICRIR, with more than 100 active investigations under way.

This Government have been clear from the beginning that we are committed to the fundamental reform of the ICRIR, which will become the Legacy Commission. The Northern Ireland Troubles Bill will significantly reform the governance of the ICRIR to build wider confidence in its vital work.

Following a number of concerns about corporate effectiveness and culture raised directly with the Northern Ireland Office, Peter May was jointly commissioned by the NIO and the ICRIR board to deliver a review of the corporate effectiveness and cultural health of the ICRIR. I am grateful to him for this work. His findings, submitted to me at the end of February, identified that the organisation is facing a number of problems resulting, in his view, from a combination of the 2023 legacy Act itself, internal governance shortcomings and the culture of the organisation at senior levels.

Since receiving the findings, I have met each of the commissioners individually to seek their response. I have established a joint ICRIR-NIO oversight committee to ensure that the review’s recommendations are addressed. I have also provided additional dedicated sponsorship resource to support the organisation.

I now plan to commission a section 36 review of the ICRIR and its performance of its statutory functions. As set out in the 2023 legacy Act, this must be completed no later than 30 April 2027. I will make a further statement in due course following the appointment of a chair and publication of its terms of reference.

Many of the ICRIR’s dedicated staff participated in the review by Peter May. They did so on an understanding of anonymity. It is right, therefore, that we ensure that the correct processes are being followed, and that the findings are shared by the ICRIR with its staff in the first instance. Once this has been done, I will place these findings in the Library of the House, along with our response and joint action plan.

It is vital that the Commission’s important work continues on behalf of victims, survivors and their families, as they seek to find answers after so many years. The internal challenges faced by the ICRIR, as a new public organisation tasked with a complex statutory role, must not detract from this. I will do everything I can, including through the important reforms set out in the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, to ensure that the ICRIR is appropriately supported to deliver for those families.

[HCWS1516]