Prisoner Release Checks

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I note that the Statement directly addresses strengthening prison release checks, but I put to the Minister that it is important to look at this in the broader context of the Home Office. I note that on Radio 4 this morning there was a list of schemes and programmes within the Home Office that are going wrong. The police national computer system replacement is six years late; the biometrics project is seven years late; and the emergency services communication system is a decade late and £3 billion over budget. Now, since the Conservative Front Bench did not, I will fully acknowledge that this is a situation that the current Government inherited; they cannot be held responsible for what arrived on their desk, but I read in this Statement about the extra checks, the new systems and governors that have been put into prisons to try to stop these releases going wrong.

We know that the reasons there have been problems with so many computer systems within the Home Office is that the rules have kept being changed and the problems with the quality of the data going into these systems have not been properly acknowledged. Can the Minister assure me that the Government are taking full account of the weakness of the Home Office and its systems overall, and the level of chaos that they inherited? Is it not time to think about a big restructure—a potential splitting up of a Home Office that is very clearly not working?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Decisions such as on the noble Baroness’s last point are far above my pay grade, but I shall just mention two points. First, on release in error, any release in error is far too many and there is clearly a problem here that needs to be addressed. My style is very much, “Let’s deal with it and let’s work out what the problems are”, and I think that the investigation that Dame Lynne Owens will do will be very helpful as part of that process.

On the question of data, and making sure that we are effective and accurate in the work that we do, I spend a lot of time focusing on how we can embrace technology to ensure that, specifically, the Prison and Probation Service—which I know is within Justice, not the Home Office—has the ability to get things done more accurately and enables front-line staff to focus on what they do best, which is to rehabilitate people, not to fill out forms. Justice Transcribe—which uses AI to dictate what happened in a meeting with an offender, rather than the probation officer having to spend an hour writing it down afterwards—may sound like a very straightforward addition but is making a big difference already, saving hours of probation officers’ time. As someone who has come here from the commercial world, I am convinced that the more we embrace technology to enable our front-line staff to deliver excellent public services, the better.