HMP Leyhill: Offender Abscondments Debate
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Chris Vince
Main Page: Chris Vince (Labour (Co-op) - Harlow)Department Debates - View all Chris Vince's debates with the Ministry of Justice
HMP Leyhill: Offender Abscondments
Chris Vince Excerpts(3 days, 21 hours ago)
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Alex Davies-Jones
I congratulate the hon. Member on his happy news over the Christmas break. It is lovely for us to have some positive news to celebrate in this place.
In April 2025, the Government introduced changes to the eligibility for open conditions from three years to five. We also strengthened mandatory checks in offender assessment system reviews and victim liaison officer notifications, and introduced mandatory seven-day transfer reviews and mandatory security inputting. We upped the assessments necessary for a prisoner to be moved into open prison. We are reducing the number of absconsions—there has been a 2% decrease on last year, as I said—and we hope to go further. Open conditions work; they are about rehabilitation. Tagging also works, which is why we are investing £700 million in probation to increase tagging and probation.
As for the 57 prisoners, I do not have those figures to hand, but I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman with them.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
As a former maths teacher, I would be very interested to see the trends with regard to absconsions and the moving average over a period of time. However, ultimately one absconsion by a dangerous criminal is one too many. More specifically, what is the Minister doing to support and train prison staff to ensure they understand the system and the increased checks that she mentioned?
Alex Davies-Jones
I welcome that positive question. My hon. Friend is right that this this is going to take all of us working together across the prison system—everyone in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. I again pay tribute to our brilliant staff who are working on the frontline in very difficult, challenging conditions every single day in an underfunded, chronically in chaos prison system that we are having to rebuild literally brick by brick. Our staff are our biggest asset in this, and we are working with them and the trade unions to make sure they have all the equipment, tools and training necessary to ensure that the number of absconsions comes down.