Prisoner Releases in Error

David Lammy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

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

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 hon. 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.”

Frontline 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 hon. 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 frontline 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’ 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.

[Mr Speaker]

Can I just clear something up, which does not have to happen? First of all, I was told that the Justice Secretary needed 13 minutes. [Interruption.] Bear with me. I said, “You will need to ask,” and in the end, the Department came back and said, “Oh no, it’s 10 minutes.” That statement was not 10 minutes; it was almost 12 minutes. I will work with Ministers and Secretaries of State, but the limit is 10 minutes. If there needs to be an extension, please ask; do not keep changing the length of time, because it is unfair to shadow Ministers when a statement runs over. The shadow Justice Secretary now has an extra minute, and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson has an extra half-minute, but in future, please stick to the rule of 10 minutes. If you do need longer, I am always sympathetic, as long as I know in advance, but it makes your Department look foolish if you run over, having said to me that an extension was no longer needed. It is certainly not going to make me look foolish in the future. I call the shadow Justice Secretary.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

So we are back here again. At least the Justice Secretary is getting some use out of his new suit. But where has Wednesday’s bombast and bravado gone? “Get a grip, man!”, he thundered last week, without even a hint of irony. There was none of that today, was there? Why is that? It is because, like increasing numbers of criminals in our jails, the Justice Secretary just does not know whether he is coming or going. Even his colleagues in government are turning on him, some with unbridled contempt. “The handling is terrible”, was the verdict of a Cabinet Minister; “just rank incompetence”, “cowardly”, and “frankly pretty dodgy” was the verdict of another. Before long, the Prime Minister will be saying that he has full confidence in the Justice Secretary, and we all know what that means.

Two weeks ago, the Justice Secretary told the House that he had put in place the strongest checks ever to stop releases in error. Forty-eight hours later, another prisoner with a history of sex offences was released in error. Seven days later, a fraudster was let out, on the very day he was sentenced to 45 months inside—and today, the Justice Secretary admits that he lost another prisoner on that same day. They are Lammy’s lags, a whole new category of criminal who can just waltz out of prison despite the “strongest ever checks”, introduced by this Justice Secretary.

The public are being endangered as this circus rumbles on week after week, with no end in sight. When will the Justice Secretary put a stop to it? He cannot hide behind the inquiry that he has commissioned. He could not even get the name of the head of the review—Lynne Owens—right last week. “Anne Owens, Anne Owens,” he bellowed. Well, I looked her up, and the only “Anne Owens” I could find was a panto performer who recently appeared in “Alice in Wonderland”. Perhaps she was the one who gave the Justice Secretary tips on his performance at the Dispatch Box last week.

The former chief inspector of prisons says that the issue was caused, at least in part, by the “confusion” created by Labour’s botched early release scheme. Does the Justice Secretary now concede that there is a link between the doubling of the number of prisoners accidentally released in the last year and the introduction of Labour’s standard determinate sentence 40 scheme, or is it just an extremely unlucky coincidence? Do not take us for fools!

When will the Justice Secretary finally come clean? He will not provide details in answer to parliamentary questions. He will not answer even when he is here for Prime Minister’s questions. He will not respond to letters—but perhaps that is because they were not addressed to “the Deputy Prime Minister”. He has now been dragged here, kicking and screaming, to admit that one prisoner has been on the run from this Labour Government for 14 months, and 91 have been accidentally released over the last seven months. However, the Justice Secretary is so clueless that he has literally lost track of how many prisoners he has lost. He has said today that a prisoner “may” have been accidentally released last Monday. Well, has he looked? The prisoner is either in his cell or he is not.

What a complete and utter farce the Justice Secretary is presiding over. As we all suspected, the crisis on his Government’s watch is even bigger than he dared to admit. That is why he would not say anything last week. Prisoners are being accidentally released nearly every other day, putting our constituents—his constituents—at risk.

At this rate, he is on track for 156 prisoners to be accidentally released this year, which would be a record, were it not for the doubling that his Government managed to achieve last year.

In his statement today, the Justice Secretary posed more questions than he managed to answer. How many crimes were committed by those prisoners while they were on the run? Why can he not tell us who these 91 prisoners are? Who is the foreign criminal, and who is this mystery fourth offender whom he “may” have lost? How can he possibly be found if, unlike in the case of Cherif and Kebatu, the public do not have his face or his name?

The public deserve to know the truth, and this situation could not be any more serious. There has been a ninefold increase in the number of violent offenders accidentally released in the last year. On the Justice Secretary’s watch, the criminal justice system has been made to look a total mockery. The public are being put at risk. In his own words, it is time for him to “get a grip”—or go.

[Mr Lammy]

This is a crisis that we inherited in our prison system. [Interruption.] That is worthy of sober reflection, because the shadow Justice Secretary knows that when the Conservatives were in government, 17 prisoners were released in error every month. He knows that. A former Conservative Justice Secretary said in respect of this issue last Friday: “We essentially run our prisons regime very hot. We are very close to capacity. We have seen a big increase in the prison population over the last 20 years, and resources have not necessarily matched that. That is the first problem.” Another former Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk, said:

“Part of the issue is we can’t hold on to prison officers…Without that expertise, errors creep in.”

The shadow Justice Secretary himself challenged the Conservatives’ record in office, so he knows that this is a cross-party issue—one which, of course, we have to grip. I said that I had put in place those checks, and I stand by the checks that I put in. I also said in my statement that many of the cases that we are uncovering occurred before those checks were in place, and another case involved an error in the court system. That is why the new query process is very important indeed.

We had to introduce SDS40, and the right hon. Member knows why that is the case: because his Government, just in their last few months in office, made three different changes to their early release scheme, so worried were they about prison capacity—a prison capacity issue that we inherited. In their 14 years in office, they built only 500 extra places in the prison system, while we have pledged 14,000 by 2031.

The right hon. Member also knows that, as night follows day, if Governments cut officers by almost 50%, as the Conservatives did in office, and then recruit new officers, as we have attempted to do, those are then very junior people. They are working hard, and I thank them for all that they are doing, but in those circumstances mistakes will be made.

I have asked Dame Lynne Owens to look at this—that is really important. I have put in place the digital team, because, as the right hon. Member also knows, this is a system based on human beings and there will therefore be errors; only technology will fix this issue over time. I have also now put in place that double check between the court and prison systems.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

I welcome the initiatives that the Lord Chancellor has announced to deal with wrongful releases, but does he accept that the level and circumstances of such releases are symptomatic of a deeper malaise? Will he look at the Justice Committee’s current reports on drug culture, organised crime and the lack of education and work in prisons? Will he commit to tackling the underlying breakdown of order and discipline in the prison system, which, over years of decline, has made many prisons unsafe, chaotic and unfit for purpose?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all that he has been doing on these issues for many years. His words echo those of the prison inspector. My hon. Friend of course knows that this is a system that is incredibly hot, frankly, because violence is up, self-harm is an issue, and there is the issue of things arriving in prison by drone, particularly drugs. We have staff doing the best they can in very difficult circumstances. My hon. Friend knows that no Government, in just 16 months in office, could turn around the austerity that this public service saw.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

If the situation was not so serious, it would be laughable. It seems like people currently have tougher checks to speak to an adviser at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or to get a GP appointment than offenders have to be released from prison.

Since the mistaken releases of recent weeks, I have heard horrendous reports from prison officers inside prisons of prisoners being identified by low-quality black-and-white photographs printed on paper and a few basic questions on personal information—information that could be readily shared between inmates—before being cleared for release. That is not good enough, especially when we now have biometric technology that is used for visitors to prisons but not for inmates. We cannot be reliant on an honour-based system that depends on the good will of convicts to hand themselves in, and police forces certainly do not have the spare capacity to conduct regular manhunts for people who should still be locked up.

After the release of Hadush Kebatu, the Deputy Prime Minister promised enhanced security checks, yet some of society’s most dangerous individuals have still ended up on our streets. Will he now spell out what those enhanced checks actually involve and whether biometric testing is used routinely to confirm a prisoner’s identity before release? Can he confirm what training prison officers receive before managing prisoner releases?

Like most of the justice system, our prison system was mismanaged and underfunded by the previous complacent Conservative Government, so we appreciate that the Labour Government inherited this mess. However, the number of mistaken prisoner releases has risen sharply on their watch and they cannot continue to risk public safety, particularly given that it took them a whole seven days to realise that a prisoner had been mistakenly released and that they are seemingly blaming an email being unread for the most recent error.

Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm how long the Ministry of Justice has known about the three prisoners at large and how long the police have been trying to find them? The Deputy Prime Minister has promised the public an investigation, but they cannot wait months for answers while their safety continues to be put at risk, so what immediate action can he take today to ensure that dangerous criminals stay behind bars and that these mistakes stop once and for all?

[Mr Lammy]

I say to the hon. Lady, who reflects on the releases in error, that 57,000 people are released from prison every year. I am sure that, like me, she will commend the good work of prison officers and those in offender management units across our prisons, who do a very difficult job in very difficult circumstances.

The hon. Lady refers to the complexity. The last Government kept expanding their emergency release scheme—from 18 days to 35 days, and then to 70 days. In 2021, a review found 503 pages of guidance that staff had to follow for early release. It is a paper-based system. I cannot stand here as Secretary of State and say that we can eradicate all human error in a paper-based system, because we cannot. The only way to deal with it is to use technology to bring those levels down to something that the House would think is acceptable. I want to see the figure come down to historic levels over the course of this Parliament. It will of course take further investment, but I hope that the £10 million investment in the new digital team, and indeed the support that we are now offering between courts and prisons, will make a substantial difference.

The hon. Lady asks me what I am doing. I am delivering a new justice performance board, Dame Lynne Owens’ review, the urgent query process that I have outlined, the digital rapid response system and, of course, a simplified release policy, which is effectively what will come out of the Sentencing Bill.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that wrongful releases of prisoners will have caused a lot of distress and anxiety to the victims, their families and others? Does he also agree that we inherited a prison system that was in complete chaos and in such major breakdown that, although we are now taking the appropriate action to sort out the prison system and to prevent wrongful releases, this is going to take some time?

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think the public recognise that. They might not have visited our prisons, but they know that cuts in our public services are real. They see it in their local authorities. They see it in their local hospitals. They see it in their local schools. They know that things like Sure Start were decimated. I am afraid that our Prison Service, which the public do not see, was one of the worst-hit public services.

It is my job to minimise that risk to the public, which is why I am introducing new measures and have asked Dame Lynne Owens to look at this issue very carefully. She is a former head of the National Crime Agency, and I know she will do a forensic examination. I will implement her recommendations so that we can bear down on this problem, but it is a paper-based system. Coming into this job, I did not realise that it was a paper-based system. I am not sure that the shadow Justice Secretary has realised that since he has been doing his job, but former Conservative Justice Secretaries know that it is a paper-based system, and they know that that is why errors happen.

[Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)]

Mistaken releases of prisoners do not just undermine public trust and confidence in the system; they cost money, because the police have to go and find them and return them to prison. Can the Secretary of State set out how much it has cost the police to return prisoners to prison since this Government came to power?

[Mr Lammy]

Previous Governments did not have that data, and I am pretty confident that I do not have that data. If it exists, it exists in the individual police forces that deal with these issues operationally. However, the hon. Member is absolutely right that every prisoner released in error has to be found by the police. I thank the police for all they have done, and I particularly thank Haringey police for finding the two high-profile cases.

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

Under the system that has been in force for many years, the Government cannot initiate deportation action until after minimum custodial terms have been served. Can the Deputy Prime Minister commit to ensuring that measures removing all minimum custodial requirements will be implemented, so that eligible foreign offenders can be removed as soon as possible after sentencing and victims can be spared the distress we have seen recently?

[Mr Lammy]

I can give my hon. and learned Friend that undertaking. That is why we have brought forward the sentencing review and increased the removal of foreign national offenders to 5,000. All of that has been done in the last 16 months, when the Conservatives never did it once.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Two days before Kaddour-Cherif was released, the Justice Secretary said he had

“introduced the strictest checks ever seen in our prison system to stop similar unacceptable errors in future.”

Were they not implemented, or are they not strict enough?

[Mr Lammy]

Was the hon. Gentleman not listening? I discussed the cases just a few moments ago, and I discussed how those cases emanated prior to those checks—many of them—and that one of the errors in those cases started in the court system. It is also the case, and I have been crystal clear about this with the House, that in a paper-based system in which it is often the most junior people in our OMUs who are dealing with this, we cannot eradicate all human error. Any Secretary of State who stood at this Dispatch Box and said that we could would be telling a mistruth.

[Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

We must of course solve the immediate problem of accidental releases, which are a huge issue. However, for longer-term planning, we have a very high vacancy rate in our prisons. I understand what the Secretary of State has said about the work on bringing that down, but will he look at the Justice Committee’s recommendation to produce a 10-year plan for the prison system workforce in the same way as we do for the NHS?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and we are looking at that recommendation. There are significant workforce issues. We are asking our prison officers to work in a system that the prison inspector himself has said is cracking and at “breaking point”, and we must invest in our workforce.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

The day before Prime Minister’s questions last week, we spent hours discussing the Public Office (Accountability) Bill. Bearing in mind that there has been such a crash in public trust and confidence, has the Lord Chancellor considered that it might have been better to have referred to the fact that he knew there was a mistaken release of a prisoner in the offing? He might not have been able to give the details, but to restore public trust and confidence, and in light of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, might it not have been better to have said something, and to have held over that decision and said he would come back to the House later with more detail?

[Mr Lammy]

I recognise why the hon. Lady, who is very reasonable, has made her comments in that way, but I simply say that we inherited a system in which 17 errors on release are made every single month. There is a data release every July, and I have now updated the House with more information than it has ever had about this issue. I have also been clear, as any Justice Secretary would be, that we are not going to be able to eradicate human error or to get back to historical levels quickly, but I have put in place as much as I can to minimise the risk to the public.

[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)]

As a Member who represents a prison constituency, I would like to put on record my thanks to prison and probation staff who work hard under difficult circumstances. In recognising that, I also know the pressure the prison system in under. It is shocking that the legacy of 14 years handed over to this Government was a paper-based system and a prison system that was breaking. The Conservatives like to talk about a farce. If they want to talk about a farce, I will hand them a mirror to look into, because the only farce here is the breaking system. What more can we do to support prison staff? Yes, there needs to be accountability, but we need to invest in technology and invest in solutions, and give our prisons the systems they need to stop these things happening in future.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The best way to deal with this issue is to move to a system that is based on technology; to use the AI that is out there to properly compare records, whether they come from the court or from early release. That will take significant time, but I have found £10 million to at least begin that process. And that process begins as a result of these recent high-profile cases.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

May I tell the right hon. Gentleman that even the west midlands victims’ advocate, Natalie Queiroz, is herself living in fear due to the Government’s new release guidelines on open prisons? In 2016 she was stabbed in my constituency 24 times by her ex-partner. She was eight months pregnant. Her attacker was jailed for 18 years but is now moving to an open prison four years earlier than expected. Natalie is terrified of coming face to face with him. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why those convicted of domestic abuse who cannot apply for early parole under the SDS40—standard determinate sentences—process are not also excluded from the Government’s dangerous policy of moving offenders to open prisons?

[Mr Lammy]

I know that the Victims Minister has met her. The right hon. Gentleman will also know that under the Sentencing Bill restriction zones can restrict the movement of those who have committed crimes such as the one he refers to.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

As a Wandsworth MP, my constituents are very concerned about these releases. They have seen years of underfunding of Wandsworth prison. They have also seen more investment by this Government since coming into power than for years and years before that. From visiting Wandsworth prison, I have every confidence in its new governance and the systems it is putting in place. I thank the Justice Secretary for his response to my letter, outlining the changes in training, technology and resources, and the digital rapid response unit, which are being put in place to redress these wrongs. For the sake of my constituents, will the Justice Secretary outline the stronger release checks that he has put in place straight away?

[Mr Lammy]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for all the work she is doing in her community. I recognise that there will be anxiety in her constituency as a result of high-profile cases that have emanated from Wandsworth. She will know that one of those cases involved an error that actually started in the court system back in September, before the checks that I put in place. She asked me to outline what I have done. What it effectively means is that the duty governor and the deputy governor are having a double look at what comes out of their OMUs, which are largely staffed by slightly more junior staff who are making the decisions on who should be released from custody. I look forward to visiting Wandsworth with my hon. Friend in the coming months.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

The ministerial code requires honesty and transparency. On 28 October, in a written parliamentary question, I asked how many of those released in error under this Government remain at large. On 3 November I received an answer, but it did not answer the question. Was that because the Government did not know how many people were at large, or because they chose not to be transparent and give the answer?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

I explained at length in my statement who is at large. I have released data today outwith the normal cycle of releasing in July, which was done under the previous Government. I have been as transparent with the House today on this issue as any Minister has been. I remind the House that I checked the record and, despite 860 releases in error on their watch, the Conservatives never came to the House once on this issue—not once.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

Our constituents deserve a prison system that they can have confidence in, yet prisoner releases in error increased every year since 2021. Despite that, there was no call for an investigation and there were no reforms. Can the Justice Secretary therefore reassure my Carlisle constituents that it is this Government who will implement the findings of Dame Lynne Owens’s investigation and restore the confidence that was eroded under the previous Government?

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: not once did the previous Government make a statement. Even when William Fernandez was released in error under them and went on to commit an horrific crime, not once did a Minister come to this Dispatch Box. Not once did the previous Government release extra detail, which I have done today.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

A Torquay solicitor has recently told me of multiple occasions when there has been a lack of security staff to convey convicted criminals from Newton Abbot magistrates court to prison. On one occasion, one individual started self-harming. On another occasion, an individual waited and then absconding because the building was being locked up—he was later arrested following a machete attack. How often is this happening across the United Kingdom, and what are you doing to stop this failure within the system?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman raises issues that are, in a sense, beyond the prison system. He is right about the delivery mechanism of prisoners from court to prisons. He knows, because it has come up in oral questions in the House, that we inherited backlogs from the Conservative party. He also knows that we are demanding that our police arrest more and bear down on crime. The criminal justice system is phenomenally hot. All this will affect the prison system. That is why we have asked Brian Leveson to look at issues of efficiency, in particular, in relation to the courts backlog. Part of that is the relationship between security and the movement of people from our courts to our prison system.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

When I chaired and served on the Public Accounts Committee, on which I served for more than 10 years, we looked at and, with the help of the National Audit Office, uncovered failures in the Probation Service—a policy area that yo-yoed between Ministers as they changed—as well as the failure to build and maintain prisons, failures with the courts IT system and failures with identifying information that needed to be shared. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the Magee review, which was commissioned at the tail end of the previous Labour Government, and can he speculate as to why the review was never implemented over the 14 years of the Conservative Government?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning the Magee review and its recommendations. I have of course asked my officials to look closely at the recommendations and at whether they pertain to the crisis we have inherited. I am grateful to her for highlighting that issue. She will know that, under the Conservatives, the Prison Service saw 24% cuts, because of which more than half our frontline prison officers today have less than five years’ experience. It is shocking. That is what we inherited.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I try to make a constructive suggestion to the Deputy Prime Minister? Has he considered that when somebody is due for release, they should be read a short statement saying that if they think they are being wrongly released, they should say so now, and if they do not do so, a further penalty of some sort will be imposed? Might not that act as a bit of a deterrent, as well as a check?

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. The truth, however, is that because of the complexity of the various early release schemes, the numerous pieces of guidance that exist and the many different thresholds, the prisoner himself is often not completely aware whether he should be released on Monday or Thursday. It is sometimes possible when a prisoner has been released in error that it is by a matter of days, and not a significant period. I recognise why the right hon. Gentleman says what he says—we do have to make sure that there is an obligation on the prisoner. It is something that I will ask Lynne Owens to look closely at.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

The shadow Secretary of State seems to have kicked off panto season. His comments reminded me of my favourite character, Buttons, who longs to be Prince Charming. If only his colleagues would write into the 1922 committee so that he can formally start his leadership bid. In the spirit of panto season, I wonder whether the Deputy Prime Minister will join me in reminding the shadow Secretary of State that if he is looking for the reasons why our prisons are in this state, they are behind him!

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend puts it beautifully. I suspect that it is why the shadow Justice Secretary said last week that the state of the Prison Service has been unacceptable for a very long time, including under the Conservative Government. I suspect it is why William Hague, a former leader of the Conservative party, said that the Government failed to grasp this—they did not build more prisons, and they did not have enough people in our prisons—and that this has been a long period of real failure.

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

Between 5 July and the end of the reporting period in March, this Government oversaw the accidental release of 193 prisoners. That is five prisoners every week. We now know that there have been a further 91 accidental prison releases since 1 April, so there have been 284 in total. What assurances can the Secretary of State give my constituents that no prisoners have been accidentally released from HMP Littlehey in my constituency since Labour took office?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Member knows that about 17 prisoners a day were released in error under the last Government.[Official Report, 11 November 2025; Vol. 775, c. 43.] (Correction) He knows too that, in introducing their early release scheme and our emergency early release scheme, there is complexity in the system. I will look closely at the data that is available in relation to the prison in his constituency.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Having spoken to my prison governor in Monmouthshire this weekend, I know the burden that clerks and prison officers are under when they are calculating these sentences on paper. The brass neck of the Conservatives is quite something to be believed. Their own party grandee William Hague has said that

“the Conservative Government failed to grasp either that they had to build more prison places or that they had to let people out, and they did not want to face up to either.”

Can the Secretary of State say how we are tackling both?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. She is absolutely right; we have to grip the system. I did that by chairing a performance board in the Department yesterday, and I have done it by asking Dame Lynne Owens to look at this closely. There does now need to be an urgent query process working between courts and prisons so that we are not seeing those mistakes between the two systems. I think that ultimately it will take digital technology to fix this, but I have started that with £10 million to expand the digital rapid response unit so that we can at least start to raise flags in and across the system so that those working in our offender management units can spot where there might be a problem. I am pleased that the Sentencing Bill, which has now been through this House, will simplify the system greatly, because it is too complex at the moment.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Kebatu was released in error on 24 October, which was a Friday. I was under the impression that in the last Parliament Simon Fell, the former Member for Barrow and Furness, passed a rather brilliant private Member’s Bill that became the Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Act 2023. The Act states that a prisoner cannot be released on a Friday without the Secretary of State’s say-so, in order to reduce recidivism because people cannot get access to the state for 72 hours. Has the Secretary of State devolved that to prison governors, and if they are being seen to be ignoring the will of this House, will he draw that power back up to himself?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Member makes a good point. The system had got to a place where prisoners were not being released on Fridays. It is my understanding that that was relaxed, and I have asked Dame Lynne Owens to look at that again.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

At the weekend, I was visited in my constituency surgery by one of the many hard-working prison officers from Durham—himself a victim of the chaos in the justice system that the previous Government left behind. Before he left, he wanted me to know just how bad it is and why people are being released early.

As we all know, 800 prisoners were released early on the Conservatives’ watch, so bad was the chaos they created. [Interruption.] The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), says that it is getting worse. That is because of the chaos they created—it got worse every year on their watch, too. Will the Deputy Prime Minister assure me that, both for the victims of crime and for our hard-working prison officers, he will do what it takes to get to the bottom of this? He has referenced the paper-based system. Without pre-empting Dame Lynne Owens’s review, will we be moving away from that 1980s paper-based system?

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right: there were 17 releases in error per month in 2024. Just in the Conservatives’ last days in office, there was a step change in those releases in error, and it very much started back in 2021 on their watch. But why did it start? It was because of the complexity of the system and the need to introduce new mechanisms to get prisoners out of an overheated prison system while being able to lock up the most violent people. That is why it has happened. Now, of course, we will do everything we can to get a grip.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is good to see a quieter, more emollient and, even by his own lights, humbler Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box than the one we saw last week. Will he say how many people have been wrongly detained and how much money his Department is setting aside for the likely ensuing litigation?

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Member knows that we release those statistics on an annual basis. I think behind his question he knows that, just as the system releases prisoners in error, it sometimes retains prisoners when they should be released. The two go hand in hand.

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure that as the Lord Chancellor made his statement, victims were at the forefront of his mind. We can all only imagine the fear and distress felt by victims when someone who has caused them so much harm is released in error. Will he give us more detail and assure us that, in those circumstances, victims and their families will receive support and be kept fully informed about what is happening?

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right to put the victims and the anxiety that they will be feeling front and centre. I have published more data today on this issue than ever before because I recognise the public’s concern at this time, but it is right that I work with the police and our enforcement agencies on the publication of particular cases—sometimes victims have not been informed, it would be dangerous to publish names or, indeed, a prisoner would get to know that he or she is being looked for and go underground—in order to protect the public, and absolutely to protect victims.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

Public safety should be the Justice Secretary’s priority, so why did it take six days for the Metropolitan police to be informed that a sex offender had been wrongly released from HMP Wandsworth?

[Mr Lammy]

As I said, I have apologised from the Dispatch Box. Human error is in the system. There are delays not just within our prisons but between different agencies, and that is why I have put in place the query system in particular.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

The Government inherited a prison system so weakened by austerity, but it was also overcrowded by a justice system that failed to look at rehabilitation as well as punishment. Will the Secretary of State redouble the Department’s efforts to match employers who want to give prisoners a chance to learn skills and the habit of work with the opportunity to do so while serving their sentences and afterwards, so that we can ensure that our communities are safer because we rehabilitate as well as punish?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because she emphasises punishment that works, and that has to mean skills, education and employment so that people do not go on to reoffend. We have inherited a system where recidivism rates are beyond 60%, which means that the system is not working even though it is overheated. We have to look at those issues in time. The Sentencing Bill is the beginning of the story, but we will have to return to those issues if we are serious about reducing reoffending.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Recent events and today’s court ruling again bring to the surface anxiety in our Epping community. My thoughts remain with the victims, including the 14-year-old Epping schoolgirl. Appallingly, they and their families heard about the wrongful prisoner release from the media instead of the Government. It is frankly astonishing that the Government are only using their levers of power in the courts to overturn the case brought by the council, but are not using their powers to address these issues on the frontline: the illegal immigration crisis, mistaken release of convicted prisoners and serious management and safeguarding issues associated with the Bell Hotel, which needs urgently to close. When will the Government get a grip, realise that they are not political commentators but players on the pitch, and use their powers to tackle those issues once and for all?

[Mr Lammy]

I recognise the sensitivity of this issue in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and that many will have looked closely at today’s decision in court. He knows that under the last Government £9 million a day was spent on housing people in hotels, he knows that the Government are committed to a new programme and that we are looking, for example, at military bases to see where can house people, and he also knows that we have increased the amount of foreign nationals leaving this country and returning to the countries they are from.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

I put on record my thanks to all the prison officer staff at Buckley Hall prison in Rochdale, who have held the line in the face of impossible cuts and challenges over the past 14 years under the previous Government.

It is hard to imagine the sheer distress that is caused to victims and their families whenever there is a release in error of any prisoner, as happened, as has been said, 800 times under the last Government without a single apology, a single independent inquiry or a single photo or name, as has been demanded by the shadow Justice Secretary. Does the Secretary of State agree that victims and their families should be put at the heart of our reforms when we try to make sure that that never happens again?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right. That is one of the reasons that I asked Dame Lynne Owens, as she looks at this issue, to meet the victims—particularly the victims of Kebatu’s crime—and to keep them in mind. Notwithstanding the errors made, we have to ensure public confidence in the system. It is important to assert, once again from this Dispatch Box, that 57,000 people are released from prisons every year and there is no error at all in the vast majority of those releases.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for the manner in which he has delivered it. The wrongful release of prisoners is of huge concern to my constituents. I echo the comments made by colleagues across the House that, ultimately, the people who really suffer are the victims of such terrible crimes.

Having previously worked for a homeless charity in Harlow, I saw a number of prisoners who were released on a Friday, and who would come to us on a Friday afternoon at about 5 o’clock with nowhere to go. Does the Secretary of State agree that when we release people from prison, we should make sure that they have somewhere to go? If they have to declare where they will go after their release, we might be able to avoid some of the mistakes.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right that the Friday release issue is often about public services not being available over the course of Friday evening into Saturday and the homelessness problem that that pertains to. That is why I think it is important that we relook at what is happening in the system—the system that we inherited.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

On 10 October, Ola Abimbola, a violent Nigerian criminal, walked out of Ford open prison in my Bognor Regis and Littlehampton constituency. He has not been seen since. He is meant to be serving 21 years for grievous bodily harm, kidnap and possession of an offensive weapon. How many other prisoners are at large from Ford open prison and what offences were they imprisoned for?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Lady will know that absconding is a serious criminal offence, and that any defendant who commits this crime could face longer behind bars. This is of course a different issue to releases in error. Category D prisons have always existed, and absconds by prisoners are assessed, but I assure her that there is a downward trend in those who are absconding—57 in the year to March 2025.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

Is the Justice Secretary aware of any crimes committed by wrongly released prisoners while at large?

[Mr Lammy]

As I have just said, William Fernandez went on to commit an horrific crime but the last Government never came to the Dispatch Box about that. By definition, if we got to the situation that we did in 2024, when 17 releases in error were happening, of course it is possible that people can go on to commit crimes. That is why I am hugely grateful—I know it involves police resource—for the efforts of our police to re-arrest these individuals. Some of them, as we saw last week, hand themselves back in when they realise that their release was in error. Our job is to minimise risk, but in a paper-based system we can never eradicate risk in time.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

The Justice Secretary said that one of the prisoners accidentally released who is still at large is a foreign national offender. I know that, after PMQs last week, the right hon. Gentleman will be very well briefed this week, so can he say whether the prisoner was inside for aggravated burglary, drug offences or failing to surrender to the police? Can he also say how this foreign national offender entered the country and whether he was an asylum seeker?

[Mr Lammy]

I have made available as much detail as possible, given that this information is normally released in July. Case 2 was in prison for a class B drug offence, and to the best of my knowledge, my understanding is that that was the FNO prisoner. I am telling the hon. Gentleman that, but I will have it double-checked, because this information was made available to me very recently, and I will write to him if I make an error.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

I have two prisons in my constituency, at Wetherby and Wealstun. I also have two on the outside of it, at Askham Grange and Full Sutton. They will have heard the Secretary of State say that he has put in place some of the strongest measures ever. The only question that my constituents want an answer to is this: when they will be able to say that they no longer fear dangerous criminals being released on to the streets to terrorise their communities?

[Mr Lammy]

I recognise the anxiety that this issue will have caused. In a way, it has been a revelation to the public that people are released in error from our system. I emphasise that the vast majority of people are released in the correct manner—57,000 are released every year—but under successive Governments, for all of my lifetime, there have been releases in error. We want to bring that number down to historic levels, because it has been going up since 2021. I cannot stand here and say that, in a paper-based system often implemented by junior staff, we will eradicate releases in error, but we will reduce them over the course of this Parliament.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

Last week in Prime Minister’s questions, the right hon. Gentleman said:

“Get a grip, man! I know I am the Justice Secretary.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2025; Vol. 774, c. 902.]

I am pleased he knows he is the Justice Secretary, and with that comes leadership, so can he guarantee to the public that he has a grip on the issue of prisoners released by mistake?

[Mr Lammy]

This is why I chair the new performance board. This is why I have asked Dame Lynne Owens to look at this issue intensively. This is why I have found £10 million for a digital rapid response unit. This is why, because there is sometimes a gap between our courts and our prisons, I have put in place a new urgent query process. This is why we are taking the Sentencing Bill through this House, which will simplify release. All those measures will begin to bear down on this issue. I am sure that Dame Lynne Owens will come forward with more measures, and we will take them.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

Over the summer recess, I had the pleasure of visiting the probation centre in Dewsbury, where Lucy Nicholson, head of Kirklees probation delivery unit, and her team hosted me. I pay tribute to their work, which has been made extremely difficult by the lack of investment in not just in the Probation Service but in prisons by the previous Government. We have full accommodation, a lack of funding and resources, reduced staff numbers, no processes in place to protect the public or prison staff, no systems, and no checks and balances. Will the Secretary of State outline the timescales by which some and all of these issues will be addressed, so that people in my constituency and across the country can feel safe when they sleep at night?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for centring the importance of probation. It is why one of the first things I did when I took office was to visit the Probation Service in Islington, and it is why I was recently in Chatham in Kent with probation officers. Investing in technology is hugely important to reduce their caseloads. Investing in more staff is hugely important —we recruited more than 1,000 staff last year, with 1,300 to come. Probation needs more resource, and that is why we have committed to £700 million by the next spending review. I am sure that we will return to these issues because I have no doubt that the decisions made by former Justice Secretary Chris Grayling were a travesty for probation and criminal justice.

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

Can the Justice Secretary tell the House whether in the last 16 months any prisoners have been accidentally released from Hewell Grange prison in Worcestershire and, if so, how many?

[Mr Lammy]

As I said, I have released more data today than ever before. The hon. Member knows that the data is most often released in July. I will look closely at his prison to see. If 17 prisoners in 2024 were released in error every month, he will recognise that that will touch many prisons across the country, but he will also recognise that there are differences in terms of the category of prisons and prisoners, particularly those prisons that have a lot of churn and are letting people out on a more frequent basis than others.

[Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)]

The Justice Secretary’s team say that he found out about the accidental release of Algerian sex offender Kaddour-Cherif on Tuesday evening. He contradicted them by saying he only learned of it on Wednesday morning. He said at PMQs that he had been busy shopping for a suit that morning. Did the Lord Chancellor spend any time at all shopping for a suit after he was told about that prisoner’s release?

[Mr Lammy]

No.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answers. Three hundred and twenty-one violent or sexual offenders either failed to come back to jail after being temporarily freed, returned later or breached the terms of their licence last year—the highest number for years. The number was 177 four years ago and it was 59 in 2014-15. Again, I ask the Secretary of State this question: will he commit to all the necessary changes, including updating data and technology in the present system, as a matter of public safety and public confidence?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Member is right to put at the heart of his question getting back to historic levels before we started to see the increase back in 2021. That is my intent: to get back to much lower levels than we see now. This afternoon I have set out the measures that we are taking immediately. More will follow the review by Lynne Owens, but of course this will take investment across the prison system.

[Robert Jenrick]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In answer to questions, the Justice Secretary said at one point that 17 prisoners a day were released in error under the last Conservative Government. He then repeatedly said that 17 prisoners a month were released in error by the last Conservative Government. Neither of those things is correct. The actual figure was five a month—and five a month is five too many. I know that he would not want to appear as if he did not know what he was talking about, so might you be able to get him to correct the record, Mr Speaker?

[Mr Speaker]

I do not want to continue the debate, and that is what we are in danger of doing. I recognise and accept that a mistake was made. I think you have corrected the record, and we will leave it at that—unless the Justice Secretary wishes to come back.

[Mr Lammy]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I think I said that 17 prisoners a month were released in error in 2024. If I misspoke at any point, then of course I am happy to correct the record, as I just have done, but I am pretty sure that I said that. [Official Report, 11 November 2025; Vol. 775, c. 36.]

[Mr Speaker]

Just for the record, you mistakenly said 17 a day, but I knew exactly what you meant: 17 a month. We will leave it at that.