Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence have been transferred from prison to secure hospitals on mental health grounds in each year since 2020.

Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

Under sections 47/49 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the Secretary of State may authorise by warrant the transfer of sentenced prisoners to a mental health hospital, where he is satisfied that the criteria for detention are met by the aforementioned Act. Thereby, and for the duration of the period in hospital, the transferred prisoner becomes what is known as a restricted patient.

The requested data in the tables below are taken from an electronic casework system. Snapshot data of restricted patients in hospital are available only at the end of each year. We have provided this information in Table 1 for 2019-2022. We are unable to recreate snapshot data, for the start of each of the last 20 quarters, due to limitations of the case management system.

Table 1: Population of offenders serving a sentence of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) detained in hospital as a restricted patient on 31 December in each year from 2019-2023.

Table 2: The number of offenders serving an IPP sentence who have been transferred from prison to secure hospitals on mental health grounds in each year since 2020.

Notes

1. These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording systems are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
2. Where patients are admitted more than once, each admission is counted separately. This information does not count number of individual patients but instances of transfers.

Data Source: Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people serving an imprisonment for a Public Protection sentence were held in secure hospitals at the start of the last 20 quarters.

Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

Under sections 47/49 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the Secretary of State may authorise by warrant the transfer of sentenced prisoners to a mental health hospital, where he is satisfied that the criteria for detention are met by the aforementioned Act. Thereby, and for the duration of the period in hospital, the transferred prisoner becomes what is known as a restricted patient.

The requested data in the tables below are taken from an electronic casework system. Snapshot data of restricted patients in hospital are available only at the end of each year. We have provided this information in Table 1 for 2019-2022. We are unable to recreate snapshot data, for the start of each of the last 20 quarters, due to limitations of the case management system.

Table 1: Population of offenders serving a sentence of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) detained in hospital as a restricted patient on 31 December in each year from 2019-2023.

Table 2: The number of offenders serving an IPP sentence who have been transferred from prison to secure hospitals on mental health grounds in each year since 2020.

Notes

1. These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording systems are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
2. Where patients are admitted more than once, each admission is counted separately. This information does not count number of individual patients but instances of transfers.

Data Source: Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence on licence in the community took their own life in each year since 2010.

Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

The number of self-inflicted deaths of offenders serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence on licence in the community in England and Wales in each year between April 2019 and March 2023 are shown in the table.

Self-inflicted deaths of offenders serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence supervised on licence in the community, financial year 2019/20 to 2022/23, England and Wales ^{(1) (2) (3)}

(p) The 2022/23 figures are provisional and may be updated in future publications to account for any changes or additions to the data since they were originally collected.

1. Apparent cause is as reported in annual returns (prior to 2020/21 only) or the national Delius case management system (nDelius) and has not been independently verified.

2. The reporting period relates to when the death occurred.

3. A new set of death classifications was implemented on 1 April 2022 and, as such, figures for 2022/23 are not comparable to those presented for previous years. The category of 'self-inflicted death' up to 31 March 2022 includes any death of a person who has apparently taken his or her own life, irrespective of intent. The category of 'self-inflicted death' from 1 April 2022 includes any death of a person at their own hand, including where intent is undetermined. This includes some drug poisonings (e.g. where a suicide note is found or the circumstances are suspicious) but not drug poisonings which appear to have been the accidental result of consumption for another purpose. Refer to the guide to deaths of offenders supervised in the community statistics for further details about the new set of classifications.

The information for the period before April 2019 could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference HM Inspectorate of Probation' report entitled A thematic inspection of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) recall decisions, published in December 2023, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing fixed-term recalls for some people on IPP sentences.

Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

In her December 2023 report, the then Chief Inspector of Probation suggested exploring options that may allow more prompt release of IPPs including using Fixed Term Recall (FTR), to reduce the uncertainty and despair felt by many after recall.

This Government is taking action to curtail IPP licence periods and provide for automatic licence termination in specific circumstances to give rehabilitated people the opportunity to move on with their lives, while continuing to make sure the public are protected from the most serious offenders, through multiple measures included in the Victims and Prisoners Bill.

Case law dictates that to recall an indeterminate sentence prisoner there must be a causal connection to the original offending so you cannot recall an indeterminate sentence offender unless you consider there is a risk similar to the one when they committed the index offence. Based on this, the government believes it is very unlikely that an IPP prisoner would meet the test to be considered for FTR i.e. that they would not be a serious risk to the public if re-released after 14 or 28 days.

Instead, the Government has tabled amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill which will enable the Secretary of State to release a recalled IPP offender following Risk Assessed Recall Review (RARR) without the need for a Parole review when he considers it is in the interests of justice to do so.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection and (b) other prisoners have been released on compassionate grounds in each year since 2005.

Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

We have taken significant action through the Victim’s and Prisoner Bill to curtail IPP licence periods to give offenders the opportunity to move on with their lives. In addition to these changes, the actions this Government is taking are working: the number of prisoners serving the IPP sentence who have never been released now stands at 1,180 as of 31 March, down from more than 6,000 in 2012.

The Secretary of State has a statutory power to grant the early release of prisoners serving a sentence or term of imprisonment in custody on compassionate grounds. The power is used in exceptional circumstances only and in accordance with the HMPPS the Early Release on Compassionate Grounds Policy Framework.

Early release on compassionate grounds may, for example, be considered for terminally ill prisoners with a diagnosis of limited time left to live, and where there is medical advice that their end-of-life palliative care needs would be better met in a hospice. Compassionate release of such individuals is only approved if a risk assessment confirms they are safe to release.

The table shows the number of prisoners released early on compassionate grounds from 2010 to 2023. Data prior to 2010 is not available in a useable format and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

1. Please note that data for 2024 has not been provided as it is a subset of data which are due for future publication as part of Offender Management Statistics Quarterly.
2. The figures in these tables have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Diversion schemes for drug-related offending

Alcohol-related deaths

Drug and alcohol treatment services for women

Government surveillance of bank accounts

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Found: Kate Hollern: I employ a councillor in my office.

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