Parole Board: Transparency and Victim Support

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents in Kettering believe that the best way to protect the public is for violent offenders to be kept behind bars, and they take the straightforward and honourable view that if an offender is sentenced to a term of imprisonment, the offender should serve that sentence in prison in full before being released. Given that this is a statement about the transparency of Parole Board decisions, who is held to account in the Parole Board, and how, if those released early reoffend?

[Mr Gauke]

The numbers of reoffences are put into the public domain. Clearly, that is one of the tests of the effectiveness of the Parole Board. It is clearly a matter of priority for all of us that people who are dangerous are not released. The test for a Parole Board panel in the context of one of these IPP prisoners is an assessment of their risk to the public, and that is what the Parole Board must determine in these circumstances.