Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in which prisons the end of custody supervised licence scheme (a) is operational and (b) has been since October 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Unlike Labour’s End of Custody License scheme which ran from 2007 to 2010, End of Custody Supervised Licence only operates in specific prisons where it is absolutely necessary. The number of prisons where it is in operation is reviewed constantly and therefore varies as required.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether (a) domestic abusers and (b) stalkers are ineligible for release under the end of custody supervised licence scheme.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Nobody convicted of serious violence will be released early and anyone convicted of any sexual or terror offence is automatically excluded. Unlike Labour’s End of Custody Licence scheme, which ran from 2007 to 2010, all offenders who may be eligible for release will be subject to the same set of licence conditions that would apply had they been released automatically.
Those licence conditions will reflect the risk management release plan prepared by probation staff and what is necessary to safely manage the offender in the community. The offender can be immediately recalled to prison if they do not comply or otherwise behave in a way that is assessed to be putting the public at risk.
In contrast to Labour’s approach, we have introduced an additional safeguard, whereby it remains at the discretion of the prison service to block the ECSL release of any prisoners where releasing an offender earlier presents a heightened risk than if they were released at their automatic release date.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for which types of offences prisoners released under the end of custody supervised licence scheme were sentenced.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) allows certain lower-level offenders to be released before their automatic release date. Unlike Labour’s scheme, which ran from 2007 to 2010, all offenders will be released onto strict licence conditions.
Nobody convicted of serious violence will be released early and anyone convicted of any sexual or terror offence is automatically excluded. In contrast to Labour’s approach, we have also introduced an additional safeguard, whereby it remains at the discretion of the prison service to block the ECSL release of any prisoners where releasing an offender earlier presents a heightened risk than if they were released at their automatic release date.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released under the End of Custody Supervised Licence scheme.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) began in October 2023, and an analysis of its use will be based on one year’s worth of data and published on an annual basis in line with other statistics, such as deaths of offenders in the community.