Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people who previously had (a) no and (b) between (i) one and four, (ii) five and nine, (iii) 10 and 15, (iv) 16 and 25, (v) 26 and 50, (vi) 51 and 75, (vii) 76 and 100 and (viii) 101 or more convictions were convicted and did not receive an immediate custodial sentence in each year since 2007.

The information requested is provided in the table attached with this answer. The table includes data covering the period 2007 to 2023, on the number of offenders convicted but did not receive an immediate custodial sentence by number of previous convictions. That is not to say that the offender did not receive a sentence of immediate custody at any point, but rather that their latest offence was not one of immediate custody.

This data is not regularly published or held in an easily accessible format. The information supplied has been sourced from a complicated retrieval from the Police National Computer database.

It should be noted that sentencing decisions in individual cases are for the independent judiciary.