Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of prolonged imprisonment on the (a) mental health and (b) prospects for safe release of prisoners serving imprisonment for public protection sentences; and what steps her Department is taking to support those prisoners who have served more than 10 years beyond their tariff.

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data on the average length of time Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) prisoners spent in custody following recall. The most recent data can be found in Table 5.Q.11: licence-recalls-Apr-to-June-2024.ods.

The figures from the latest publication on the last five quarters of available data have been provided below:

Where an offender on an IPP licence is recalled to custody, the Secretary of State must refer the offender to the Parole Board, and the Board will conduct a review in order to determine whether the offender may be safely re-released. The Ministry of Justice, HMPPS and the Parole Board are working together to improve the efficiency of the parole system, including with a view to ensuring that the Board completes post-recall reviews as quickly as possible.

Following commencement of the majority of IPP provisions in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 on 1 November 2024, and as an alternative to review by the Parole Board, the Secretary of State now has a power to release recalled IPP prisoners – without the need for a release decision by the Parole Board – following a process known as Risk Assessed Recall Review (RARR). The Secretary of State must apply the same test as the Parole Board and therefore, must be satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that they should stay in prison.

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data on the number of IPP prisoners and IPP offenders under probation supervision as part of its quarterly Offender Management Statistics publication. Prison figures can be found under ‘Prison Population’ in Table 1.Q.14 and community figures can be found under ‘Probation’ in Table 6.13: Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK. The figures from the last five years of available data have been provided below.

Table 1. Shows the number of IPP prisoners, at end of period, September 2020 to September 2024, England and Wales.

Table 2. Shows the number of offenders serving IPP sentences in the community on licence, at end of period, June 2020 to June 2024, England and Wales.

Please note:

(1) Includes offenders serving a Detention for Public Protection (DPP) sentence who are defined in the data as offenders serving an IPP sentence, but were aged under 18 at the time of sentencing.

(2) The data pipeline used to compile the figures in this table has been updated. This change was introduced from June 2024. More details can be found in the 'Probation data process transition' section of Chapter 6 of the Offender Management Statistics quarterly publication, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2024.

The Government is committed to ensuring that implementation of the IPP Action Plan and its initiatives safely reduce the IPP population both in custody and the community, whilst still prioritising public protection.

On 1 November 2024, the Government implemented the first phase of IPP provisions in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, which saw licences terminated for 1,742 IPP offenders in the community. In addition to this, around 600 people will be referred to the Parole Board for consideration of licence termination on the commencement of phase two on 1 February 2025. We anticipate that these changes, once fully implemented, will reduce the number of people serving IPP sentences in the community by around two-thirds.

The Government recognises the specific challenges faced by those serving IPP sentences. We are committed to improving outcomes for individuals with mental health needs, including IPP prisoners, and recognise the importance of providing the right interventions at the right time. This is reflected in the National Partnership Agreement on Health and Social Care in England which was published in 2023, which sets out a shared priority workplan to deliver safe, decent and effective care for offenders in prison and the community. The Chief Medical Officer has agreed to the Lord Chancellor’s request to consider the IPP sentence as part of his independent review of offender health.

Health and justice partners provide an equivalent standard, range and quality of healthcare in prisons to that available in the community. If a prisoner has a severe mental health need to an extent that detention under the Mental Health Act 1983 may be appropriate, they will be referred and assessed by qualified clinicians to determine whether to transfer to a mental health hospital is warranted.

HMPPS operates a traffic light system for all never-released IPP offenders to identify those who are struggling to progress through their sentence plan, so that resources can be directed to offenders who need it most. HMPPS is rolling this system out to all IPP offenders, including those recalled to custody and those on licence in the community, in the first quarter of 2025.