Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department takes to ensure that prisoners released under the End of Custody Supervised License scheme (a) are adequately supervised and (b) do not pose a risk to public safety.

ECSL brings forward the normal release of some offenders. There are strict eligibility criteria which exclude the most serious and dangerous offenders, including all sexual and serious violent offenders. Offenders who may be eligible for release under these arrangements will be subject to the same set of licence conditions that would apply had they been released automatically. Unlike Labour’s early release scheme, which ran for three years and released over 80,000 prisoners, all offenders released under ECSL are subject to strict licence conditions.

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.