Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of making actual bodily harm an excluded offence under SDS40 when being served concurrently with sexual or domestic abuse offences.

Offenders’ eligibility for Standard Determinate Sentences (SDS40) is determined by each specific sentence. Release provisions for different sentence types and length are fixed by law. This change has amended the automatic release point for standard determinate sentences that are not excluded. This means that by law, an offender serving multiple sentences could have a mixture of some sentences that are eligible for the 40% release point and others that are not. Someone serving a sentence for an excluded offence will not see their custodial time for that sentence reduced.

Assault occasioning actual bodily harm is excluded where the sentence is four years or more. Other offences have also been excluded from the change, including sex offences irrespective of sentence length; other serious violent offences with a sentence of four years or more; specified offences linked to domestic abuse irrespective of sentence length (including stalking, coercive or controlling behaviour and non-fatal strangulation); as well as offences concerning national security.

Offenders who are eligible for release at the 40% point are subject to a robust risk assessment to manage them safely in the community. This will include checks with partners from other agencies, such as the police. Once released, offenders will be subject to the same set of strict licence conditions that would apply had they been release at a 50% automatic release point, for example to prohibit the offender from having contact with named persons, such as the victim or victim’s family, or to impose exclusion zones to prevent the offender from going to specified places.