Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the findings of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons regarding release date errors at HMP Pentonville.

Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government.

The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected and on 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point action plan setting out initial steps to address the issue.

Work is already underway to address the areas identified for improvement by the Inspectorate. This includes establishing a specialist headquarters team to provide guidance to prisons to mitigate the risk of early or late releases, which is actively supporting HMP Pentonville as part of the Urgent Notification response.