Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many prisoners serving (1) determinate, and (2) indeterminate, sentences were granted compassionate release from prison on the grounds of ill health in 2023 and 2024.

The Secretary of State may release a serving prisoner at any point in the sentence if he is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist which justify the prisoner’s release on compassionate grounds.

The following table shows the number of prisoners released early on compassionate grounds for reasons of ill health, in 2023 and 2024, broken down by sentence type.

1. The figures in these tables have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Public protection remains the priority and prisoners will be released early on compassionate grounds only if exceptional circumstances can be evidenced and if they are assessed to be safely manageable in the community.