Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many people serving a life sentence have absconded from an open prison and have then been convicted of (1) a serious further offence, or (2) any further offence, while unlawfully at large in each of the last 10 years.

We are unable to answer these questions within cost limits as the required detail is not within the prison NOMIS system. To obtain a robust estimate would require manually linking each incident to a prisoner, checking police records for all prisoners in scope, extracting and reporting on their criminal history and then linking to an additional database to identify seriousness of offence.

Data on absconds is published annually in the HMPPS annual digest. The latest version can be accessed via the following link: HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2021 to March 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Public protection is our top priority. When a prisoner absconds, police are immediately notified and are responsible for locating the offender. The majority of absconders are quickly recaptured and returned to custody.

Those who abscond face serious consequences, including being returned to closed prison conditions where they may serve up to two additional years on conviction. Prisoners subject to parole decisions will likely face longer before they are released.