Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress the National Probation Service has made towards freeing capacity to hear more Imprisonment for Public Protection release decision cases since the publication of the Joint IPP Action Plan, published by Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service and the Parole Board in June 2019.

Over the last two years, the Parole Board has adapted its operating model to increase its hearing capacity through the use of technology and via intensive paper reviews which led to a record 9202 oral hearings conducted in 2020/21, 938 more than in 2019/20. In 2020/21 the Parole Board completed a total 1566 oral hearings (reviews and recalls) for prisoners serving IPP sentences. This was a 3% increase from 2019/20.