Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the (1) mean, and (2) median, tariff length for prisoners receiving a life sentence aged (a) under 18, (b) 18 to 20, (c) 21 to 24, (d) 25 to 29, (e) 30 to 34 (f) 35 to 39, (g) 40 to 49, (h) 50 to 59, (i) 60 to 69, and (j) 70 and over, at the time of sentencing, in 2024, and in 2025 to date.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.
Table 1: Mean Tariff Length for Offenders Receiving a Life Sentence, by Age at Sentencing and Year of Sentence
SENTENCE AGE BAND | 2024 | 2025* |
Under 18 | 15 | 15 |
18 to 20 | 20 | 25 |
21 to 24 | 22 | 22 |
25 to 29 | 23 | 22 |
30 to 34 | 21 | 20 |
35 to 39 | 20 | 19 |
40 to 49 | 21 | 18 |
50 to 59 | 17 | 18 |
60 to 69 | 18 | 22 |
70 and over | 17 | 21 |
Table 2: Median Tariff Length for Offenders Receiving a Life Sentence, by Age at Sentencing and Year of Sentence
SENTENCE AGE BAND | 2024 | 2025* |
Under 18 | 15 | 16 |
18 to 20 | 20 | 21 |
21 to 24 | 22 | 20 |
25 to 29 | 22 | 21 |
30 to 34 | 22 | 18 |
35 to 39 | 19 | 15 |
40 to 49 | 20 | 18 |
50 to 59 | 18 | 18 |
60 to 69 | 18 | 20 |
70 and over | 14 | 20 |
Table notes:
1. *Data for 2025 are up to 30 September 2025.
2. Figures are subject to change as more information about tariff becomes available.
3. Tariff length is the time between date of sentencing and tariff expiry date, and does not take into account any time served on remand.
4. Figures do not include offenders who received a Whole Life Order.
Data sources and quality
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.
Source: Public Protection Unit Database
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence were in prison on recall as of 1 December 2025 following a breach of licence conditions where no further criminal charge was brought; and to provide a breakdown of that number by the continuous length of time spent in custody since their most recent recall in increments of (1) less than 12 months, (2) one to two years, (3) two to three years, (4) three to four years, (5) four to five years, (6) five to six years), (7) six to seven years, (8) seven to eight years, (9) eight to nine years, (10) nine to ten years, and (11) more than ten years.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on the prison population is published as part of the Department’s Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) release, with the latest publication including prison population data as at 30 September 2025.
The requested information (based on the prison population as at 1 December 2025) cannot be provided at the current time because it would provide an early indication of the data underpinning the next iteration of these Accredited Official Statistics, which will be published on 29 January 2026
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of its proposals to alter the use of jury trials on defendants.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
An impact assessment will accompany our legislative measures, as is usual practice.
Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to publish the modelling and impact assessment relating to proposals to limit the use of jury trials.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
An impact assessment will accompany our legislative measures, as is usual practice.
Asked by: Jess Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat - Chichester)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to bring forward legislation to reverse the PACCAR judgement within the current Parliament.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We intend to introduce legislation to mitigate the effect of the PACCAR judgment as soon as parliamentary time allows. The new legislation will clarify that Litigation Funding Agreements are not Damages Based Agreements. The Government recognises the critical role third-party litigation funding plays in access to justice and is committed to ensuring it works fairly for all.
We will outline next steps in due course.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, as of 30 September 2025, how many and what proportion of recalled (1) men and (2) women in prison were serving (a) less than or equal to 6 months, (b) greater than 6 months to less than 12 months, (c) 12 months to less than 2 years, (d) 2 years to less than 4 years, (e) 4 years to less than 5 years, (f) 5 years to less than 7 years, (g) 7 years to less than 10 years, (h) 10 years to less than 14 years, (i) 14 years or more (excluding indeterminate sentences), (j) extended determinate sentences, (k) imprisonment for public protection, (l) a life sentence, (m) a non-criminal sentence, (n) a sentence of length not recorded.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.
The information needed to provide a comprehensive answer to these questions could be provided only at disproportionate cost as central records are not kept in a way that they can be filtered by the required fields to obtain the information.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many recalls to custody initiated by the probation service in 2024 were for people serving a (1) standard determinate sentence, (2) extended determinate sentence, (3) mandatory life sentence, (4) discretionary life sentence, (5) automatic life sentence (imposed on or before 4 April 2005), and (6) automatic life sentence (imposed after 4 April 2005).
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.
The information needed to provide a comprehensive answer to these questions could be provided only at disproportionate cost as central records are not kept in a way that they can be filtered by the required fields to obtain the information.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the (1) mean and (2) median number of months served beyond tariff for individuals who have not yet been released and are serving (1) a life sentence, (2) a mandatory life sentence, (3) a discretionary life sentence, and (4) an automatic life sentence.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.
The information needed to provide a comprehensive answer to these questions could be provided only at disproportionate cost as central records are not kept in a way that they can be filtered by the required fields to obtain the information.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people currently in prison aged 80 or older are serving a sentence they originally received when aged (a) 15 to 17, (b) 18 to 20, (c) 21 to 24, (d) 25 to 29, (e) 30 to 39, (f) 40 to 49, (g) 50 to 59, (h) 60 to 69, and (i) 70 and older.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The requested information can be found in the table below:
Table: Number of prisoners aged 80 or over broken down by age at sentencing, 30th September 2025, England and Wales [note 1]
Age at sentencing | 30 Sept 2025 |
15 to 17 | 0 |
18 to 20 | [c] |
21 to 24 | 5 |
25 to 29 | 5 |
30 to 39 | [c] |
40 to 49 | 6 |
50 to 59 | 7 |
60 to 69 | 23 |
70 and older | 415 |
Source: Prison NOMIS
[note 1] The data presented in this table excludes prisoners awaiting sentencing that are held on remand.
Data quality - The figures in the table 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.
Disclosure control - Where necessary, [c] has been used to suppress values of one or two to prevent the disclosure of individual information. Further disclosure control may be completed where this alone is not sufficient. This could include the secondary suppression of zero values.
Additional resources - Key statistics relating to offenders who are in prison or under Probation Service supervision can be found in the Offender management statistics quarterly (OMSQ) publication - Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.
Crown copyright (produced by the Ministry of Justice)
Asked by: Peter Bedford (Conservative - Mid Leicestershire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what public consultation his Department has undertaken on planned changes to jury trials.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In developing his recommendations, Sir Brian Leveson and his expert advisers, including Professor David Ormerod, consulted with many external bodies involved in the Criminal Justice System including criminal legal organisations, charities, academics, and members of the judiciary.
The Review conducted a call for evidence on GOV.UK, to ensure it heard as many perspectives as possible. A full list of those who engaged with the Review is at Annex C of Sir Brian’s report.
In addition, when considering Sir Brian’s recommendations and developing our proposals, I have engaged regularly with stakeholders and relevant sectors over the last 12 months including meeting regularly representatives from the legal sector (Law Society, Bar Council, Criminal Bar Association), victims and victims representatives (the Victims Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Rape Crisis), judiciary (Circuit leaders, Judicial leadership), magistracy (Magistrates’ Association, Magistrates’ Leadership Executive), non-governmental organisations (Appeal, JUSTICE, Transform Justice), court staff in criminal courts around the country (Wood Green, Snaresbrook) and similar international jurisdictions. For example, I met judges and visited courts in Canada, which uses types of judge-only trial.