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Written question asked by Nick Timothy (Conservative) on Wednesday, 15 April 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 20 April 2026. It was answered by Jake Richards (Labour) on Friday, 24 April 2026 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.


Life Imprisonment: Open Prisons

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners with at least one life sentence have been transferred to open prison conditions in each year since 2020, broken down by offence.

Answer

To answer the question would incur disproportionate cost as it would require a search of individual prisoner records. Centrally-collated data on prisoner transfers cover transfers between a predominant function closed prison and a predominant function open prison but does not distinguish instances of prisoner movements between a ‘closed’ wing and an ‘open’ wing where a prison has both types of function. Therefore, this would require a search of individual prisoner records.

Public protection remains the priority and prisoners will only be transferred to open conditions if it is assessed that it is safe to do so.


Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
127609
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Life imprisonment Open prisons
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk