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Prisoners' Release and Prisoners' Transfers

Answer

The power to recall is a vital public protection measure. Where an offender serving an IPP sentence is recalled to custody, it is because the Probation Service has assessed that the offender’s risk has escalated to the point where the offender may no longer be safely managed in the community and has evidence that the offender’s behaviour is similar to the behaviour at the time of the offending which attracted the IPP sentence. This means that an IPP offender does not have to have committed a further offence to be recalled.

Successive thematic reviews conducted by HM Chief Inspector of Probation have found that the Probation Service is using recall appropriately and for public protection purposes.

Table 1: Number and Proportion of IPP Recalls Not Involving a Charge for a Further Offence, 2023-2025 [note 1]

Category	2023	2024	2025
Number not facing further charge	463	449	329
Proportion not facing further charge	70%	73%	77%

With regards to the cost of Parole Board hearings relating to people serving an IPP sentence who had been recalled to custody having not committed a further offence, the data are not routinely available to provide a reasonable estimate, and the work to collate it could not be completed without incurring disproportionate costs.

Table 3: Number and proportion of Parole Board IPP recall review outcomes of release and open conditions from completed cases, 2022/23 to 2024/25 [note 2] [note 3]

Review Outcome	2022/23	2023/24	2024/25
Open	18	23	33
Release	294	426	405
Open proportion of completed cases	4%	3%	5%
Release proportion of completed cases	61%	63%	60%

Table 4: Number and proportion of Parole Board IPP recall review outcomes of release and open conditions from completed cases, where the offender was not facing a charge for a further offence, 2022/23 to 2024/25 [note 2] [note 3] [note 4]

Review Outcome	2022/23	2023/24	2024/25
Open	15	22	25
Release	207	329	296
Open proportion of completed cases	5%	5%	5%
Release proportion of completed cases	65%	68%	63%

We may not disclose the number of recalled IPP prisoners in custody as of 30 April 2026 as the data are a subset of data scheduled to be published at the end of July.

Table notes:

[note 1] The proportions are of total number of IPP recalls. An offender can be recalled multiple times in a year or across years.

[note 2] The outcomes are the final outcomes of each review and do not include intermediate decisions that were subsequently remade such as through reconsideration mechanism.

[note 3] Completed cases are cases that resulted in one of release, knockback and open conditions.

[note 4] Offenders not facing a charge of further offence are those who were not facing a charge of further offence at the point of their recall prior to the recall review.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

6823

Session

2026-27

Grouped for answer

Yes

Subjects

Prisoners' transfers Prisoners' release Open prisons Parole Board

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk