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Prisoners' Transfers

Answer

For many years the Secretary of State has asked the independent Parole Board for advice on whether a prisoner serving an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) or a life sentence is suitable for transfer to open conditions. Where the Parole Board recommends that a prisoner is so suitable, the Secretary of State is not bound to accept the recommendation, and it is the Secretary of State who is ultimately responsible for determining whether a life or IPP prisoner is safe to be managed in an open prison.

The following tables provide the number and proportion of recommendations made by the Parole Board which were rejected in each month in 2025 for prisoners serving (1) an IPP sentence and (2) a life sentence.

Table 1: Outcomes of consideration of IPP open condition recommendations

Period considered	Accepted	Rejected	Total	% Rejected
January 2025	10	2	12	17%
February 2025	7	7	14	50%
March 2025	6	2	8	25%

Table 2: Outcomes of Consideration of life sentence open condition recommendations

Period considered	Accepted	Rejected	Total	% Rejected
January 2025	19	7	26	27%
February 2025	23	3	26	12%
March 2025	23	3	26	12%

1. These figures 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.

Data have been provided for the period 1 January 2025 to 31 March 2025 to align with the publication of the Parole Board’s data on recommendations for open conditions.

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

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL13018

Session

2024-26

Subjects

Prisoners' transfers

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk