Was a shadow minister right to claim the Conservatives ‘took a decision not to release prisoners’?

Last week around 1,700 prisoners were released early under a government scheme to reduce overcrowding on the prison estate. 

In advance of this, in a discussion on the topic on the BBC’s Politics Live on 9 September, Conservative shadow minister Saqib Bhatti MP said Labour had failed to show a clear direction of travel on the issue, adding: “We [the Conservatives] took a decision not to release prisoners, and that was being managed.”

This claim needs more context.

It’s not entirely clear what decision Mr Bhatti, who is a shadow minister for science, innovation and technology and for health and social care, was referring to. He did not clarify his comments on the programme, and we’ve since contacted his office to ask but haven’t had any response.

Mr Bhatti may have been referring to a decision reportedly taken ahead of the general election by then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak not to extend an early release scheme for prisoners. But around 10,000 prisoners were released early under Mr Sunak’s government, in the period between that scheme launching in October 2023 and the election.

What did the previous Conservative government do?

In October 2023, the then-Conservative government announced that it would begin releasing prisoners up to 18 days before their automatic release date, in an attempt to ease pressure on prison capacity. 

Known as the End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) scheme, it was expanded on 8 March 2024 so that prisoners could be released up to 35 days early, and expanded once again on 23 May 2024 so that prisoners could be freed up to 70 days prior to their automatic release date. 

The move was heavily criticised at the time by Labour’s Shabana Mahmood, who was then the shadow justice minister and described it as “the most drastic form of early release for prisoners that this country has ever seen” and said it would cause “shockwaves and deep concern across our country”.

Between the start of the scheme and 30 June 2024, a few days before the election, a total of 10,083 prisoners were released.

It’s possible that Mr Bhatti had in mind a decision reportedly taken by Mr Sunak not to extend the early release scheme further. In July former justice secretary Alex Chalk told the BBC that there had been plans to release some prisoners after 40% of their sentence, as has now been implemented by the Labour government, but that these proposals were not taken forward by Mr Sunak, and the election was called before the issue was settled. 

If these reports are correct, then there may indeed have been “a decision” not to release some prisoners early, as Mr Bhatti claimed. But it’s important to note that the previous government did also take a number of decisions which led to prisoners being released earlier than expected, in first launching and then twice expanding the End of Custody Supervised Licence scheme. 

Later in the programme last week, presenter Jo Coburn noted that early release schemes had been enacted previously, both under Conservative and Labour administrations, but she did not challenge Mr Bhatti’s comments directly. 

The previous Labour government ran its own early release scheme between 2007 and 2010, where some prisoners were let out up to 18 days early. More than 80,000 prisoners were released early before the scheme came to an end.