I beg to move,

That the draft Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods) Order 2024, which was laid before this House on 17 July, be approved.

Following my announcement on Friday 12 July and an oral statement to the House last Thursday, Members will know that our prisons are in crisis. The male prison estate has been running at around 99% capacity for 18 months. We now know that my predecessor warned 10 Downing Street of the perils of inaction, but rather than addressing the crisis, the former Prime Minister called an election and left us a time bomb, ticking away.

If we do not act now, and that bomb goes off, our prisons will reach full capacity and the justice system will grind to a halt. The courts would have to stop holding trials and the police would be unable to make arrests. With criminals free to act without consequence, the public would be put at risk. If we do not act now, this nightmare will become reality by September.

We have explored all the options available to us. In the precious little time we have, we cannot build more prisons or add more prison blocks, and we cannot fit out an existing site to make it secure enough to hold offenders. Although we are deporting foreign national offenders as fast as legally possible, we cannot do so quickly enough to address the crisis. Although we must make progress on the remand population—those who are in prison while they await trial—such measures take time we do not have. That has left us with only one option to avert disaster.

The statutory instrument that we are considering today will change the law so that prisoners serving eligible standard determinate sentences will have their automatic release point adjusted to 40% rather than 50% of their sentence. That will mean that around 5,500 offenders will be released, in two tranches, in September and October. They will leave prison a few weeks or months early, to serve the rest of their sentence under strict licence conditions in the community. Thereafter, all qualifying sentences will continue to be subject to the new 40% release point.

Let me turn now to the detail of this legislation, the sentences that qualify for this measure, and those that do not. First, this change applies to both male and female offenders. This is a legal necessity and addresses the pressure in both the male and female prison estate. Although this measure does not apply to those serving in the youth estate, where capacity pressures are less acute, it does apply to a few individuals serving sentences under section 250 of the Sentencing Act 2020. Most of those serving these sentences are serving long terms that are excluded from the measure, as I will go on to explain. However, a few are in scope, and are included because they are likely to end their term in the adult estate.

The provision also includes those on a detention in a young offenders institution, and 18 to 20 year-olds who are held in adult prisons. As such, both contribute to the capacity crisis. As the measure must balance addressing the crisis in our prisons alongside the need to protect the public, certain sentences will be excluded. The worst violent and sexual crimes, which are subject to a 67% release, will not be eligible. Neither will violent offences subject to a sentence of four years or more under part 1 of schedule 15 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Sexual offences will be excluded, including offences related to child sexual abuse and grooming. We will exclude a series of offences linked to domestic abuse, including stalking, controlling or coercive behaviour and non-fatal strangulation.

National security offences under the Official Secrets Acts and National Security Act 2023, and offences determined to have been carried out for a foreign power, will also be excluded, as will serious terrorism offences and terrorism-connected offences, which remain subject to a 67% release at the Parole Board’s discretion. So too will terrorism offences, which are currently subject to a 50% release.