To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to make whole-life orders mandatory when sentencing people found guilty of the murder of a child; and how many child murderers were released into Hampshire in the last 10 years.

Whole-life orders are the most severe form of punishment that the courts can impose, as such they are reserved for the most heinous cases of murder.

Schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 sets out that a whole life order is currently the appropriate starting point for the murder of a child involving the abduction of a child or sexual or sadistic motivation. As part of a forthcoming Sentencing Bill, we will look at extending the range of circumstances where the starting point, in cases of murder, is a whole life order. We do not publish information on the areas that offenders are released to for operational security reasons.