Labour to be told to authorise emergency prison measures within ‘first week of power’

Prison chiefs will tell an expected incoming Labour government to authorise emergency measures within the first week of taking power to avoid jails running out of space.

Prison service officials are expected to advise a new government that they need new legislation to increase the number of prisoners released early into the thousands under a scheme covering all jails in England and Wales.

Officials will urge ministers to make a decision as soon as possible so that risk assessments of prisoners due for early release, which with organising probation officers takes approximately six weeks, are in place before the courts return after their August break. Once courts return, jails will fill up again with convicted offenders.

A source said: “The prison service will say the next government has to make a decision in the first week. That’s mainly for operational reasons as it takes six weeks to prepare and get everything ready.”

There are currently around 1,000 spare places at any one time in prisons, with jail chiefs confident they can get through to August and will not need the emergency early release measure before then.

Meanwhile, the chair of the Prison Officers’ Association has called for a new government to consider laws allowing the immediate release of prisoners with six months or less of their sentence left to go.

Sir Keir Starmer this week accepted that “in all likelihood” any Labour government will have to continue with the early release scheme introduced by Rishi Sunak and Alex Chalk, his Justice Secretary, under which offenders are freed up to 10 weeks before their scheduled date.

Unpalatable political decision

The one-week warning by prison service bosses presents Sir Keir and Shabana Mahmood, expected to be his justice secretary, with an immediate unpalatable political decision over whether to go further and shorten the sentences of potentially thousands of prisoners and release them early.

Mr Chalk is understood to have signed off on an emergency scheme for an incoming government. It would mean prisoners on “determinate” sentences who are currently released at the halfway stage would be freed 40 per cent or 43 per cent of the way through their jail terms.

Any offender subject to parole board decisions on their release, and/or jailed for sex crimes, violence or terrorism would be excluded from the scheme.

Unlike the 10-week early release scheme, which is only used by individual prisons when they are full, the 40 or 43 per cent rule would apply to all jails in England and Wales. It would require legislation before the summer recess but would buy 18 months for the government to build more jails and refurbish ageing cells.

However, Labour will be concerned that one of its first law and order decisions would be to release thousands of prisoners early and is expected to subject the MoJ data and modelling to intense challenge.

Ms Mahmood has pledged to fast-track the construction of new jails through emergency planning powers making them a national infrastructure priority.

The manifesto also committed the party to a review of sentencing, which could herald tougher community punishments for lower level offences as an alternative to jail.

Mr Chalk proposed a new presumption against jail terms under one year with offenders instead handed suspended prison sentences. It was, however, shelved after opposition from Tory backbenchers.

Mark Fairhurst, president of the Prison Officers’ Association, urged Labour to consider an immediate executive early release for prisoners with six months or less left of their sentences to tackle the overcrowding crisis.

He said it would instantly ease the crisis and give a new Labour government time to review sentencing and build more jails.

However, he added that any new prisons should be in the public sector rather than run by private contractors.

Mr Fairhurst also refused to rule out action by the union if a new government sought to go beyond operational capacity limits by cramming more prisoners into jails. “We rule nothing in or out to protect our members’ safety,” he said.

He also called for a return to collective pay bargaining rather than having prison officers’ pay set by an independent review body - as he called for year-on-year above inflation increases to compensate for the 40 per cent real-term fall in his members’ wages since 2010.