Nineteen Years of "Temporary" — Part One

In 2007 a Lord Chancellor started letting prisoners out early and called it a temporary measure. We are still doing it. Nobody has ever compared what happened to the people released early with what happened to the people released on time.

Part one of two. This week: the four schemes, the safety question nobody has answered, the probation service meant to catch it when it goes wrong, and the people released by mistake.

WHAT'S IN IT

• Four early release schemes in three years, under four different names — and the biggest of them arrived as two statutory instruments and a nod

• The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, in print, saying the department does not know whether any of it works

• Three numbers that get quoted in this argument, and why all three are read backwards

• 19 probation inspection reports. None rated good. The Chief Inspector paused the whole inspection programme to deal with public protection

• 312 people released in error in a year — and an independent review saying the statistics do not capture the true extent

THE DOCUMENTS

Every claim in this part comes from a primary source, read first-hand:

• NAO, Building an effective and resilient Probation Service — HC 1354, 24 October 2025

• PAC, Efficiency and resilience of the Probation Service — HC 1235, 4 February 2026

• HM Inspectorate of Probation, Annual Report 2026

• HMPPS Annual Digest 2025 to 2026

• MoJ, Serious further offences annual — published 30 October 2025

• MoJ, Standard Determinate Sentence (SDS40) release data, January 2025 to March 2026 — published 30 July 2026

• Eaton & Mews, The impact of short custodial sentences, community orders and suspended sentence orders on reoffending — MoJ Analytical Series, 2019

• The Sentencing Act 2026 (Commencement No. 1) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/86

• NAO, Electronic monitoring: improving resilience to meet increasing demand — HC 266, 10 July 2026

• The release-scheme statutory instruments and announcements, at legislation.gov.uk and gov.uk

House of Commons Library, Changes to automatic prisoner release dates in England and Wales, CBP-10974:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10974/

CORRECTIONS

Every figure was re-derived from the source before recording, and the ones that changed are logged. If anything here is wrong, tell me and I will say so on air.

Part two, next Wednesday night at ten.

News Over Tea. Different story, same method. I find the document, and I read you the bit nobody quoted.