L

Lord Foster of Bath (LD)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 13 November 2025

Debate

Prisoner Releases in Error

Contribution

My Lords, I genuinely welcome the quick action by the Government and the measures that have been proposed—in particular, as just discussed, the use of AI. The Minister refers to the hard-working staff, but the truth is that although we have more and more prisoners, we have fewer and fewer prison officers. They are leaving at an alarming rate, so we need to address some of the staffing issues. The Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee and the Chief Inspector of Prisons have been highly critical of the recruitment procedure for prison officers, which is done via Zoom with no face-to-face interviews; of the in-service training of those officers; and, in particular, of the assessment of the in-service performance of those officers—often, no records are kept of any discussions with them. Does the Minister accept that all those issues relating to staff in our prisons also need to be addressed to ensure that we have a higher calibre of staff who are less likely to make mistakes, including mistaken releases?

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