HC Deb 19 July 1999 vol 335 cc396-7W
Lorna Fitzsimons

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to review the remission rates applied to prison sentences; and what monitoring his Department undertakes of remission rates in other European countries. [90989]

Mr. Boateng

Provisions in Part II of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 abolished remission. In the reply I gave to my hon. Friend on 13 July,Official Report, column 109, I set out the new arrangements under the Act. We have no current plans to change these arrangements.

The Government do not currently monitor the release arrangements in other European countries. However, at its meeting in June, the Council of Europe's European Committee on Crime Problems mandated the Council on Penological Co-operation to examine the question of early (conditional) release (parole).

Terms of reference for this examination have yet to be drawn up.