§ Mr. MichaelTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home department how many life licence prisoners who are currently the subject of a Parole Board recommendation for release on licence are awaiting a ministerial decision; and what is(a) the average time taken in processing and (b) the target time for processing such decisions.
§ Mr. Peter LloydAs at 27 November, the cases of 64 life sentence prisoners who had been recommended for release by the Parole Board were under consideration.
In the 12 months ending 30 September, the average time taken to notify life sentence prisoners of the outcome of reviews—from the date of the local review committee's initial consideration—was 6.5 months. We aim to get the average down to six months by next March.