Prisoner Release Checks

I would like to make a statement on the release in error of Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford last Friday morning.

As the House will be aware, Mr Kebatu was apprehended by the Metropolitan police on Sunday morning in the Finsbury Park area of my constituency. He is back where he belongs: behind bars. I thank the Metropolitan police, Essex police and the British Transport police for their swift action to return him to custody, and the public who helped to locate Kebatu after the police appeal. I can tell the House that he will now be transported for deportation back to Ethiopia as quickly as possible. However, that does not change the fact that Mr Kebatu’s victims are rightly outraged about what has happened. I am livid on their behalf, and on behalf of the public. This was a mistake that should not have happened. The victims expect better, the public expect better, and this Government expect better from a critical public service, which plays a vital role in our first duty: to keep the British people safe and free from harm.

On Friday 24 October, Mr Kebatu was scheduled to be transferred from HMP Chelmsford to an immigration removal centre, from which he was to be deported. Due to what appears to have been human error, he was instead released into the community at 10.25 am. Shortly after 12 pm, concerns were raised about the release to the duty governor, and, following checks, staff were dispatched to locate him. When it became clear that he was no longer in the vicinity of the prison, Essex police were notified and a manhunt began.

His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service instigated an immediate investigation, and I have asked for the initial findings to be with me this week. The House will appreciate that, in the meantime, there is a limit on what I can say. Members will be aware that there are national security considerations within a case like this. I will update the House in the appropriate way as soon as I can. What I can say today is that there must be, and there will be, accountability for what has happened.

When I was first informed of the release in error, I spoke immediately to the duty governor at HMP Chelmsford and senior HMPPS leaders in order to understand what was known and to seek assurances about the immediate measures being taken. I tasked my officials with working through the night and co-ordinated a response with the Home Office and the police, and I put on the record my thanks to the Home Secretary for her engagement over the weekend. I also chaired three operational meetings with the police, and on Sunday I was able to travel to Wood Green police station, just outside my constituency, to personally thank the police officers who caught Kebatu.

I have been clear from the outset that a mistake of this nature is unacceptable. We must get to the bottom of what happened and take immediate action to try to prevent similar releases in error in order to protect the public from harm. First, on Friday I instructed the chief executive officer of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service to carry out an urgent review to look at the checks that take place when a prisoner is released, and to identify immediate changes that could be made to the process, in order to mitigate the risks of release in error. As a result, HMPPS has taken steps to make these processes more robust. There will now be more direct senior accountability for ensuring that protocols and checks are correctly applied, including a clear checklist for governors to determine that every step has been followed the evening before any release takes place. These are the strongest release checks that have ever been in place. They will apply to every release from custody and are effective immediately.

Secondly, any foreign national offender being removed through the early removal scheme—the scheme through which Kebatu was supposed to be removed from the country—can now be discharged only when the duty governor is physically present, and there will be no ERS removals from HMP Chelmsford for the rest of this week.

Thirdly, I am today announcing that there will be an independent investigation by Dame Lynne Owens—I spoke to her yesterday. She is a former deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police and a former director general of the National Crime Agency. She will fully establish the facts of Kebatu’s release and whether staff had sufficient experience, training and technology. She will also talk to the victims in this case to understand the effect that this incident had on them. Her report will highlight points of failure and make recommendations to help prevent further releases in error, which have been rising year on year since 2021—from an average of nine per month in 2023 to 17 per month in the period spanning January to June 2024.

I am clear that a single release in error is one too many, which is why we have launched this independent investigation. I can tell the House that it will have the same status as those into other prison incidents, including the awful attack on three prison officers at HMP Frankland in April and the escape of Daniel Khalife from HMP Wandsworth in 2023, under the last Government.

Releases in error are a symptom of the system that we inherited from the Conservative party. Jails were full—almost to breaking point—and there was the threat of a total collapse in law and order. The fact is that we were left with prisons reeling from historic funding reductions: a 24% real-terms cut between 2010 and 2015, and 30% cuts in staffing. Today, we have been left with over 50% of frontline prison officers having less than five years’ experience. When the system has been brought to its knees, it is little wonder that errors like this happen.

We must also be honest about how the previous Government’s approach to this crisis—piecemeal, complex emergency releases in the hope that the system would not collapse—has added a level of complexity and pressure that makes errors more likely. This Government have been transparent about the difficult decisions necessary to fix the mess for good so that prisons can keep us safe and future Governments need not find emergency solutions to free up capacity.

This Government have brought forward the Sentencing Bill, which is currently making its way through this House. It will ensure that we have a suitable criminal justice system, and one that can deliver punishment that works, cuts crime and keeps the public safe. This Government are also building 14,000 additional prison places, so that we have the capacity to lock up the most dangerous offenders. This is the largest prison expansion since the Victorian era, and let us be clear that there will be more people in prison at the end of this Parliament than there ever have been before. We have already built 2,500 additional prison places in just over a year, compared with the 500 added overall to the prison estate under the Tories.

We are deporting more foreign criminals than the last Government. We changed the law last month to speed up the early removal scheme—which, to be fair, the shadow Justice Secretary called for—so that most foreign prisoners can now be deported after serving 30% of their custodial sentence, rather than the previous 50%. Through the Sentencing Bill, we will go even further to deport foreign criminals as soon as possible after sentencing. I can confirm that, in the year to July 2025, we sent 5,179 foreign national offenders back to their countries of origin, which is a 14% increase on the previous 12 months. This frees up desperately needed prison places and saves the taxpayer the £54,000 per year it costs to hold an individual offender.

This context sets out the scale of the challenge, but I am clear that releases in error are not simply a fact of life. The public will not accept that and neither do the Government. We will get to the bottom of what happened in this case, and we will take whatever steps necessary to tackle the spike in releases in error, so that we can uphold the first duty of every Government, which is to keep the public safe from harm. I commend this statement to the House.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Dear, oh dear, where to begin? This Justice Secretary could not deport the only small boat migrant who wanted—no, who tried—to be deported. Having been mistakenly released, Hadush Kebatu came back to prison asking to be deported not once, not twice, but five times, but he was turned away. The only illegal migrants this Government are stopping are those who actually want to leave the UK. His officials, briefing the press, called it “the mother of all—”. Yeah, they are not wrong, are they? Calamity Lammy strikes again. It is a national embarrassment.

Today the Justice Secretary feigns anger at what has happened. He says he is “livid” that Kebatu was mistakenly let out, but under his plans to abolish short prison sentences, which he forced through the Commons last week, Kebatu would never have even stepped foot in prison in the first place. Let us get it straight: we had the spectacle of the Metropolitan police scouring London to find a man the Justice Secretary is simultaneously legislating to avoid sending to prison. What an absolute farce! I must commend the Justice Secretary’s performance: it is truly BAFTA-worthy. He has perfected the art of performative outrage to a tee.

On Wednesday—[Interruption.] They may be laughing, but let me finish this point. On Wednesday, the Justice Secretary will force every one of his MPs to vote again on the Sentencing Bill, which will see hundreds of sex offenders just like Kebatu avoid prison altogether—sick men who destroy the lives of young girls, who steal their childhoods from them. They will be free to roam your communities to steal the childhoods of your constituents. I will tell you who will be livid then: the British public will be livid and they will know who is to blame.

The Justice Secretary says he has launched an inquiry into what has happened, but he should be able to provide some basic questions to the House now. With respect to the prison in question, HMP Chelmsford, there is clearly a very significant problem. In a previous internal audit at Chelmsford, officials had marked their own homework as “good”, yet inspectors rated it as of “serious concern”. What is the Justice Secretary going to do now to address the way in which problems in our prisons are covered up routinely or wished away?

This is a serious issue and that is why there will be a full independent investigation.

The shadow Justice Secretary—I will give him this—is smooth. But as my mother would have said, if he was chocolate he would lick himself. He should hang his head in shame. The crisis in our prisons that we face today is because of 14 years of failure under his Government. As they were packing their bags to leave office—he knows this—there were temporary release failures under his watch. They presided over 17 mistaken releases per month.

This did not happen overnight, and it was not inevitable; it was due to the choices made by the right hon. Gentleman’s party over 14 years of chaos. The Conservatives said that they were the Government of security and safety, but again and again they oversaw rising instances of violent crime and crumbling courts and prisons. They promised 20,000 extra prison places, and they managed only an extra 500—500 in 14 years. They promised to remove more foreign national offenders from our prisons, and they failed. They promised investment and expansion in the prison system, but budgets stalled. They promised investment in the police, but we saw police numbers cut by 20,000. They promised increases in access to justice, but we did not see that; instead, we saw almost the collapse of legal aid. Under the right hon. Gentleman’s watch, violence, self-harm and drug abuse went up in our prisons while prison officer numbers were cut, yet he has the brass neck to come here and give the impression that this problem started just 14 months ago.

Let me just pause there. William Fernandez, a sexual predator, was released in error in March 2021. After he was let out of prison, he raped a 16-year-old and sexually assaulted another young woman. Was there an independent investigation? No, not from the Conservatives. When Rayon Newby, another man who was mistakenly released from a category B prison, was released in error in March 2023, was there an independent investigation under the right hon. Gentleman’s watch? No, there was not. When Lauras Matiusovas was released in error in December 2021, was there any independent investigation? There was none at all. The right hon. Gentleman has some brass neck.

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

Given the pressure on prison front desks and the complexity of rules for release, this was an accident waiting to happen. One thing that might bring down the number of releases in error is the digitising of prisoner records. On visits to prisons, Justice Committee members are often horrified to find staff relying on handwritten files. While some parts of the justice system are entertaining artificial intelligence, why are our prisons still run on pen and paper systems?

My hon. Friend raises an important point. As he knows, there is to this day largely no wi-fi or anything like that available on our prison sites, in part because of concerns over the use of technology by prisoners. For that reason, prisons use a paper-based system, which will always be subject to some human error. In the context of this continued early release scheme being done on the quiet under the previous Government, and indeed because of the changes that we are making in the Sentencing Bill, it is right that we have a proper look at this. I discussed this matter with Lynne Owens when we spoke yesterday.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

We Liberal Democrats are relieved that Kebatu has been recaptured after what must have been a terrifying few days for his victims, and we echo the Justice Secretary’s remarks thanking Essex police, the Metropolitan police and British Transport police. However, Kebatu’s recapture does not excuse the serious mistakes that caused his release to happen in the first place—it is totally unacceptable that the safety of the public was ever put at risk.

HMP Chelmsford is a remand prison that regularly deals with prisoners coming and going, and it should therefore be highly capable of handling situations like this. Yet we know from His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons that there are deep-seated inadequacies at Chelmsford, including inexperienced staff and a lack of adequate training, identified especially in pre-release documents. At the same time, we have seen worrying trends nationally in mistaken prisoner releases, with 262 prisoners released by accident in 2025, up from 115 the previous year.

We Liberal Democrats recognise that the Government inherited a mess when it comes to prisons, but they should have taken serious steps to address the shortfalls and staffing issues in prisons, which are now clearly putting the public at risk. What steps are the Secretary of State’s Government taking to address work culture and training issues in our prisons, especially prisons such as HMP Chelmsford where concerns had already been raised?

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of an independent investigation, following repeated calls by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman), whose constituents were put at risk, but will he confirm what consequences those found at fault will face? Also, pending the outcome of the investigation, does he agree that anyone responsible should face the sack? Does he believe that the new safeguards he is putting in place will prevent this from ever happening again?

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for the tone of her remarks. She is right that what happened was entirely unacceptable, and understandably the victims of Kebatu’s crimes and their families would have been very anxious over the course of the weekend. The public at large would also have been very anxious, particularly women and children. She is right that there are issues in our prisons; 50% of our prison staff are effectively new on the job as a result of what we inherited from the Conservatives. It is important that we give them the appropriate support and training over this period.

The hon. Lady knows, because I have said it from the Dispatch Box, that it is our intention to grow the number of prison places—14,000 places by 2031—and build new prisons. In that context, it is also important that we grow the number of officers and support them. The hon. Lady knows too the importance of probation in this context, and the £700 million we have allocated to support our Probation Service at this time is really important. She will recognise that, in a system that releases 57,000 prisoners every year, many prisoners are released appropriately under licence. Some of them are reporting to probation or at home or for tags, and many of them—a proportion that has gone up—are reporting for early removal. For all those reasons it is important that Lynne Owens gets to the bottom of what happened in this circumstance.

On the weekend we heard Conservative Members talking about the Labour party releasing this prisoner early. That is a rather silly comment, as the Labour party did not release anybody. Does the Secretary of State agree that what has caused, created and contributed to the problems that have enabled these mistakes to happen has not come from the 14 months we have been in power but from the 14 years of austerity and cuts that the Conservatives oversaw?

As a statement of fact, the Conservatives recognise that the inheritance we had in this context was poor. The public want to ensure that whoever is in government keeps them safe and that people are not being released from prison in the wrong way. That is why it is important that there is a full and independent investigation into this incident and that the system learns lessons from it. I listed previous cases where there was no full or independent investigation. We could have learned from these cases earlier if the Conservatives had acted.

I call the Father of the House.

The crisis of small boats crossing the channel is utterly debilitating and is alienating millions of people from the whole political process. Imagine how the whole atmosphere would have lightened if the Government had come here today and said, “This sort of farce cannot continue. We will get out of any convention, and from midnight tonight if you land illegally on these shores, you will be detained and deported immediately back to where you have come from.”

I want to ask about a particular constituency point. Such is the crisis around how to house these people that there are reports today in The Times and other newspapers that the Government are thinking of opening disused military sites and are looking at two or three in particular. The Government gave a solemn promise that they would not use RAF Scampton to house illegal migrants. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that solemn promise still stands?

The right hon. Gentleman will have heard the Housing Secretary this morning talking about how we are looking at military sites. We are looking at a number of them intently. I am afraid that I am unable to give him reassurance in relation to his constituency because I have not got the list in front of me, but I will ensure that the appropriate Minister makes contact with him.

It is deeply concerning that a dangerous criminal was released on to the streets—that should not have happened—but I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his honest assessment of what happened and for acknowledging that it was wrong. Does he agree that we are dealing with 14 years of Tory neglect with overcrowded and understaffed prisons, and that when things go wrong—as they have done—it is essential that we take swift and decisive action so that the public’s trust in the justice system is maintained, and that that is exactly what we are doing now?