Parole changes: does Dominic Raab understand what is being done in his name?

Back on 21 July this year, shortly after Dominic Raab had dramatically changed the criteria for transfer to open conditions, we wrote to the then prisons minister asking a series of detailed questions about those changes and their impact. We eventually got an answer on 1 September and that said that our request for statistics — exactly how many people were getting what decisions and on what grounds — would be handled as a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. FOI requests are required to be responded to within 20 working days, so the department was already late in answering the letter from 21 July. But at least it seemed clear that a response would now be prepared.

But over four months since the original request for data, we’re still waiting, so we’ve submitted a formal complaint to the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice — the top ranking official — Antonia Romeo. It’s ridiculous that the department hasn’t made the data available — not least because the Parole Board gave us what it knew within a couple of weeks of being asked. But it’s also really important that we do get the department’s numbers, because their own Secretary of State, Dominic Raab, seems to be in the dark about what’s happening.

Raab gave evidence to the Justice Select Committee on 22 November. In answer to a question from James Daly MP, he said that the number of cases affected by the change in criteria on open conditions would be “not a huge amount”. But we already know from the Parole Board that 94% of their recommendations are now being rejected, where previously 87% were accepted. We also know that the proportion of pre-tariff sift requests being referred to the Parole Board has dropped from over 50% to 12%. It would be hard to imagine a more dramatic shift in decision-making following a policy announcement. Perhaps the justice secretary and Deputy Prime Minister doesn’t understand, or perhaps he doesn’t know what’s being done in his name. Either way, there can be no excuse for the department keeping it secret.