To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice how many offenders were sentenced to indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection in each year since the relevant provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 were implemented; and how many such prisoners have been (a) released in line with their tariff minimum sentence and (b) kept in custody beyond their tariff minimum sentence, broken down into those in custody (i) six months over their tariff and (ii) in increasing increments of six months over their tariff. (137546)

Public protection sentences were first provided in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and implemented for relevant offences committed on or after 4 April 2005. The numbers¹ of prisoners received into prisons in England and Wales under Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPP) were 700 in 2005-06 and 1,710 in 2006-07. There have been five prisoners released from IPP sentences as at 30 April 2007. Four of these were released after the tariff period had expired. In another case the prisoner was released before tariff-expiry on compassionate grounds due to ill health. Complete information on those held in custody beyond their tariff period is not available centrally.

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

¹ Rounded to nearest 10.