How the new prison release scheme will work - and number of inmates to be freed

About 700 eligible offenders will leave jails in England and Wales on 1 October while some 2,550 are due to be released by the end of the year, under the government's early prison release plan.

So why are so many people being let out of jail earlier than expected and how have they been chosen?

Quite simply, prisons are almost full - and not for the first time.

As of last Friday, there were 87,499 people in 120 jails across England and Wales - with around 1,500 available beds. At this rate, there would be no spare cells by Christmas.

The early release scheme was developed because of a crisis the Labour government inherited when it came to power in July 2024.

Back then, prisons were rapidly running out of cells because courts were jailing more criminals than the number being released - part of a 30-year trend.

The outgoing government had also failed to build the prisons it had promised.

By the summer of 2024 there were virtually no free cells left, so the Ministry of Justice ran an emergency scheme, releasing some offenders after serving 40% of their sentence, rather than 50% - when most fixed-term prisoners are eligible for release.

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