Policy paper

Sentencing Bill: overarching factsheet

Published 3 September 2025

Background

The last Conservative Government left our prisons on the point of collapse and the public in grave danger. If our prisons overflow, we face the total breakdown of law and order.

We are building prisons at an exceptional rate. The last Government added just net 500 additional places to our prison estate in 14 years. We have delivered 2,500 since taking office and will deliver 14,000 additional places by 2031.

Over this spending review period, we will invest £4.7bn in prison building. This is the largest expansion in prison places since the Victorian era, and we project that by late 2029 there will be 3,000 more people in prison than there are today.

But although that investment is necessary, it is not sufficient. Demand for places will outstrip supply by 9,500 in early 2028.  We cannot simply build our way out of this crisis. The status quo cannot continue. We must reform sentencing.

That is why the Government launched the Independent Sentencing Review, led by David Gauke, in October 2024. Its task was to ensure that no Government finds itself in the position this one did when it took office: where prisons were in crisis and on the point of running out of places. The Review reported in May 2024.

What are we going to do?

We are now introducing the Sentencing Bill. This implements many of the Review’s recommendations.

Dangerous offenders will continue to be locked up for a long time – there are over 17,000 prisoners serving sentences such as extended determinate sentences (EDS) or life sentences that are not affected by these measures. We did not accept the Gauke recommendation on releasing those on EDS early.

For most sentences, we will introduce a new model inspired by Texas where bad behaviour sees you locked up for longer. The Progression model sets a minimum release point of 33% for standard determinate sentences (SDS), while more serious SDS offences will have a 50% minimum.

Legislation will be complemented by an expansion of tagging to monitor offenders in the community and protections for victims – with thousands more offenders tagged, subject to curfews.

Where offenders are to be punished outside prison, we will impose tough community punishments that pay back to society by toughening up unpaid work and introducing Intensive Supervision Courts for prolific offenders. To demonstrate to the public that justice is being delivered in communities and act as a deterrent to crime, we will increase the visibility of community payback by publishing the names and photographs of offenders subject to an unpaid work requirement.

In addition, we will introduce a range of new requirements which courts will be able to include as part of a community or suspended sentence including banning offenders from pubs, bars, clubs, sporting and other public events, driving bans and new restriction zones, requiring offenders to stay within a specified geographical area.

We must also make bold strides in how we manage people convicted of sexual offences to reduce their chances of reoffending. That is why we are expanding a feasibility pilot in the South West of England, which provides medication to manage problematic sexual arousal to those who need it, to an additional two regions as a first step towards nationwide rollout. We are also exploring making this treatment mandatory.

It is crucial that we have a justice system which supports victims, as well as punishing offenders. That is why the Bill will create a new domestic abuse flag at sentencing and why we will continue the provision of free sentencing remarks to victims of rape and serious sexual offences, supported by investment in the probation service with more tags and staff to monitor offenders.

We will also introduce a new power which will allow probation to set restriction zones for offenders on licence. These zones will restrict certain offenders to specific areas, where appropriate – so their victims know they are safe wherever else they want to go.

How are we going to do it?

The Bill implements the Review’s central recommendation to move to an earned progression model for standard determinate sentences (sentences which involve automatic release from custody). This will be a three-part model – prison, a middle stage of intensive supervision then a final licence stage where offenders remain on licence and can be recalled if they cannot be safely managed in the community.

This new Progression model sets a minimum release point of one third for those serving standard determinate sentences which currently have an automatic release of 40 or 50 percent. For those serving standard determinate sentences with an automatic release point of 67 percent, their earliest possible release will now be 50 percent.

The behaviour of prisoners will affect their release date – if they behave badly, they may spend longer in custody. We will use the existing independent adjudications system as the mechanism for days to be added to time in custody and will bolster the process. We will double the maximum number of added days per incident that an independent adjudicator can impose. The review suggests a maximum cap on time in custody; we are not imposing a cap and prisoners could have days added until the end of their sentence.

• In the second part of the progression model, offenders will enter a period of intensive supervision. This will see thousands more offenders tagged and close management from probation. The Bill will provide probation the power to set new restrictive licence conditions which will allow the prohibition of offenders on licence from driving, attending public events (including sporting events), attending pubs, clubs and bars, and will allow probation to drug test all offenders on licence. There is also a power which will allow probation to set a restriction zone, whereby an offender’s movements are restricted to an area.

The Review suggested that the final stage of the progression model should be an “at risk stage where all offenders would not be subject to active supervision and could only be recalled if a new offence is committed”. We are going significantly further.

The highest risk offenders will continue to be supervised and retain licence conditions in the final stage of their sentence. This cohort will include

• those managed at MAPPA levels 1-3;
• terrorist and terrorist risk offenders;
• those convicted of certain offences involving or connected with a threat to national security and those who may be at risk of involvement in foreign power threat activity;
• those assessed as high and very high risk of serious harm, and;
• relevant adults named in Child Protection Plans.

All other offenders will remain on licence and will continue to be subject to relevant licence conditions but will not be subject to active probation supervision.

The Bill also introduces several other key reforms, including:

• Introducing a presumption to suspend short custodial sentences of 12 months or less: Evidence shows that community orders and suspended sentence orders can more effectively reduce reoffending when compared to short sentences of immediate custody. However, judges will always need recourse to short custodial sentences in some instances and prison sentences – even if short – can be critical to safeguarding victims of domestic abuse or violence against women and girls (VAWG). That is why we are ensuring that the courts retain discretion to impose a sentence of immediate custody where an offender has breached a court order (including any VAWG-related protective order or a previous community order or suspended sentence order by going on to reoffend), where an offender poses a significant risk of physical or psychological harm to an individual, and in exceptional circumstances which would not justify passing a suspended sentence order.

• Reforming recall: As the Review recommended, we are moving away from standard recall for most SDS offenders and replacing it with a fixed term recall of 56 days. After 56 days they will be automatically released. This aims to permit probation staff and other support services sufficient time to prepare for safe re-release, ensuring risk is managed and the offender’s needs are addressed. We have gone further than the Review’s recommendations. To protect the public, certain offenders – including those recalled on account of being charged with a further offence; those subject to MAPPA levels 2 and 3; terrorist and terrorist-risk, and certain national security offenders as well as those who may be at risk of involvement in foreign power threat activity – will receive a mandatory standard recall. Additionally, the Secretary of State will have the power to override automatic release if new information reveals the offender falls into one of the exclusion categories after being recalled and, in exceptional circumstances, the power to keep the offender in custody where the Secretary of State believes on reasonable grounds that the prisoner would, if released, pose a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm occasioned by the commission of murder or certain specified violent, sexual or terrorist offences.

• Better identifying perpetrators of domestic abuse: We will introduce a finding of domestic abuse at sentencing. This will require judges and magistrates to explicitly state in their sentencing remarks when domestic abuse was a factor in the offence. The judicial finding will establish a single, consistent way to record when domestic abuse was a factor in a criminal offence, creating a defined category that can be used to identify and manage domestic abuse offenders, enable improved support for victims, and improved data on domestic abuse including analysis of reoffending.

• Reforming the powers of the Sentencing Council: Following a commitment by the Lord Chancellor to review the Council’s role and powers, we have concluded that stronger democratic oversight of its work is necessary. Accordingly, the Bill introduces a statutory requirement for the Council to obtain the approval of both the Lord Chancellor and Lady Chief Justice for all sentencing guidelines before the Council can issue them as final, definitive guidelines. It also introduces a statutory requirement for the Council to publish an annual business plan (including detail of the sentencing guidelines that it proposes to prepare in the year), which must be approved by the Lord Chancellor before publication. These measures ensure that no sentencing guidelines can be issued without the Lord Chancellor and Lady Chief Justice each explicitly approving them – increasing democratic and judicial oversight of guidelines.

• Streamlining the deportation of foreign national offenders (FNOs): We will change the provisions underpinning the Early Removal Scheme for FNOs to allow for certain determinate sentenced prisoners to be removed from prison for the purpose of immediate deportation before the end of the custodial part of their sentence. This means that an FNO to whom this section applies can be removed for the purposes of immediate deportation any time after sentence.

• Community Sentence Reform: We are adding further specific requirements to the menu of options available for suspended and community sentence orders. This will include powers for the court to:
• Prohibit offenders from driving,
• Prohibit offenders from attending sports and other public events,
• Prohibit offenders from attending pubs, bars and clubs, and
• Impose restriction zones, limiting offenders to specific geographical areas.

These changes will provide courts with additional tools to tailor punishment specifically and robustly to individual offenders.

• Providing for a new form of ancillary order relating to forfeiture of an offender’s income: Income Recovery Orders (IROs) will ensure offenders are still penalised effectively when serving more of their sentences in a community setting, we are exploring a new financial penalty for offenders who have received a custodial sentence but are not in custody.

Further detail on these measures is provided in the individual factsheets.