Speaking during an urgent question in the Commons on Tuesday, Labour MP Clive Efford asked why Serco had failed to provide enough tags for prisoners leaving each prison. 'They are not actually fulfilling their contracts. It can't be beyond the tech firm's ability to tag people on release. So what are these companies going to do about it?' he said.
Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy said most prisoners were not being tagged before release, despite the government's assurance that the system would be the toughest in history. 'The justice secretary told the country that proper safeguards would be put in place with a presumption that all released prisoners would be tagged. He called it the toughest tagging regime in history, but that was nonsense,' he said.
Justice minister Jake Richards replied that the government was working closely with Serco and had seen improvement since March. 'Although there is a presumption of every person being tagged, ultimately it is an operational decision,' he said.
About 2,000 criminals, including domestic abusers and violent offenders, are being freed this month, with another 3,000 to follow in stages over the next year. The total was reduced from 6,000 after an intervention by Andy Burnham. Prisoners convicted of manslaughter are excluded. Typically, those released should be electronically tagged for the second third of their sentence.
The probation service union Napo said the releases were putting enormous strain on its members and is balloting for strike action over pay and workloads after rejecting a conditional 5% pay offer. A senior Prison and Probation Service source said a failure to tag offenders as they left prison meant it could be up to a month before they were tagged. 'If we do not tag them as they leave prison, there is a good chance that we won't tag them at all before they reoffend,' they said.