Badenoch demands emergency law to block early prisoner releases

Kemi Badenoch demanded emergency legislation to stop Andy Burnham’s early-release prison plan, saying she would back action to prevent rapists and killers from serving much-reduced sentences. Her intervention came after Burnham paused the scheme, which had been due to begin in September and was designed to relieve overcrowding in prisons in England and Wales.

The policy would have made thousands of prisoners eligible for release early, with more than 5,000 offenders expected to be freed over the following 10 months. Burnham put the plan under urgent review after criticism from survivors, victims’ families and campaigners, including the widow of PC Andrew Harper, whose killers were among those reported to have potentially benefited.

Claire Waxman, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, welcomed the pause on 22 July 2026. Burnham said no prisoners would be let out under the policy until the review was completed, leaving the government to decide whether to keep the scheme on hold or find another way to ease pressure on the prison estate.

The collision now is between public safety concerns and the hard arithmetic of prison capacity. Killing the early-release scheme would satisfy victims who saw it as too lenient, but it would also remove a pressure valve that had been created to manage overcrowding in England and Wales. Any emergency law would have to move before the September start date to prevent the policy taking effect.

Badenoch’s call sharpened the political stakes around a system already under strain. The proposed scheme was not a standalone justice reform but part of a wider response to pressure on prison capacity, and the pause showed how quickly that balance can be overturned when victims’ groups, campaigners and senior officials push back.