Scottish Labour’s cop-out on early release: Over 90% of prisoners would be exempt from their plans

Over 90% of prisoners would be exempt from Scottish Labour's cop-out version of ending automatic early release from jail.

John Lamont, Scottish Conservative Justice Spokesperson, said:

"It's clear that for all their tough talk on ending automatic early release, Labour's policy is a total cop-out. They only want to end automatic early release for sentences of two years or more, meaning that more than 90% of current prisoners would have been unaffected. It is a complete sham policy from Labour.

"Although it was the last Conservative UK Government which introduced early release, they quickly realised the error of this system, and so left a repeal of early release on the statute books in 1997. This was ignored by the incoming UK Labour Government.

"On numerous occasions over the past 14 years, Scottish Conservatives have repeatedly tabled motions and moved amendments to scrap the discredited scheme. On each occasion we have been blocked by Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP.

"We know that 95% of Scots want automatic early release scrapped, we want it scrapped, yet the other parties have continually voted in favour of keeping it.

"It is common sense that the sentence handed down should be the sentence served. We will keep up the fight in the next parliament to end this discredited system – the sooner, the better. It is clear from today that Labour cannot be trusted to end automatic early release for every prisoner, which is what Scottish Conservatives will do."

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