Burnham will face MPs as prime minister for the first time todaypublished at 09:15 BST

09:15 BST

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

Image source, PA Media

Andy Burnham has been prime minister for six weeks now, which means we have seen him in lots of different settings announcing policies or giving a sense of his instincts and priorities.

But one of the settings where we have not yet seen him is Parliament, which returns today.

Not only will we see Burnham at the dispatch box for the first time as prime minister, but he will face questions as a minister for the first time in 16 years.

As Kemi Badenoch and other opposition leaders respond to him, we’ll also get a sense of how the coming months of inter-party competition will feel.

The PM wants to keep the statement broad and optimistic. To the extent that it has particular themes, they will be public control of services, and decentralisation of power.

But the early release issues which have occupied so much of the summer are a reminder that, whatever Burnham wants to focus on, there are no shortage of thorny policy dilemmas coming down the track.

The government will hope that the announcements being made by Alex Norris, the justice secretary, today will deal with some of the most controversial elements of the scheme for now.

But as victims begin to learn which prisoners will be released under the scheme, ministers will expect more questions on this topic before long.

The government's announcements on sentencing reform have come ahead of the first day of the new parliamentary term.

Tuesday is Andy Burnham's first day in Parliament since he became Prime Minister earlier in the summer.

In today's first session after the summer recess, he will give his first Commons statement as PM at some point this afternoon.

Before then, the cabinet are expected to meet at around 09:30 and the PM's spokesperson will take questions around lunchtime.

The new Commons session will begin at 14:30, and as well as Burnham, we are also expecting to hear from Alex Norris on those sentencing reforms.

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Having earlier spoken to BBC Breakfast, Justice Secretary Alex Norris has also been on Radio 4's Today programme, where he is asked how many extra prison spaces will be created by the government's announcement that it is re-purposing unused rooms into cells.

Norris says the "exact final figure" will depend on when they can get onto prison sites, but that he suspects it will be "landing somewhere in the middle" of 200 and 900.

He reiterates that the government is taking other action to create extra space - including letting out people serving indefinite sentences, called IPPs - but that this takes time.

"I want the public to understand from directly that they’re not going to see huge change here in the weeks and months ahead," he says.

But he adds that the "biggest impact on our capacity figures" will come from the deportation of foreign national offenders, which he says will be made easier once the government can start deporting foreign offenders as soon as they are sentenced, a change that is being introduced under the Sentencing Act.

Currently, foreign nationals can be removed up to 18 months before their earliest release date, as long as they have served at least half of their custodial sentence.

Victims' Commissioner Claire Waxman says there are thousands of victims "desperate to know" how early releases may affect them, especially domestic abuse and stalking victims.

"Many of them have been carrying a huge amount of trauma all through the summer since they were first notified that the offenders in their case may be released early," Waxman says.

She says announcing changes over a bank holiday weekend meant victims couldn't immediately access support, and are waiting for their victim liaison officers to confirm when the offender in their case is coming out, and what safety measures will be in place.

Letters communicating with victims will start going out today, Claire says, but warns that some may not receive theirs for weeks.

The commissioner adds that she is concerned about whether an "overstretched probation service, police and courts" are able to react quickly enough to keep victims and the public safe when prisoners are released.

Chair of the Prison Officers' Association Mark Fairhurst says the government needs to attract more staff as it's creating more prison spaces.

"You can create as much additional space as you like, and build as many new prisons as you like, but where are the staff coming from to supervise people? Nobody wants to be a prison officer any more," he says.

Fairhurst says a prison officer faces a violent workplace, high retirement age and low wages.

He adds that the exemptions to prisoners eligible for early release "could have gone further".

"Now you've got a lot of victims of domestic abuse who are worried about early releases, so it could have gone further," he tells BBC Breakfast.

He says the government is also "heaping pressure" on an "overworked and under-resourced" probation service.

Justice Secretary Alex Norris is pressed on why the prime minister has been able to exempt more people from the prisoner release scheme, when Norris had previously said this would not be possible without causing a capacity crisis.

"What we’ve done is we’ve shown some creativity in terms of finding ways to create more spaces, we've brought forward investment," Norris tells BBC Breakfast.

He says he wants to thank families of victims who have been "very patient" while the government revised its scheme.

He says plans to re-purpose unused space in prisons - such as laundry rooms - into cells aren't "the end state, we're going to build more", he says.

"This is not the long-term status, but it's right that we've done this now," he adds.

Justice Secretary Alex Norris has just been speaking to BBC Breakfast.

He says that "letters start going out today" to victims of those due to be released from prison under the government's scheme.

Norris explains that first they will receive a written letter, and then they will have a conversation with a victim liaison officer who will ask "what sort of controls they want to see" placed on the perpetrator's life once outside of prison.

He says this could include things like the creation of restriction zones - limiting where they can go - tagging them on release, or banning them from going to the football.

"When an individual is released, that doesn’t mean freedom," he says.

The government's plan to convert unused space into prison cells will "possibly have a small amount of impact" says Nick Hardwick, former chair of the Parole Board and former chief inspector of prisons.

Hardwick tells Radio 4's Today programme that existing prison building plans are already "way behind schedule" so this "won’t be enough to hold back the inevitable crisis that will occur when the system runs out of space".

If a prison riot were to occur, or there was a national disturbance that required a sudden increase in the prison population, then "the system would collapse", Hardwick says.

"It is a very dangerous situation and it requires a significant, substantial response," he adds.

Hardwick says that the government's announcement amounts to "a few hundred places, we need a few thousand".

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There have been various twists and turns in the government's new prisoner release scheme for England and Wales, after it was approved by Parliament in January 2026.

Some 6,000 criminals were due to be released earlier than planned, and the scheme was due to come into force from 2 September.

But on 22 July, PC Andrew Harper's mother, Debbie Adlam, called the scheme - which has seen two of her son's killers released after half their sentences, rather than two-thirds - an "insult".

She received a letter from the Ministry of Justice confirming the jail terms could be reduced for Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, who were sentenced to 13 years in custody for manslaughter in 2020.

A day later on 23 July, new PM Andy Burnham announced he was pausing the scheme for review.

On 3 August, the government then announced a revision to the scheme - that prisoners who committed rape, grooming, and serious child sex offences would be excluded.

But Adlam told BBC Newsnight she was "devastated" that the change still left Cole and Bowers eligible for early release.

On 4 August, Justice Secretary Alex Norris said the government was trying to avoid running out of prison spaces. "We would like to have gone further than that, but we cannot I'm afraid," he said.

But more change were still to come. On 30 August,Burnham told the BBC that PC Harper's killers would remain behind bars for two-thirds of their sentence, as initially planned.

He said anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, would be excluded from the scheme.

Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy says he's "very concerned" about Prime Minister Andy Burnham's plans around indefinite sentences.

At the weekend, the PM said prison space would be found by releasing some inmates serving indefinite sentences, known as IPPs.

"In an attempt to try to stop the early release of one group of dangerous criminals, it seems that the PM's new plan is to release another set of dangerous criminals," Timothy tells BBC Breakfast.

Timothy says he welcomes "some of the exclusions" to the early release scheme, including those guilty of manslaughter, such as the killers of PC Harper.

But he says it's "not quite as simple" as deciding who to release to create more spaces, mentioning other issues such as fewer prison officers.

"We [the Conservatives] didn't build enough prison places," Timothy admits.

IPPs were given to some offenders in England and Wales between 2005 and 2012, where they were considered to pose a significant risk to the public. They are no longer handed out, but some people serving their sentences are still in prison.

Under IPPs, once a prisoner has served a minimum term, they can only be released once the Parole Board believe they no longer pose a risk to the public.

Image source, House of Commons

Unused office space, laundry rooms and storage areas will be converted into cells, as ministers look to create more room in existing prisons.

The Ministry of Justice says it will spend £110m on the work, using money which has been "fast-tracked from existing budgets".

Investment to create more prison spaces was announced as part of the government's 2025 spending review, which covered plans for the period from 2024‑25 to 2029‑30.

As part of this, it allocated a £7bn investment to create 14,000 prison places by 2031.

The £110m announced on Monday is not new cash, and is being drawn from money previously announced.

Image source, PA

Justice Secretary Alex Norris is expected to give MPs more detail on the government's early release plans in Parliament later on Tuesday.

The tightening of the scheme, aimed at tackling prison overcrowding, comes after Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced on Sunday that anyone convicted of unlawful killing - including manslaughter - would be excluded from the plans.

The decision was spurred in part by a campaign from the family and colleagues of PC Andrew Harper's to block the release of two men convicted of killing him in 2019.

Burnham said on Sunday that extra prison space would be found by releasing some inmates serving indefinite sentences - which prompted criticism from the Conservatives.

And this morning, the government set out a £110m plan to convert existing space in prisons into cells - we'll have more detail on that in our next post.

We're also expecting to hear from both Norris and the shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy when they speak to media this morning.

As well as Norris, Burnham is also due to address the Commons later today, his first time doing so as prime minister.

We'll bring you everything you need to know from Westminster throughout the day.