20 February 2026
I recently wrote about changes to the Parole Board Rules introduced in December 2025 and shared some of the redacted minutes from the Parole Board Rules Commitee, which is run by the Ministry of Justice: unlike comparable Rules committees, the membership is secret and the minutes are not published. I had obtained some from March and November 2024 under a Freedom of Information Act request which I shared in that post.
Given the impact of the changes to the Rules that were introduced in December 2025, I asked for subsequent minutes of the Committee, in the hope that it might reveal the rationale for the changes. I received a response earlier this month, in which the Ministry of Justice maintains that the names of the committee members should not be disclosed.
I received redacted minutes from a meeting held on 20 August 2025, which you can access here.
The Association of Prison Lawyers has repeatedly asked to be involved in the committee, given that its terms of reference include to “will work with stakeholders who may be affected to seek views on the impact and how any change might best be delivered in practice to ensure it would be workable (and to avoid unintended consequences).” That request was renewed following the Parole Board Amendment Rules in December 2025, which the Government now admits went further than intended. The Association has been told that the Committee will seek its “views on the operability and impact of the proposed rule changes (rather than the underlying policy), where it is practical to do so before they are laid in Parliament.”