The King's Justice?

Early release and lax enforcement of the law are undermining public confidence

Towering Columns

In The Times, Dominic Lawson argues that use of automatic prison time discounts mean that punishment rarely fits the crime.

PC Harper’s widow may not realise just how much the state has deliberately betrayed the victims of serious crime. Last week Lissie Harper added her voice to calls for the government to exclude from “early release” two of those found guilty of the manslaughter of her husband (they were the passengers of a car that in 2019 had dragged the policeman for a mile to an unspeakably agonising death after he had attempted to arrest them and the driver for a reported burglary).

Last week she declared of the proposed release of Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole halfway through their 13-year sentences: “Justice should mean justice and serving the sentence given.” But that would never have happened — in the sense of time spent in prison — under any circumstances. These men would automatically have been released after serving two thirds of their sentences. The difference now, as a result of the government’s latest plans to avoid the prison estate breaching full capacity, is that the discount for such serious crimes is being changed to 50 per cent. The government calls this scheme “earned progression”. It is nothing of the sort. No contrition or rehabilitation is required.

The same is true of all the efforts over decades by successive governments to discount custodial sentences to avoid prison overcrowding. These discounts have been automatic, non-discretionary and statutory, applying to all except those serving life sentences. The parole board (for what that is worth) has never been involved. In fact, the Conservative government in 2020, the year of the trial of PC Harper’s killers, changed the law so that those given the longest fixed sentences should serve two thirds in prison, rather than just 50 per cent. Had that law not been passed, Bowers and Cole would be released next year as if it were completely normal, without any fuss.

For The Telegraph, Sherelle Jacobs says that we need to choose punishment over moral ambivalence to crime.

Justice secretaries have spent the last 16 years trying to free up cell space not by building new prisons but ending the tradition of short custodial sentences – arguing that, for “low-level” criminals, prison does not work. But the reforms haven’t been a success. We have discovered the hard way how difficult it is to reform even “low-level” criminals: 40 per cent of those handed community orders reoffend within a year. The more prolific the offender, the more likely it is that rehabilitation efforts will fail…

The last decade has also taught us that while overcrowded prisons may not provide ideal conditions for offenders to turn over a new leaf, neither does community sentencing on the cheap. Arguably in the end, an imperfect system centred on prison is more desirable than an imperfect system centred on community rehabilitation. At least the former protects society from offenders for the time that they are behind bars. The same cannot be said of a system that lets predators like Levy roam the streets under “supervision”.

But, look where our moral ambivalence has got us. As our politicians huddle in rooms weighing up whether the least-bad option is to release rapists, paedophiles or killers, the time has come to choose – and choose punishment. That means prison. That means the three words that delight conservatives and make liberals shudder: lock them up.

In UnHerd, Maggie Oliver says that the early release of dangerous offenders and the grooming gangs investigations are eroding confidence in our justice system.

“Here we go again!” That’s what I find myself thinking as I watch the latest “confusion” surrounding the early release of serious sexual offenders and murderers. Another headline. Another announcement. Another promise. Then, within days, another clarification, as it becomes clear that the “experts” making the announcements hadn’t fully understood the law to start with.

The recent case of Shabir Ahmed, ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang, illustrates the problem perfectly. His victims were repeatedly told he would be deported upon being released from prison, only to discover that a decades-old legal provision meant this had never actually been possible, with the Government scrambling to find a work-around. And now, we see the same pattern over early release. Grand announcements are made, that serious child sex offenders will not leave prison early — only for the public to discover that the law excludes offenders whose crimes were committed before 2003.

Surely the lawyers and ministers making these high-profile announcements should know the law before standing in front of the cameras? After all, these are hardly obscure technicalities that emerge from nowhere. They are fundamental legal provisions that should already be understood. Though perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that when Whitehall concocts policy on the hoof, reality is quick to catch up. All this does more than expose incompetence. It also erodes public confidence in the Government and criminal justice system, with the wider public left wondering whether anyone in power actually knows what they are doing. I certainly wonder it too.

For The Telegraph, Lee David Evans argues that One Nation Conservatives have lost their pragmatism on the ECHR and Net Zero, and with it, their relevance.

When Badenoch announced that the next Conservative government would take Britain out of the ECHR, she set out the tests that she believed membership of the convention was failing. They included the need to British citizens first for public services, and protecting veterans from vexatious legal cases – as well as those that the Tories were seen to have failed on in the past, such as the asylum system and illegal migration.

For Badenoch, “the only way” to deliver on these issues was to leave the ECHR. If today’s One Nation Conservatives believe that we can fix these problems without leaving the ECHR, they should set out their alternative.

But if instead – as regularly appears to be the case – they believe that membership of the convention is more important than actually solving these problems, then they have departed from the historical instincts of the One Nation tradition. Prioritising alignment with abstract ideals, especially when they risk the welfare and governance of the country, would have been anathema to many One Nation Tories of the past.

For The Times, James Kanagasooriam says that we are are building a society with an antipathy towards wealth.

Those dry numbers reflect a brutal transatlantic reality. If I went to a regional Walmart summer barbecue, the local manager, many of the supervisors and some regional head-office staff could well be millionaires by virtue of higher American wages and ballooning pension pots. An equivalent gathering of Tesco staff would not be such fertile millionaire territory. The US is a place where ordinary jobs can command extraordinary wages. It has more people in regular-sounding occupations — think of the plumber with dozens of contractors or the car dealer with ten showrooms instead of one — who become millionaires. Wealth creation is more socially accessible. Britain is trending the other way.

Many analysts elide our attitudes towards wealth with the trope of widening inequality. This is simply not true. Wages are being compressed. The Low Pay Commission estimates that the adult minimum wage equalled 68 per cent of median hourly pay in April 2026, its highest ever level. It exceeds 80 per cent of local median pay in Doncaster, Wigan and Sunderland, according to the Centre for Cities. This certainly removes incentives to getting ahead.

There are also questions as to why, as a society, we don’t care more about wage growth among middle and high earners, which funds the public services we all need. It suggests an indifference as to how we fund the state. Why is public opinion so harsh towards the rich and their economic contribution?

Wonky Thinking

On Substack, Neil O’Brien lays out the scandal of student loans owed by people who have claimed through the EU settlement scheme and are costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds a year in unpaid loans.

In 2019 the Home Office estimated that between 3.5 million and 4.1 million people would be eligible for EU settlement. But as of March 2026 4.4 million people had been granted settled status and a further 1.5 million held pre-settled status - so 5.9 million in total. Over 160,000 “late applicants” have been granted settled status since the deadline of the 30th June 2021, along with a further 54,000 family members joining them - so 220,000 people. 124,000 people applying after the deadline got pre-settled status, with 202,000 family members joining them.

In the past 12 months alone, around 66,000 completely new applicants gained residency via this scheme, five years after the deadline. Some nationalities are much more likely to apply. At least one in every 20 Romanian citizens has settled or pre-settled status in the UK. Rather than tailing off as you’d expect, both the number of late applicants and joining family members actually rose sharply in the last quarter.

EU citizens granted settled or pre-settled status via the EUSS are able to bring family members under conditions much more favourable than those available to British citizens bringing their spouses or children. They face no salary test or language test or fee, and extended family members can be brought over, not just direct family.

In the past 12 months, there were more EUSS applications from Indian (15,164) and Pakistani (9,318) nationals, than from French (9,178), German (6,009), Belgian (2,467) or Dutch (5,003). In total there have been nearly 50,000 grants of settled status to Indian nationals via the EUSS. Indian nationals are now the second-largest nationality among new applicants.

People on EUSS are eligible for student loans. In 2024/25 foreign nationals received around £4bn in student loans. One in five people getting student loans were non-UK nationals. 5% of all first time student loans in the UK went to Romanians alone.

The government has no grip on the losses on these loans. Even if non-UK nationals were as likely as UK nationals to repay, we would expect to lose 30% of the £4 billion a year.

But in practice, almost all nationalities have a repayment rate significantly lower than UK nationals. We can see from new data I obtained that the average repayment rate for non UK nationals is just 51% - much lower than the UK repayment rate (68%).

This means that UK taxpayers are losing between £1.2 and £2.2 billion a year on loans to non-UK nationals - probably more like the latter.

Losses on loans to Romanian nationals alone probably cost around £650m a year. As well as any eventual losses from people not earning enough, the British taxpayer is already owed £1.5bn by a total of around 50,000 overseas “non-compliant” borrowers. “Non-compliant” nationals from tiny Cyprus alone (with a population similar to Leeds) owe over £300m.

In a POLITICO long-read, Marc Felix Serrao investigates declining birth rates across the Western world and what is being tried to reverse them, including higher levels of immigration.

There are many competing explanations. Karen Benjamin Guzzo, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, has argued that part of the fall in the U.S. reflects a public-health success: Americans have become better able to avoid teenage pregnancies and unintended births. But beyond that, the story is similar on both sides of the Atlantic.

Housing is too expensive. Women are prioritizing their careers. Men are taking longer to mature. Religion has lost influence. Smartphones and social media are weakening real-world relationships. Fear of climate change makes having children feel useless and cruel.

Each hypothesis has its adherents, along with its own books, podcasts and preferred evidence. None, on its own, fully explains the decline.

Berkay Ozcan, professor of social and public policy at the London School of Economics, has little patience for attempts to identify a single culprit. The decline, says the 47-year-old father of two, is driven by a combination of causes. Insecure labor markets and high housing costs play a role, as do changing values, longer periods of education and rising expectations of parenthood.

But all these factors have a common effect: postponement. Surveys show that young people still want, on average, about two children. But many delay parenthood until they feel professionally, financially and emotionally ready, Ozcan says — and often wait longer than they intended.

Eva Beaujouan agrees, and she speaks from more than just professional experience. When the University of Vienna demographer was 34, she and her partner started trying to have a child. They finally managed five years later, after using IVF.

“I would never have imagined, starting at 34, that I would have issues,” says Beaujouan, who is now 48 and has focused her research on late parenthood.

Delayed parenthood extends well beyond affluent urban professionals. “Postponement is now observed in all social strata,” she says.

Assisted reproduction can create false reassurance. It may improve the chances of conception, but it cannot guarantee a child or fully overcome the effects of age. “It is invasive,” she says. “It is expensive. It creates inequalities. Not many people can afford it. And of course, it often fails.”

Podcast of the Week

On The Times’ Business Podcast, Dominic O’Connell is joined by RenewableUK CEO Tara Singh and Times columnist Juliet Samuel to debate what is really driving up energy bills - gas price volatility or grid upgrade costs - and whether it’s time to drop or double down on net zero.

Quick Links

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