Draft Home Detention Curfew and Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods (Amdt) Order 2024

What happened: On 10 December 2024, the House of Commons voted on the Draft Home Detention Curfew and Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods (Amendment) Order 2024, a statutory instrument (a form of secondary legislation that updates existing rules without requiring a full new Act of Parliament). The motion passed by 424 votes to 106, with the government's position carrying the day by a substantial margin.

Why it matters: The order changes the rules governing when prisoners in England and Wales can be released early on Home Detention Curfew, commonly known as an electronic tag. It effectively allows eligible prisoners to be released before they would otherwise have been, subject to monitoring, as part of the government's response to severe overcrowding in the prison estate. In practical terms, this means some individuals will serve a shorter portion of their sentence in custody and the remainder under supervision in the community. The change affects prisoners, their families, victims, and the wider public who have an interest in how custodial sentences are managed.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along party lines. Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, and Plaid Cymru all voted in favour. Conservatives, the Democratic Unionist Party, Reform UK, and the Ulster Unionist Party all voted against. There were no Conservative votes in favour and no Labour votes against, making this one of the cleaner partisan splits seen in recent divisions. The vote sits within a broader political debate about prison capacity that has intensified in 2024, with media coverage focusing heavily on the state of the prison estate and the government's emergency measures to create headroom in the system.