Prime Minister Andy Burnham has stopped a plan that lets certain prisoners out of jail early in England and Wales. People convicted of rape, serious child sexual abuse and grooming offences will no longer be included. About 1,000 fewer prisoners will be released early than previously planned, the Guardian reported.

The decision came three weeks into Burnham's time as prime minister. His first two weeks had gone smoothly, the BBC said, with early announcements on capping bus fares and changing social care. But the prisons issue has been his first real political headache. One long-serving Labour MP told the BBC that Burnham had "hit bumps in the road".

Burnham became prime minister in early August 2026, Reuters reported. He took over from a government that had already been dealing with the same prison overcrowding problem for more than two years.

The UK Government announced £100 million in extra funding so that prisoners can be fitted with electronic tags when they are released, according to an official statement. Tags are ankle devices that track where a person goes. Ministers said this is the biggest-ever expansion of the tagging programme, with tens of thousands more offenders to be tagged. A trial starting this month will tag offenders before they leave prison, rather than days later.

The Lord Chancellor, the government's top legal official, announced changes to the early-release scheme that will start in September. This gives the Prison and Probation Service time to prepare. Under the old rules, prisoners could be released up to 18 days before their scheduled date, later increased to 35 days. A separate change means some prisoners will now serve 40 per cent of their sentence behind bars instead of 50 per cent. That change will be reviewed after 18 months.

The overcrowding problem has been building for years. In 2023, the last Conservative government started letting prisoners out 18 days early because prisons were almost full. In May 2024, emergency measures released some criminals early and delayed certain court cases. Days after becoming prime minister in July 2024, Sir Keir Starmer said it was shocking that the country had too many prisoners and not enough places to hold them. His government passed the Sentencing Act in January 2025, which led to several thousand prisoners being released early from that autumn, including some convicted of very serious crimes.

Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said this was the most important decision Burnham has made as prime minister and that he got it wrong. But the criticism is awkward for the Conservatives, because the overcrowding crisis and the policy of releasing prisoners early both started under their government.

Reuters has fact-checked and ruled false the claim that Britain was releasing murderers early. The 2024 early-release scheme was announced more than two weeks before anti-immigration protests that summer, and it excludes anyone convicted of murder.

The broader picture is of a prison system that is full to bursting. Governments of both main parties have reached for the same solution: letting people out early. Burnham has tightened the rules about who qualifies, but he has not changed the underlying problem. There are still more prisoners than prison places.

For anyone watching Westminster, this is a reminder that problems a government inherits quickly become its own. Burnham's first two weeks let him set the agenda. His third week has forced him to react to events.

Criminal justice and prisons are devolved, meaning Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own systems through their own parliaments and assemblies. The early-release scheme, the tagging expansion and the Sentencing Act all apply to England and Wales only.