I know exactly how Andy Burnham can stop PC Harper's killers walking free - Sir Michael Ellis

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The Prime Minister has the legal tools to fix this crisis in days, not months, writes the former Attorney General

Prime Minister Andy Burnham is already showing the tell-tale signs of a weak politician, and not just because of the scrutiny he avoids.

When it comes to the crisis over the early release of prisoners such as PC Harper’s killers this has resulted in an unprecedented letter from all 50 Chief Constables, the threat of industrial action from Probation officers and the threat of a judicial review by the police against the Government. It has also undoubtedly caused added pressure to the families of the victims.

Mr Burnham appears to be setting up his hapless Justice Secretary as a fall guy so he can cast the blame if things don’t go well.

Our new Prime Minister has only been in office for a few weeks. His achievements so far are that he has made a fashion statement by wearing T-shirts; posted 35 TikTok videos; further alienated the beleaguered Jewish community, and issued important media updates via his Facebook page. He has also ordered no expense to be spared on setting up new government offices in Manchester so he can bask in the glory of being surrounded by adoring Mancunians.

But you have to do unpopular things when you are Prime Minister. Not everyone is going to love you, even if you do have impressive eyelashes.

He has repeatedly changed his position on the early release of prisoners from saying that a solution was “impossible” or a “non-starter’ to saying he is “increasingly confident” he can do it.

There are thousands of lawyers in the Government legal department and there is an excellent legal team in the Attorney General’s Office as well as the Ministry of Justice, but the PM doesn’t seem to be paying attention - so let’s explore two options.

There is nothing to stop the Government from introducing a Bill that exempts a single named individual from the early release provisions.

Legislation in the past has often named single individuals. After all Acts were passed historically over individual divorces or marriage annulments, over named trustees inheriting aristocratic estates and much else besides.

Ironically one delicious much more recent example, albeit of secondary legislation, was The Pension Increase (Keir Starmer QC) Regulations 2013 which made individual arrangements for Sir Keir’s own pension after he ceased to be Director of Public Prosecutions.

If you need more convincing there was the rather more historically significant Indemnity and Oblivion Act 1660 which listed multiple named individuals whom Parliament wanted to exempt from a General Amnesty after the English Civil War. Many of them were later hanged, drawn and quartered so you might think the efficacy of the process was rather emphatic in their cases.

So there would be nothing wrong in principle with a Bill that just listed the two names of those due for early release who were convicted of PC Harper’s manslaughter.

Another option would be simply to withhold commencement of the Act that created the early release provisions in the first place, as the Conservatives have suggested.

The Sentencing Act 2026 left it to the Minister to decide on the commencement date and the date can vary between different “purposes or areas”. As the Government needs to engineer more prison places the minister will clearly need to commence the provisions at some point. But when he does he could order commencement only in part. He could outline that the Act should be commenced only in respect of a listed number of prisoner cohorts and even for example not commence as it might relate to the killers of PC Harper. That would be a solution to the prison capacity pressures whilst dealing with the immediate political challenge.

There are also other options too which could be contemplated but for some reason No10 remains floundering around making plans for disposable barbecues whilst Rome burns.