Andy Burnham handed bleak verdict as early release scheme set to 'plague him for months'

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Justice Secretary Alex Norris has said he is 'confident' that PC Andrew Harper's killers will remain in prison

Andy Burnham has been handed a bleak assessment of Labour's early release scheme, as he is warned that the legislation could "plague him for months".

Speaking to GB News, Commissioning Editor of The Spectator Tali Fraser cautioned the Prime Minister that if his Government continues to face problems with the legislation, it will further impact his time in Downing Street.

The scheme sparked nationwide backlash over the summer as thousands of dangerous criminals were set to be released from September.

The most high-profile of those criminals, the killers of PC Andrew Harper, were at the centre of the controversy after it emerged that two of the three jailed were eligible for early release.

After much back and forth from within Labour, Justice Secretary Alex Norris has said he is "confident" that PC Harper's killers will remain behind bars.

Mr Norris is set to announce new changes to the early release legislation next week.

Discussing the policy on GB News, Ms Fraser explained how Mr Norris will introduce "secondary legislation" to exclude them from the scheme.

She said: "Amongst the backlash to Labour's early release scheme, they had already made exemptions for rapists and child groomers, but they hadn't done so for manslaughter.

"Now this is where PC Harper's killers come in, and what Alex Norris is planning on doing is introducing secondary legislation, which basically changes existing laws quickly to include rapists, child groomers and this specific bit of manslaughter called unlawful act manslaughter."

Ms Fraser continued: "Now that's where the cause of that someone causes the death of another whilst committing an illegal act, which in this case, Albert Bowers and Jesse Cole did in the case of PC Harper.

"So I think under the immense pressure that Andy Burnham was under to not let PC Harper's killers out on early release just seven years after PC Harper's death, they seem to have found a way to allow for this element of manslaughter."

The commentator acknowledged the outrage from the public about the case, and argued that the Government should be finding other ways to tackle prison overcrowding.

She told GB News: "When it comes to this case, you can see why so many people have signed the petition, because his killers are just seven years into their sentences. To then be eligible for early release, I think people would be entirely shocked by that.

"Yes, it is part of the plans to tackle overcrowding in prisons and allow for prison space to still exist, but I think people will rightly be asking, surely there is a way other than releasing these killers to to look at how to do that."

Ms Fraser warned that although the Government appear to have solved the issue surrounding PC Harper's killers, the scheme could still cause problems "further down the line".

She said: "And the problem is yes, it looks like they're about to deal with PC Harper's killers now, but there are other sort of examples within the early release scheme that could still cause problems for Labour further down the line.

"So domestic abusers may still be eligible for early release, that could cause real problems amongst campaigners and activists pushing the Labour Government, saying well, if we can find a workaround for this, why aren't we finding an exemption around domestic abuse? Why are you letting domestic abusers back onto the street?

"And if they keep basically having to go through all these different problems, this is going to plague Andy Burnham's Government again for months."

Ms Fraser concluded: "They may say that this is them trying their best to both sort of protect the prison system from collapsing and then getting too full where you actually don't have any more prison spaces, but it will just continue in a cycle, which is unbelievably depressing really, isn't it?"

In a statement, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "The death of PC Andrew Harper was a horrific crime. Our thoughts are with his family and friends, and we share the anger from the police community that we are in this position.

"The Prime Minister has asked the Justice Secretary to work through further options to keep a greater number of the most serious offenders in prison, including the killers of PC Harper."