Overview

• Justice Secretary David Lammy said the programme will expand from a south‑west trial to up to 20 prisons across the North West and North East.
• Around 6,400 offenders will be able to access the medication on a voluntary basis alongside psychological interventions.
• Lammy described the south‑west results as positive while stressing the evidence base remains limited.
• The expansion is part of wider reforms including an earned progression model allowing release at one‑third of a sentence for good behaviour, plus greater use of electronic tagging and community penalties.
• Implementation concerns persist, with warnings about probation capacity, criticism from Robert Jenrick, and prisons minister James Timpson noting current tagging gaps and a pre‑release tagging pilot starting next month.