Burnham Keeps PC Harper's Killers Behind Bars, Sets Timeline to End Indefinite IPP Sentences

Prime Minister Andy Burnham told BBC Breakfast in an exclusive interview that anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, will now be barred from an early release scheme that was set to let two of PC Andrew Harper's killers walk free sooner than expected.

According to a GOV.UK press release from the Prime Minister's Office dated August 30, 2026, historic child sex offences and death by dangerous or drunk driving are also now excluded. Murderers and anyone handed a life or extended sentence were already blocked from any reduction. The release states the changes will keep "hundreds more" offenders in prison longer.

PC Harper, 28, was dragged to his death by a getaway vehicle in Berkshire in 2019 after responding to a burglary call. His killers, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, would have been eligible for early release under the scheme Burnham inherited. His mother and former colleagues had campaigned for months to stop it, according to the BBC.

Thames Valley Police Chief Constable Jason Hogg said the decision would be "welcomed by many across policing and our communities" and said it would bring reassurance to Harper's family and other bereaved families. Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber, a Conservative, told BBC Breakfast he was "pleased" but called it a "bittersweet victory," adding that probation services and police have not been given an "appropriate level of resources" to manage people released under the wider scheme.

Where the extra prison space comes from

Burnham conceded the exclusions mean the prison system, already running at roughly 97 to 98 percent capacity in England and Wales according to the BBC, will get even fuller in the short term. To offset that, the government plans to deport more foreign offenders and end Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences, known as IPP.

IPP sentences were introduced under the previous Labour government and used between 2005 and 2012 for offenders judged to pose a significant risk of serious harm, even for relatively minor crimes. They were abolished in 2012 but not retroactively, leaving thousands of prisoners with no fixed release date. The Independent, which says it has campaigned for more than two years on the issue, reports some IPP prisoners have now served up to 22 times their original tariff.

Burnham told the BBC he has taken a "common sense" approach and that the public would "prefer a situation where people who have served their time to be considered for release before those who haven't." He said the government will introduce legislation to end IPP sentences "by the end of this Parliament" and will set up a cross-party oversight group. Per the Independent, Justice Secretary Alex Norris is expected to give further details to Parliament on Tuesday. Lawyers are separately preparing a High Court challenge after a United Nations ruling found Britain's continued detention of certain IPP prisoners unlawful, according to reporting carried by NewsWav.

The BBC's skepticism

A BBC analysis piece raises a fair question critics of the announcement would recognize: weeks earlier, the Ministry of Justice warned that exempting more prisoners from early release risked "prisons reaching capacity and collapsing," and Burnham himself had said he'd "pushed to the very limits of what is possible." The BBC notes it is "not clear" what changed to allow him to go further now.

The BBC also flags that none of the offsetting measures are quick fixes. Ending IPP sentences requires new legislation, which could take years. Deportation agreements have historically been hard to secure, illustrated by the case of grooming gang ringleader Shabir Ahmed, whom Pakistan has resisted deporting. Retrofitting prisons for more cells is expected to take months. Government insiders describe today's exemptions as a "political decision," the BBC reports, driven by pressure after Sir Keir Starmer's early premiership was damaged by perceived mishandling of controversial issues.

A separate flashpoint: where migrants are housed

Burnham's government is also facing pressure over a different capacity issue: where to house asylum seekers. Breitbart reports Downing Street has doubled down on moving migrants out of working-class urban areas and into rural and middle-class regions as a "point of principle," even though it would cost more money, according to a spokesman quoted by the Daily Telegraph. Breitbart notes more than 90,000 recently arrived migrants are currently housed in hotels, rented homes and camps at taxpayer expense, and that Burnham's own immigration minister has acknowledged the current distribution has placed a "huge burden" on working-class communities and fueled unrest. Whether this dispersal plan or the foreign-offender deportations Burnham cited for prison relief are connected has not been established by any source. They are, at this point, separate policy tracks under the same government.

The unresolved piece is basic arithmetic. With prisons already near capacity and the IPP fix years away, the government has not said where the hundreds of extra prisoners being kept inside under today's announcement will actually go in the meantime.