Justice Secretary David Lammy has said he did “not have all of the detail” about a mistaken prisoner release when he faced repeated questions about it in the Commons on Wednesday.

Lammy – who was standing in for Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions – was asked five times by Conservative James Cartlidge whether any other “asylum-seeking offender” has been accidentally let out of prison?

He has been under fire from the Tories for refusing to answer the question when he knew about the mistaken release of Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, an Algerian sex offender.

In his first public comments since the row blew up, Lammy said he did not want to risk “misleading” MPs.

Kaddour-Cherif, who is not an asylum seeker, was one of two prisoners were released from the same London jail by mistake.

Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said Lammy has “got to get a grip”, describing the situation as “a total shambles”.

Lammy, who is also deputy prime minister, had promised the “strongest checks ever” to prevent further errors following the accidental release of migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu from Chelmsford prison in Essex last month.

Prisoners being released by mistake has been a problem for some time, however the numbers have been rising in recent years.

According to the latest figures, 262 prisoners in England and Wales were mistakenly released in the year leading to March 2025, up 128% from 115 the previous year.

Lammy, who was speaking while on a visit to Gartree prison in Leicestershire, acknowledged that “the rate of release by error is too high” adding: “it has to come down.”

“That’s why I’ve asked Dame Lynne Owens to look at this to review this and to come back to me as quickly as she’s able to do.”

Dame Lynne, a former deputy commissioner of the Met Police, has been tasked with establishing why Kebatu was released and make recommendations to prevent future incorrect releases.

“We had 800 errors under the last government, this has now gone on for a generation,” said Lammy.

“Our prison system is in crisis so we have to bare down on this but we have a mountain to climb.”

In an interview with Channel 4 News, Lammy highlighted the reliance on “a paper-based system dependent on people rather than technology” as a key problem in the prison release process.

He said the system was “subject to human error” and should change.

Lammy also said Prisons Minister Lord Timpson would be meeting with the family of one of Kebatu’s victims – and that he would also be happy to meet the family.

A police manhunt is continuing for 24-year-old Kaddour-Cherif, who was convicted of indecent exposure in November 2024.

He is understood to have entered the UK legally on a visitor’s visa in 2019 but overstayed and was in the initial stages of a deportation process.

Kaddour-Cherif was released by mistake from HMP Wandsworth on 29 October but police were only told on Tuesday.

Sources told the BBC the prison’s governor was not at the jail on the day Kaddour-Cherif was released because he was carrying out the inquiry into how Kebatu was released by accident from HMP Chelmsford.

Meanwhile, 35-year-old William Smith, who was given a custodial sentence for fraud on Monday, was wrongly released from Wandsworth prison the same day because of a court clerical error.

Surrey Police say he is now back in custody, after handing himself in.

Jenrick accused Lammy of “a dereliction of duty” for refusing to answer the questions put to him during PMQs when he knew about the mistaken release of Kaddour-Cherif.

The shadow justice secretary also criticised his opposite number for going shopping for a new suit before PMQs, “rather than gripping his department”.

In an attempt to explain why he had not been wearing a Remembrance poppy at the start of the session, Lammy told MPs on Wednesday: “I bought a new suit this morning because my godmother said that she would be watching.”

Sources close to Lammy have now said he was not shopping on Wednesday morning and bought his new suit earlier in the week.

The Prison Governors’ Association said the number of prisoners being released in error was “deeply concerning” but they had happened “under every government’s watch”.

“Achieving a zero-error outcome would demand substantial investment in staff training, modern IT infrastructure, and recruitment, all within a system already stretched by competing priorities,” the association said in a statement.

“Successive governments have accepted this level of risk for decades. In that context, it feels disingenuous to see politicians attempt to extract political gain from a prison system in crisis.”

Jenrick admitted the previous Conservative government’s record on prisons was “poor and unacceptable”.

However, he added: “It’s a total shambles what we’re seeing right now where the number of people being accidentally released from our prisons has risen off the charts in the last year, under this Labour government.”