Prisons: Imprisonment for Public Protection
(6 days, 12 hours ago)
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Baroness Burt of Solihull
To ask His Majesty’s Government what further steps they are taking to reduce the size of the Imprisonment for Public Protection prison population following the publication on 15 November of the HMPPS Annual Report on the IPP Sentence.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, first, I apologise for my germy little self. I will try not to infect anybody else.
This is a bittersweet moment for me. It is great to see the measures that we fought for so hard for in the Bill come to fruition, but in my heart I know that it is all based on the faulty premise that all these prisoners could achieve release if they jumped through all the hoops and tried hard enough for long enough. Imagine an engine that was fundamentally flawed in its design, so much so that it was discontinued, and no more parts were made after 2012. For some reason, we are refusing to scrap that faulty engine, and many of the parts that might have worked initially are now falling apart or are irreparably damaged. If we were talking about a real engine, we would scrap it, but we are not talking about a real engine, are we? We are talking about human beings whom we have irreparably damaged by trying to fit them into the maw of a machine that has torn them apart in the process.
The $50,000 question is, if we are not going to do a resentencing exercise, what is the alternative? Further fiddling with a broken system is not going to do it. The prison system is, to extend the engine analogy, running dangerously hot at 97% capacity. Perhaps we should not expect too much until after the sentencing review and the introduction of a culture that is radically different from the “throw away the key” mentality.
I commend everyone who has worked so hard to produce this report, and the people who work tirelessly within the proverbial machine to keep it limping along. The report is seven months late. Even though it was completed in April this year, it was not released until November. Various reasons have been given, but with changes moving apace—we hope—it would be good to know what further progress has been made since April. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was particularly keen to ask this question had he been able to be here today.
There is a lot of information to digest, but also questions that, with hindsight, I wish I had asked before. On access to and the quality of the courses, I am still getting reports not just that prisoners cannot find the courses they need but that the courses are often not fit for purpose. I have been told that half of prisoners cannot access courses. With the system running at capacity, this is unsurprising, so my first question to the Minister is, what is the average waiting time for each course recommended for each prisoner? What work has been done to assess the effectiveness of these courses?
My next point concerns sex offenders. Four hundred and sixty-five IPP sex offenders have never been released, although some of the initial offences were fairly low level. I know that the Secretary of State before last had a policy of turning down every IPP prisoner sentenced for a sexual offence who had been deemed fit for parole by the Parole Board. Here, the Catch-22 of proving that you are not going to reoffend by doing something you have had no opportunity to do really kicks in. This will not do, but I do not know whether any special measures are being taken to fit sex offenders into whatever passes for acceptability for release. If the answer is obvious, and I did not read the report well enough, perhaps the Minister will write to me and not waste further time.
On reasons for recall, are there any figures available for this? From the report, it seems that the number of recalls has been pretty steady in the past six years or so. I would have hoped that the numbers would have decreased following discussions we have had with the Probation Service, which says that reasons such as turning up late for a probation meeting are now much more tolerantly treated, rather than simply returning IPP prisoners to prison. Is it fair to ask that question now when improvements are promised? Yet individuals and organisations have said that these reasons persist. The mean time on recall has more than doubled since 2015. One would hope that the new focus on IPPs will now cause that figure to drop dramatically.
On reconviction rates, this—of all figures—indicated to me what is wrong with the overly risk-averse approach to the IPP sentence and the treatment of IPP prisoners. Only 0.5% of IPP prisoners released were subsequently convicted of a serious further offence. I do not have access to this figure, so will the Minister say, from the current figures available to him, what percentage of “ordinary” prisoners convicted of a serious further offence were reoffenders? In other words, what percentage of normal prisoners—whatever a “normal” prisoner is—reoffended with a serious offence? I bet my bottom dollar it is more than 0.5%.
Is it not time to abandon this risk-averse approach and to change the culture that blames probation and parole services for failure and congratulate them on all the difficult work that they do? Nobody can get it right all the time, unless we keep every offender in prison—we are doing quite a good job of that at the moment. Do we not need a more realistic, balanced approach, a bit more like the one we give to ordinary prisoners today? The system works, to a degree, and, as far as can be managed without omnipotence, without locking up some people for life on the off chance that they might reoffend. There are prisoners dying of cancer, confined to wheelchairs, who are still serving an IPP sentence. Shall we build a bit of compassion into this wonky, dysfunctional machine of ours or, better still, design something else which is less likely to turn an IPP sentence into an actual life sentence? I welcome the PMB introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, and I will strongly support it when it comes before the House. If not resentencing, we still need an alternative to the dysfunctional system that we have.
I look forward to the contributions of other noble and noble and learned Lords who know a lot more than I do and to the response of the Minister, who is very much put upon to deliver messages that we are not always minded always to hear.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
My Lords, it is a real honour and privilege to follow the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and to speak in such an important debate. I thank the noble Baroness for asking the Government this key question and for never giving up on the fight for justice for the thousands of people serving IPPs.
The annual report, which we are dealing with now, and the action plan are worthy and well-considered documents; there is no doubt about that. But what is missing is any recognition that the IPP sentence itself is a form of torture—at least according to the United Nations. Like many others in your Lordships’ House, I believe that resentencing is the only way to end this torture.
The chair of the Justice Committee in the other place, Andy Slaughter MP, recently wrote to Ministers warning that
“the Government may have misunderstood the Committee’s original recommendation on resentencing”.
Ministers keep saying that resentencing would mean mass release with no supervision, but Mr Slaughter is clear that
“resentencing would not mean the automatic release of all IPP prisoners”.
Legislating for suitable supervision to manage risk will of course be necessary and indeed wanted by many of those in the system.
Mr Slaughter’s letter ends by encouraging Ministers, as we do, to consider again establishing an expert panel to explore options for IPP resentencing, balancing
“the protection of the public with justice for the individual offender”.
Despite the Prisons Minister’s concerns in last month’s debate, I do not believe that this would give “false hope” to IPP prisoners—not if the Government made clear that there was no commitment to resentencing at this stage but, instead, a commitment to consider the matter further. The expert advisory panel would be there to do just that by giving its expert advice to the Government on what a resentencing exercise, with public protection at its heart, could look like.
Ministers also claim that they are opposed to resentencing because they do not want to overrule or usurp the role of the Parole Board. That sounds reasonable at first, but, last week, an Answer to a Written Question submitted by Kim Johnson MP revealed that, since July, the new Government have refused to follow the Parole Board’s recommendations on the transfer or release of IPP prisoners more than 45% of the time. That is scandalous. Without wishing to sound cynical, some might say that the Government seem happy to hide behind the Parole Board when it suits them but to ignore its advice when it does not.
In finishing, I urge the Government to cut through the politics, to let Parliament solve the problem that Parliament itself created over 20 years ago, and to allow a free vote on resentencing in both Houses. This must be the fairest way to reduce the size of the IPP prison population, carefully balancing public protection with the principles of justice and mercy.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, for bringing this Question to our attention. It is almost impossible to improve on the passion and commitment that she showed in her speech, despite her struggling with a cold.
There has been improvement in the last couple of years. These poor prisoners are receiving a great deal more attention than was the case a few years ago. There are no bad people involved in this problem: everybody involved in it is trying to make it better. That goes for Ministers, officials, the speakers in the Room, the Commons Justice Committee and so on. Everybody wants to make it better. I fully respect the commitment and seriousness of the officials, particularly at the MoJ, who are trying to make the action plan work. But, in the end, there is a failure to grasp politically that, for a plan to work, it needs an objective. What is lacking in this plan is a clear notion of what success would look like. What are we aiming to achieve?
As far as prisoners who are out on licence are concerned, the great advances made through the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024—it received Royal Assent just before the Prorogation of Parliament—are now being implemented by the new Government. I hope that that will help to deal with the issue of prisoners who are out on licence and that, in a sense, that issue will start to go away over time.
The problem is IPP prisoners who are actually in prison and, in particular, those who have never been released. I would say that an action plan should have as its objective the reduction of that number to zero—it has to be a reduction of that number to zero. At the moment, 11 have not served their full tariff, so perhaps we should say that, today, success would look like reducing that number to 11, but that is not a target in the action plan—that is not what it aims at. I am not sure what the action plan does aim at, except to make the system, which is very clunky and difficult—the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, referred to this—work somewhat more smoothly and to try to make it join up. It will always leave this dilemma that the Parole Board will act according to the same criteria that will apply in every case, as far as the protection of the public is concerned, but with no recognition of the injustice done to these prisoners.
There will be a number—possibly we would all agree that there will—who will probably never be safe to release. Do the Minister’s officials have an estimate of that number or of its scale? I have reason to think that they have made such an estimate, but it is for him to say. We are now coming to the point where we will have to grapple with that figure and those people, because as you move people out of prison, perhaps for the first time, it gets harder and harder to carry on doing so. You will come to the people who will not pass this test. Do we have an estimate of that number? I know that the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, is very committed on this issue, but I have not yet heard senior Ministers in the Commons start to express, and say things about, that mindset that shows that they now regard these people as victims rather than offenders.
Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)
My Lords, at the election we were promised change, and we constantly hear that that is the mantra of the Government, but what is fascinating is that this Government have carried on the same approach to IPP as the last one. It was a small and mealy-mouthed attempt at a little measured movement, but actually nothing dynamic. The same sense of risk that the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to persists with this so-called changed Government. What is the change that has taken place on IPP sentencing? It is a complicated and convoluted system of changed possible tariffs, but, as this report indicates, for those who can possibly understand what it means, it does not really work. As one who visits prisons at least three times a month, I can tell you, from talking to IPP prisoners, that they do not understand it. They do not get it and they feel a deep sense of despair.
We learned today, from reporting by both the BBC and Sky, that President Assad held 100,000 people in prison. Yesterday, this Government announced that they want to hold 109,000 people in prison. What does that say about us? Exactly as the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, said, it says that our inclination and the culture is to entrap people and, effectively, persecute them. At the moment, according to the House of Lords Library, two-thirds of those on IPP sentences have never been released for over 10 years. If any of us were put in the same position—held for a 10-year sentence and then another 10 years—would we be fit for training? Would we have the right approach? Would our minds be ready for release? We would be screwed up—and the Government want to pretend that this equals change. It does not; it equals sitting back and giving in to the panic of the public. In a way, the Minister needs to look to his army of civil servants around him, who I am sure are very wise but not very risky, because they are not inclined to meet real people and understand how they feel and deal with it.
Unlike the Secretary of State, who was pictured yesterday rushing around prisons with officers around her to protect her from meeting offenders, I really sit with them. What I hear from real offenders and real people is, “They don’t get it”. This report does not equal anything new; there is no hope in it and they feel great despair. Unfortunately, the culture is that if we can return people —the latest figure is 1,599 recalled to prison—it is basically saying their sentence does not exist any longer. We are no longer sending anybody down through the courts, but we are saying, “You did something terrible 15 years ago. Tap, tap—back you go”. What kind of mindset for change is that? It is not one.
I had a very interesting note from a prisoner—because I sit and talk with prisoners, and they write to me about their real lives—who went through in great detail what is wrong with the system. In his letter from an adult prison, he describes how, on the day of release, a young man was told to go and pick up his property, consisting of a phone, from a police station. Later, on the same day, his hostel room was searched by staff who found the phone in a sealed police bag. Not being allowed to have more than one phone, he was recalled. Six months then had to pass before he could be considered for an appeal. That is the culture of a probation service, a prison system, a ministerial system and civil servants who sit there pontificating about it, but do not meet and deal with human beings. For goodness’ sake, we need some sense of generosity of spirit—keep in the dangerous ones, but let out the majority.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)
I wish to concentrate on one aspect touched on by the noble Baroness, to whom I am grateful for this debate, and that is the way the recall system is working.
The problem is simple to state. The test for recall is, essentially, a low threshold and the test for release after recall is a high threshold. The result is that the mean time in custody after recall has risen to between 25 and 30 months, the equivalent of a five-year sentence of imprisonment.
The report refers to the result of a thematic inspection published in December 2023 and notes that the Government accepted each recommendation and published a revised IPP action plan. However, the base problem is not highlighted in the recommendations or the report, and the action plan does not grapple with it. I shall quickly make four points.
First, the test for recall requires the person making the decision to demonstrate a “causal link” in the current behaviour to that which was exhibited at the time of the index offence. Many of the recalls are because the person on licence has been late in returning to approved accommodation—I met one such recently at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. I simply do not understand how we can go on using this recall test for people who have been at least 12 years in prison under an IPP sentence. Surely, we need a properly focused test that takes into account the realities of IPP. Can we have that, please?
Secondly, while the test remains, the decision on recall should set out the evidence for the causal link. It should be written, like all good decisions, before the decision is promulgated, to ensure that the reasoning justifies the recall—that is called good decision-making. Given the extremely serious consequences of recall on the liberty of a subject, this practice of good decision-making should be required. I ask that that be done.
Thirdly, a review of such decisions is needed before this lengthy process before the Parole Board gets fully under way. If the IPP prisoner had been sentenced in a court, he would have had a right of appeal and the case heard by the Court of Appeal, if leave was given, in about five and a half to six months. Does a senior civil servant review the recall, both for the evidence and its proportionality? After all, the Secretary of State is responsible and accountable, and the knowledge of a review by someone directly accountable to her improves decision-making. Certainly, that is the experience of every tribunal—that if you have a review, it works to improve decision-making.
Fourthly, if recall is properly evidence-based and proportionate, what can be done to speed up the process of release, given what the thematic report says about the effect on mental health? Has the Parole Board got enough resources?
I have three quick points on unreleased IPPs. First, about 16% have tariffs of less than two years. That injustice is palpable, as they had the misfortune to be sentenced before the tariff was raised to at least two years. Secondly, as at March 2024, 32 IPPs who were sentenced when they were under 18 have never been released. Thirdly, as of June 2024, there were 37 who were 70 and had never been released. They will have served the equivalent of a 24-year sentence. There can be no doubt that we must look again at the way the release test works, and the extent to which the responsibility of the state for this stain on English justice is taken into account. The Howard League has established a panel to look at such issues, and we intend to report before April 2025.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, from whom I have learned a great deal since I have been in your Lordships’ House. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, on securing this debate and acknowledge and applaud her work in this area over years. I am grateful to the organisations that have sent in briefings to inform me generally and inform my contribution. Of course, I thank the Minister, my noble friend Lord Timpson, in his absence for giving of his time to discuss this most vexed of issues. Despite assurances that progress is being made and despite the number of prisoners serving IPPs declining, it is an exceptionally slow rate of decline. The numbers of recalls and their duration has increased, as we have just heard.
We have rehearsed in your Lordships’ House on a number of occasions the damage caused by this sentence to prisoners’ mental and emotional health and of the self-harm engendered, as well as ultimately prisoners taking their own lives, as nine did in 2023. It bears repeating the nature of the initial crimes that gave rise to these sentences. Thomas White was given a two-year minimum sentence for stealing a mobile phone but has served 12 years. John Wright, then 17, was given a two-year tariff for headbutting a younger child and stealing his bike—a very unpleasant crime, but he has served 17 years. Martin Myers received a 20-month tariff for the attempted robbery of a cigarette. I am not even sure that that can be accurate, but I am assured that it is, and Martin has served 18 years.
My own MP, Andy Slaughter, who is now, as we have heard, the chair of the Justice Select Committee, has apparently understood rather better than others what a resentencing exercise would mean. He is very clear that it does not mean automatic and immediate releases. I hope that we can pursue this further when time is found for my noble friend Lord Woodley’s Bill to be in Committee.
The action plan is of course welcome, but UNGRIPP asks: having given itself 12 months to see a change by using the action plan, what will happen if there has been insufficient progress in those 12 months? As there are no clear and measurable targets, what are the Government actually aiming for? In this, I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. What are the strategic ways of monitoring progress?
I hope that the Minister is able to reassure us that the use of language such as “in a timely manner” is not being used to obfuscate, rather than clarify what the plan is intended to do. I accept, as others do, that some prisoners have been so damaged by what the state has done to them that release for them is trickier. But endless incarceration cannot be the answer: we must find more and better ways to move forward for these prisoners.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, what a powerful debate this is turning into.
I shall focus on the part of the HMPPS report dealing with self-inflicted deaths, another symptom of this cruel sentence. The report shows that nine IPP prisoners took their lives while in custody in 2023. Action 8 of the action plan sets out some of the commendable steps being taken to support IPPs at risk of self-harm and suicide in custody. There is reference to prisoners being managed and supported under procedures with the rather convoluted title “assessment, care in custody and teamwork’’ or ACCT, yet of the 19 self-inflicted deaths in custody reviewed by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for his 2023 learning lessons bulletin, only five of the individuals were on ACCT monitoring at the time of their death. This indicates that much more needs to be done to recognise a prisoner’s IPP status as a potential risk factor and to identify the triggers for suicide and self-harm that are associated with this sentence.
This is particularly the case given the expert evidence, heard by the Justice Committee for its third report, that the psychological harm caused by this sentence leads to greatly increased risks of suicide and self-harm and can even prevent release because of the perceived risks of reoffending. Being refused release because of the harm caused by the sentence itself offends every sense of what is fair and therefore increases, in turn, the risk of suicide and self-harm. What a vicious circle that is.
It is not even just about the risks of suicide and self-harm arising for those who have never been released. Even in the case of prisoners who have been released, the effect of several recalls, or even the mere possibility of recall, creates its own risks. This is again clear from the ombudsman’s report where he recounts a case in which an IPP prisoner was recalled on numerous occasions, even though he had not committed an offence. He was traumatised and left without hope that he would ever see the end of his apparently endless sentence and was found hanged in his cell, even though he had again been directed for release by the Parole Board.
Earlier this year, during Committee on the Victims and Prisoners Bill, the truly tragic case of Matthew Price was mentioned. He took his own life last year while on licence from an IPP sentence because of the anxieties he felt about the ever-present potential for recall to prison. It is indeed shocking when one is told that he had been on licence for nearly 10 years. That is the invidious reach of this cruel sentence.
What this teaches us is that whatever an IPP prisoner’s circumstances, whether they have never been released, have been released and recalled, or have been released and are on licence, they are never free from the sentence’s psychological grip. I do not get the sense from the action plan that the psychological damage caused by the IPP sentence, whether it is being served in custody or in the community, is given sufficient weight. Indeed, the action plan deals with prisoners at risk of suicide and self-harm only while in custody. It does not expressly cover those in the community or therefore show an adequate appreciation of the need to view this sentence holistically. if one is ever to stand a chance of reducing these self-inflicted deaths. The action plan could be significantly improved by doing so.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Burt for this short debate and all who have spoken in it so far. We should remind ourselves, as she did, that the work we are doing here is subsequent to the abolition of IPP in 2012. We are dealing with the cases of people who were sentenced between 2005 and 2012. As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, has just outlined, tremendous hurt has been done to those people. There are now some 240 IPP prisoners in mental health institutions, and the hopelessness of this regime has led to 86 prisoners taking their own lives. We, the state, are responsible for this inhumane treatment. In many cases, it is psychological torture. Basically, this is an unjust system; that is now agreed across all parts of this House, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, but the solutions to the problem are proving more difficult to grasp.
Action plans in the past were criticised because they did not have clear strategic priority, ownership, detail, timeframes and performance measures. The scheme as we see it now, refreshed, has led to reductions in the numbers serving sentences but the new plan will not mean an end to these sentences altogether, and the timeframe for the reduction in numbers is still slow. That is, in great part, as a result of resource implications and issues.
As my noble friend Lady Burt has said, there is limited scope for proper preparation for reintegration into society more generally. A member of the Parole Board who has served on it for 12 years said that he had
“seen the difficulties that hopelessness and the lack of opportunity to reform brings to people—some people have got worse in prison because of that”.
Lack of hope due to a limited light at the end of the tunnel is causing these problems.
It is very difficult for IPP offenders to engage in rehabilitation opportunities. This is made worse by the capacity issues in prisons, as my noble friend Lady Burt pointed out. On recall, both my noble friend and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, pointed to the dramatic increase in the recall procedure to show that it is not getting better quickly.
Members have raised numerous questions on the current action plan, as has the Prison Reform Trust. I can sum up those questions in two that encompass what the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan said. What do the Government believe will be the measure of success with the current action plan? What will the numbers and expectations of successful outcomes look like? We need an answer to those questions. We need to find the resource for progression panels inside the institutions, so that we can work properly to give people a route out.
I know that I have only a few minutes to touch on resentencing. In that time, I will refer to the letter the Government received from the Justice Committee which points out that they never committed to introducing measures that would lead to people being released who were dangerous to the community. It lists in some detail what the proposals were. Will the Government commit in this Parliament to looking afresh at this matter, in light of the view of the Justice Committee and that letter? Will they, as a minimum, seek advice from an expert group as recommended in the committee’s letter?
We in this Parliament are useful in developing legislation. The Government may be concerned about bringing forward further legislation but, if there is a genuine concern, I assure the Minister that we on these Benches will support him to deal with this matter. Any resulting legislation would bring this miserable problem to a satisfactory end.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for bringing forward this Question for Short Debate. It follows a very good debate on the Private Member’s Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, and we can focus on this important issue again. I spoke in that debate at some length but I have limited time today, so I hope the Committee will forgive me if I do not repeat the points I made then.
We know the essential points. It is a long-standing issue and a real injustice. As has been said by a number of people, it is a stain on our justice system. Improvements have been made, yes, but more needs to be done. As my noble friend Lord Moylan said, we all want to make things better, especially the officials, and a lot of work has been done. I have to say, though, I am not convinced. I recognise the passion and commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick, on this but I am not persuaded that comparisons with President Assad will necessarily advance the debate.
I hope the coughs we can hear are medical and not Whips’ coughs at this point. HMPPS’s report, which came out on 15 November, is very interesting. I would like to pick up a few points and I should make clear that because of pressure on my time I have not been able to give the Minister advance notice of these points. I am happy to have a letter in response and do not expect a detailed oral response.
On page three of the report, it says that HMPPS expects to see, as we all want, the number of IPP prisoners
“in prisons and the community”
—those on licence—reduced. Well, yes, but it is a little more complex than that. Do we want to reduce the numbers in prison, even if that also means increasing the numbers on licence in the community? Again, yes, so we may see the numbers on licence go up as a consequence of numbers in prison going down. Equally, we do not want to reduce the number of those in the community if they have been recalled to prison. We need to look at these figures carefully and not just in totality.
As my noble friend Lord Moylan asked, what is our aim here? What are we trying to do? I suggest that there must be an irreducible number of IPP prisoners, no doubt because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, said, the state’s actions have, I am afraid, probably made some of these people un-releasable. I will not get into the resentencing debate today but we have seen in the data a significant decrease in oral review hearings before the Parole Board: there were 1,317 of them in 2018-19 but only 792 in 2022-23. That is a drop of 40%. The rate of release at those hearings has remained constant, so one of the reasons why we are getting fewer prisoners out is that we are having fewer hearings. Why is that? Is it because prisoners with difficult cases are not being brought forward, or is there some other reason?
The second point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, was about the number of re-releases following a recall. Prisoners are now spending nearly two and a half years in prison after a recall; I am concerned that that makes them very hard to release thereafter, once they are back in the prison system. Is this because there are fewer review hearings taking place? Are those two points connected? I suspect that they might be.
In the 30 seconds I have before the coughing starts, I want to make one last point; it concerns the number of IPP prisoners later convicted of a serious further offence. The report says that this is rare—less than 0.5%—but those are the prisoners out on licence. I am interested in the number of prisoners reoffending after their licence is terminated. We know that the reoffending rate in our criminal justice system generally is significant. I would be interested to receive—I have asked for this before but I still have not had it—a comparison between the general reoffending rate and the reoffending rate among IPP prisoners on release after their licence period. For comparison, I would also like to know the reoffending rate among prisoners whom the Government were happy to release early in the August scheme. Comparing those three points of data would be interesting.
To stave off any further coughs, I shall conclude my remarks at this point.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede) (Lab)
My Lords, this has undoubtedly been a powerful debate, with views expressed passionately. I have in front of me a reasonably lengthy speech in which I will address most of the points made today; if I do not answer of the questions asked, I will of course write to noble Lords.
I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for her opening remarks and for securing this debate. The issue of the IPP sentence is one that continues to generate immense debate across the whole House; indeed, many of the noble Lords who have spoken in today’s debate have been pivotal in ensuring some of the significant steps forward that have been taken already. The Government recognise the obstacles still faced by those serving IPP sentences, especially the 2,694 prisoners who, as at the end of September, remain in prison.
It is pleasing—and, as I say, to the great credit of many in the House—that the first phase of the changes to the IPP licence period in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 have now been implemented. As noble Lords will know, the introduction of the automatic licence termination period has led to the end of the IPP sentence for 1,742 people who were on licence in the community up until commencement on 1 November this year; I well remember working with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on those amendments when the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, was in the opposite chair, if I can put it like that. The Government recognise, however, that this does not immediately change the circumstances for those still serving the IPP sentence in prison, and that there is more still to do in order to support these offenders to take the necessary steps towards being cleared as safe for release by the independent Parole Board.
Before I go any further, I am aware that many noble Lords will be familiar with the IPP sentence; however, some may not, including some listening from outside, so I will provide a brief overview before turning to the question at hand. The IPP sentence was first introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 as a means of managing high-risk individuals who had been convicted of serious specified violent or sexual offences. The Act was amended in 2008 to give the courts discretion to impose an IPP sentence provided the tariff was at least two years, or the offender was convicted, at any time, of an offence under Schedule 15A of the Act—top-end violent and sexual offences were incorporated within that.
The Government are clear that it was absolutely right to abolish the IPP sentence, and we are determined to do all we can to support the remaining IPP offenders to finish their sentences. At the time of abolition, there were more than 6,000 offenders serving an IPP sentence in custody. Since then, a substantial number have been released on licence. As of September this year, 1,095 IPP prisoners are in prison having never been released, and a further 1,599 are in prison having been recalled to custody as their risk could not be safely managed in the community. It is right that the release of any IPP prisoner is subject to a thorough risk assessment and that the prisoner will be released only when the independent Parole Board determines that the prisoner’s risk is now capable of being effectively managed in the community on licence.
Legislating to give every IPP prisoner a definite release date and post-release licence, or legislating to provide for resentencing by a court, would result in them being released irrespective of their remaining risk. This would be the case even where the Parole Board had previously determined, in many cases repeatedly, that they continue to be too dangerous to be released, as they have failed to meet the statutory release test. Either legislative approach would put the public at an unacceptable risk of harm, which the Government are not prepared to countenance for any IPP prisoner through any partial resentencing.
The IPP annual report, published on 15 November, covers the period up to the end of March this year but also includes the latest version of the HMPPS IPP action plan for this current financial year. The plan puts a greater emphasis on effective front-line delivery in our prisons, challenging HMPPS operational leaders to ensure that each IPP prisoner has the right sentence plan and access to the right interventions, programmes or rehabilitative services to reduce their risk of reoffending. This is the best way to move them closer to being deemed safe to be released by the Parole Board.
Where these core fundamentals are in place, IPP prisoners can make progress towards release, provided they continue to engage fully with HMPPS staff working with them. The Government are determined to achieve this, including ensuring that HMPPS delivers effective sentence planning and timely prison transfers. As things stand, around 30% of IPP prisoners are not in a prison that can deliver the requirements of their sentence plans. The action plan, and particularly the effective delivery of the workstream that focuses on operational delivery on the ground, are the vehicle through which this situation must and will improve. Let me be very clear that we believe that these key actions will be the bedrock of significant improvements to the support and prospects of IPP prisoners. These are: the right plan, the right place, the right service and the right support for each offender.
The Government are determined to make the necessary progress on this issue. My noble friend Lord Timpson, the Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, has met many key stakeholders and is building a deeper understanding of HMPPS governance for overseeing the delivery of the plan. Just last week, he attended the external stakeholder challenge group, and he knows that stakeholders will continue to hold HMPPS and the Government to account. My noble friend remains passionate about this work and will be attending the IPP Progression Board next week to engage with the senior leaders at HMPPS who are responsible for delivery of the action plan. He has already spent significant time with staff across HMPPS, and I know that he is extremely positive about the high quality of leaders and staff, both operationally and centrally, and their huge commitment to deliver effective work to better the prospects of offenders.
The refreshed plan is made up of nine workstreams covering required actions relating to operational delivery, policy and analysis. This includes important policies, such as a new one on progressive prison transfers for indeterminate sentence prisoners, published on 14 November, which provides, for the first time, a formal set of requirements designed to ensure the smooth progress of prisoners to access the required interventions they need. This is important, as it means that where an identified next step is agreed with the prisoner and those who manage their case, the necessary actions to transfer them to the new location can happen swiftly and with care about the inevitable disruption such moves can create for individual offenders.
The refreshed plan also includes the expansion of psychology services through the prison gate for some of the more complex cases. This means additional support for both the offender, for example, through bespoke one-to-one support sessions, and the probation officer in their management of the case. This level of continuity from the prison into the community is important in providing effective support during those often challenging early stages for offenders following release.
The refreshed plan includes a quarterly review of progress for all detention for public protection cases in prison who were convicted prior to their 18th birthday. This review ensures that the offender’s progress remains on track, which means that they have an up-to-date plan and are engaging with it in the right prison. Where there are any concerns identified, appropriate action is taken to try to address them. The refreshed plan includes continuous improvement of the internal IPP data dashboard, which gives HMPPS operational leaders important information about the progress of their specific cohorts. It includes prioritising IPP prisoners for important regular keywork sessions and sentence management activity in times of high resource demand pressure across our prisons.
Health plays a vital role and, sadly, we see some cases where health or mental health issues can impede a person’s ability to progress. These issues must be treated, and I am pleased that the Chief Medical Officer has agreed to the Lord Chancellor’s request to consider the IPP sentence as part of his independent review of offender health. This will help us better to understand the specific health challenges faced by those serving the sentence and enable us to work with the Department for Health and Social Care to improve the support available to them.
HMPPS is taking the IPP issue very seriously at every level of the service, notwithstanding that we are making progress against a backdrop of well-known prison capacity issues and the huge strain on staff resources to implement the necessary measures to tackle it. It is important that we allow the action plan, and particularly the front-line-facing operational delivery plans, a chance to bed in before we review their progress in March next year. I assure noble Lords that if at any point it is clear that more needs to be done, we will review all options to enhance the level and type of support delivered to IPP prisoners even further and take decisive action to deliver any which we believe will make a difference.
Finally, it is important that this review of progress also leads to the setting up of clear measures of success in the next version of the action plan. We will use the review of the current plan early next year to identify those measures and benchmarks against which we can all gauge future progress. These will be shared as part of the next annual report and updated action plan, which will be laid in Parliament before the Summer Recess.
The Government’s priority continues to be the protection of the public, but I hope that noble Lords can see that we also remain fully committed to doing all we can to support the safe progression of those serving IPP sentences. I look forward to updating the House on the progress that I am confident the action plan will achieve in the next IPP annual report next year.
Let me repeat my gratitude to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and address some of the points made. First, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked how many IPP prisoners will never be released. Obviously, I cannot give him a number for that, but I can say that we apply a red, amber, green rating to prisoners currently on an IPP sentence and, at present, around one-quarter have a red rating, which means they are not engaging with services within prison at all. I think that answers his question. I shall sit down now and will write to noble Lords on any questions I have failed to answer.