Baroness Porter of Fulwood (Con)
My Lords, I welcome Amendment 148A. The Bill will shape the ecosystems of support that underpin and surround our entire justice system. A recurring theme through Second Reading and Committee so far has been the question of resourcing. While the focus of these discussions has been largely around the Probation Service itself, we cannot ignore the 1,700 community and voluntary organisations that work in this area, both inside and outside prisons.
We know that there are many aspects where community and voluntary organisations excel. There are some dimensions, the evidence shows, where they provide better than private companies or the public sector. They build social capital, enable trust and often have an understanding of vital contextual points related to specific communities or issues. I am sure any of us who have spent any substantial time volunteering and working closely with people in very vulnerable situations understand this dynamic.
In general, this sector in the UK is facing challenges on many fronts. The rise in national insurance, corporate giving stalling and increasing overheads across the board, combined with growing demand, are all contributing to what the National Council for Voluntary Organisations refers to as the year of the “big squeeze”. Clinks’ State of the Sector 2024 report makes for sobering reading, and that is the situation as things stand. If the vision that sits behind the Bill is to stand any chance of success, not only do we need to find a way to support and shore up the existing voluntary and community sector but we need to prioritise expanding its capacity and growing it.
That is more straightforward than it sounds. There is a remarkable level of agreement across organisations such as the Charities Aid Foundation, the Centre for Social Justice, Clinks and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, to name a few, about the kinds of policies that are needed. A lot of these are to do with processes: simplifying, contracting, commissioning locally and more collaboratively, introducing contract indexation and protecting local specialist funding. Others are about finding ways of attracting more private and corporate donations into the sector; for example, making changes to gift aid and introducing matched funding. Others, as the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee report Better Prisons: Less Crime highlighted, are practical points about how HMPPS and individual prisons can co-ordinate better with the third sector.
This amendment by itself is not an answer, but it is a prerequisite for bringing the level of transparency and accountability that is needed into this system. This provides a powerful opportunity, if used correctly. We need to understand in more detail the plan for addressing the impact of the Bill by requiring a formal report on its impact and on the capacity of the voluntary and community sector to meet any increased demand. This amendment will build accountability into the system.
If we fail to monitor the effects of this legislation on the very organisations that underpin rehabilitation and community safety, we risk creating new pressures in the system. By amending the Bill to provide for this assessment, the Government have the opportunity to send a clear signal here, demonstrating that they believe that policy should be informed by data and that the community and voluntary sector is a valued partner. This amendment would strengthen oversight, support the sector and ensure that the promises of the Bill are matched by the capacity of the community to deliver them.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord for the opportunity to discuss these important issues. I appreciate that these amendments seek to improve transparency and public understanding of the criminal justice system, and this Government agree wholeheartedly on the importance of open justice. However, we do not consider that these amendments are necessary to achieve that aim.
I turn first to Amendment 84. I reassure noble Lords that the Government are taking action to increase the openness and transparency of the system. In certain cases of high public interest, sentencing remarks are already published online, and sentencing remarks can also be filmed by broadcasters, subject to the agreement of the judge. The sentencing of Thomas Cashman for the appalling murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel was one such example. The Government have recently extended provision of free transcripts of sentencing remarks to victims of rape and other sexual offences whose cases are heard in the Crown Court, and it remains the case that bereaved families of victims of murder, manslaughter and fatal road offences can request judges’ sentencing remarks for free. We are also actively exploring opportunities offered by AI to reduce the costs of producing transcripts in future and to make transcripts across the system more accessible. But this amendment introducing this additional provision of court transcripts would place a significant financial burden on the courts and divert resources away from where they are needed most in the wider system.
The release of any court transcript requires judicial oversight to ensure accuracy and adherence to any reporting restrictions and to make sure that other public interest factors have been considered. This amendment would therefore have significant operational and resource implications for HMCTS and the judiciary. It would place extra demands on judicial capacity in the Crown Court and on HMCTS at a time when the system is under immense pressure, so while we agree entirely on the importance of transparency within the justice system, we cannot accept the amendment at this time. However, I reassure noble Lords that we will continue to consider this closely. In particular, I want to explore what opportunities AI presents to improve transcriptions and data. I am sure that noble Lords agree that the potential is there and that we need to find the best way to harness it. I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on the point around data and accuracy.
I turn to Amendment 85. Again, we agree with the principle of improving transparency but not with the necessity of the amendment itself. This Government are committed to improving the collection and publication of data on foreign national offenders. The Ministry of Justice has already taken action to increase transparency on the data published. Notably, in July, for the first time the offender management statistics included a breakdown of foreign national offenders in prison by sex and offence group. We are also working closely with colleagues in the Home Office to establish earlier identification of foreign national offenders. Being able to verify the nationality of offenders ahead of sentencing will facilitate more timely removals and may also provide an opportunity for enhanced data collection. We will keep this under review as part of our ongoing work to strengthen the data collection and publication system that we inherited from the previous Government.
Implementation of these measures may require a new mechanism to verify the information provided, which must be cost effective and prevent placing additional pressure on operational staff. For this reason, we cannot accept a statutory duty to publish this information before the necessary infrastructure is in place to support it. Our measured approach will continue to support the return of more foreign national offenders while ensuring maximum transparency for the public.
I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord for Amendment 148A concerning measuring the impact of the Bill on the voluntary and community sectors. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Porter of Fulwood, who has championed this subject during the Bill’s passage. She made a thoughtful and impassioned contribution at Second Reading and in today’s debate. The voluntary and community sector plays a vital role in developing and delivering services to people in our care. The sector supports HMPPS and the MoJ by bridging gaps and providing continuity that reduces reoffending and drives rehabilitation through targeted specialist support. Many of the services we provide would not be possible without the vital contribution of the voluntary sector, including charities such as Women in Prison, the St Giles Trust, PACT and many others. The Independent Sentencing Review made recommendations for where the third sector can be utilised to support the Probation Service and offenders on community sentences or on licence.
We already work closely with third-sector organisations to deliver better outcomes in the criminal justice system. For example, we work in partnership with the charity Clinks through the HMPPS and MoJ infrastructure grant to engage a network of around 1,500 organisations. In collaboration with Clinks, we have convened a series of roundtables with voluntary and community sector representatives and policy colleagues to explore the review’s recommendations and how the sector can make the greatest contribution to probation capacity.
I have carefully considered Amendment 148A. However, it will not be possible to fully understand the impact within 12 months, nor based just on data from the first six months of the Act being in force. Implementation of the Bill’s provisions will be phased over time and closely linked to the outcomes of the Leveson review and its implementation. In addition, the sector’s experience will be influenced by the introduction of new commissioned rehabilitative services contracts. Measuring the impact within such a short timeframe amid these overlapping and confounding factors would be highly complex. But again, I want to explore the opportunities that AI presents to collect and use better data in future. I can assure noble Lords that we will continue to work closely with the sector to ensure that it is considered and utilised in the implementation of this Bill.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken on this group. Their contributions have underscored the wide recognition across this Committee that transparency, accountability and evidence must underpin any credible approach to sentencing reform. These amendments do not seek to frustrate the Bill in any way; they seek to ensure that its objectives can be properly understood, monitored and delivered. Regarding Amendment 84, we have heard throughout this debate the importance of public confidence in the criminal justice system, and confidence cannot exist without visibility.
On Amendment 85, I once again make the simple point that you cannot manage what you do not measure. With respect to Amendment 148A, I too acknowledge the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Porter; her thoughtful and insightful contribution reflected her long-standing experience and interest in this issue. At this time, I withdraw the amendment, but I give notice to the Minister that we will return to this issue at a later point in the process of the Bill.