European Convention on Human Rights: Protocol 12

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

The way that I will answer my noble friend is by saying that we continue to keep the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Protocol 12 under review, but we remain unconvinced of the benefits of ratification. The United Kingdom is not an outlier in this regard. The protocol was open for signature nearly 25 years ago, yet fewer than half the member states of the Council of Europe have ratified it. Nevertheless, I take the noble Lord’s opening point that we need to keep these matters under review. There are indeed widespread attacks on democracy and our way of life across the world, and that reinforces the Government’s view about keeping these matters under review.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, if the Government are not yet prepared to sign up to Protocol 12, will they give a commitment to address the rights and protections afforded by the Equality Act—all the rights and protections—ensuring that all the protected characteristics are equally enforced and protected, especially in light of the confusing and confused narratives around the recent Supreme Court judgment?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I say to my noble friend that I think the Supreme Court judgment made the situation clearer, not less clear. The nine protected characteristics within the Equality Act are all important in themselves. It is within the Equality Act that gender reassignment is recognised. People who are trans and who have gender recognition certificates have protected characteristics, and it is for the courts to work out in due course how those will manifest themselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

The fact of the matter is that we are seeing the law develop in these areas. We have had the Supreme Court judgment. I and the Government believe that the Equality Act is working well, and there will be development in law in this matter going forward. It is also right that there is very little common law associated with Protocol 12 for those states that have signed up to it. So, as I said, the Government are keeping an eye on this matter, but at present they do not believe that it is right to sign up to Protocol 12.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Government then give a commitment to bring forward, as a matter of urgency, proposals outlined in the Labour manifesto and based on the Law Commission’s recommendations to widen hate crime law, including a widening on aggravated offences?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My noble friend will know that relevant Bills are coming to the House of Lords imminently. There are various provisions in those that are widening the protection of victims. On hate crime law, there are various measures in the Bills within that. But, if my noble friend wants to make specific suggestions, she is welcome to approach me as these Bills come forward to the House of Lords.

Police, Prison and Probation Officers

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I will pass that question on to the Northern Ireland Secretary responsible for legacy issues and write to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are clearly taking all the issues across the criminal justice system very seriously, but does my noble friend agree that there is a slight risk that not everything will be dealt with entirely coherently? Does he agree with the many voices in this Chamber and beyond that what is really needed is a royal commission on the whole criminal justice system, as promised by the last Government but not delivered?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

We are a Government of action and I am a Minister of action, and I am already getting going. For me, it is really important that we have had the Independent Sentencing Review, which I hope we will be talking about shortly, and the Leveson review is ongoing. Those are significant reviews, and we will implement those reforms quickly.

Prison Maintenance: Insourcing

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

It is vital that, when people are in prison, they are in purposeful activity and not in their cells, so we are putting a lot of effort into getting more people out of their cells for longer. We have still got an awful lot more to do. We have too many prisons for the workshop and educational spaces that we have. The New Futures Network, with which I have been involved for many years, has been very successful in increasing the amount of people who get jobs on release from prison. Three years ago, 14% of people who left prison had a job after six months, and it is now over 30%.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on the work that he is doing. I hope he agrees with me that powerful voices, including the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and the Justice Committee in the other place, have highlighted how costs have soared while conditions have crumbled in prisons since privatisation. I hope that the Minister will take very seriously both the value for money question and the urgent need to consider insourcing—that is, having public maintenance of prisons.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

It is vital that the Government are led by the evidence and deliver value for money for the taxpayer. HMPPS has worked closely with the Cabinet Office to undertake a detailed assessment of prison maintenance requirements and how best to deliver them—I have even read all 175 pages of it. While they consider insourcing, the current evidence indicates that the private sector is best placed to provide a safe and decent estate, supported by effective maintenance that delivers value for money. I am continually monitoring performance and will keep my mind open to the best future options.

Prisons: Imprisonment for Public Protection

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Grand Committee

[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.

Imprisonment for Public Protection (Re-sentencing) Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, my contribution to this important debate, as part of the “odd bunch” mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, will be brief. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Woodley on bringing this Bill to your Lordships’ House and on his remarkable speech.

During the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Act, there were many well-informed and impassioned speeches on IPP prisoners from all sides of the House, as there have been this morning. Many speeches referenced the remarks of a previous Lord Chancellor that the continuing situation of IPPs was a “stain” on our criminal justice system. We know this, given the levels of mental distress, self-harm and suicide among IPP prisoners. As many have said, hope has been extinguished from their lives. I hope that my own MP, Andy Slaughter, as the chair of the Justice Committee in the other place, will urge action on this.

I wish to make two brief points. First, significant voices have been raised to say that a resentencing exercise is the only fair and just way of dealing with the situation for IPP prisoners. These voices include Dr Alice Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, and the House of Commons Justice Committee report in 2022, which described the IPP sentence as “irredeemably flawed”. The committee proposed in this Bill would provide the structure and parameters to ensure that an effective and fair way forward could be found for dealing with this situation.

Secondly, talk from Governments—both the previous Government and, regrettably, up until now, the current Government—about resentencing not being appropriate abjectly fails to recognise and accept that it is the state that has extinguished hope in these prisoners. The state must therefore act to restore hope and address the most egregious of injustices. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to say something about this in his response.

My noble friend Lord Woodley has done this House, this Government and this justice system a service in bringing forward this Bill. I wish it speedy passage to the statute book. I look forward to voting for the helpful amendments which will come forward in Committee.

Public Libraries

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, many of us will be aware of the work of Zadie Smith, who attributes much of her success to the time she spent in Willesden public library in her somewhat less privileged younger days. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty: wonderful though volunteers are, every library should have the service of a fully qualified librarian.

In this country, it is required that every prison has a library; it is not required that every school has a library, and it should be. I thoroughly endorse the recommendation of a library laureate—I would suggest Zadie Smith or Michael Rosen, but I am sure there are other good candidates—to advocate for school libraries as well as public libraries to ensure reading for pleasure among all our young people.