Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to all the amendments in this group, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and so well presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.

While I have made my feelings clear on many occasions on just how egregious the treatment of all IPP prisoners has been, the situation for individuals sentenced as children has been arguably even more cruel and wrong. As I understand it, there are 85 people currently serving an IPP sentence that was handed down when they were children and some were of a very young age.

The teen years are such a formative time, and of the 85 remaining—who are now all adults—they have arguably had the worst start in life; 36 of them have never been released. What chance have they got of adjusting back into whatever might pass as a normal life? The only upside of this is that, because there are not that many of them, more time and attention can therefore be focused on fitting them for release.

According to the Prison Reform Trust, there is a window in which people typically develop the support and inner resources to desist from crime. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has said, this unfortunate cohort is rapidly passing that window, which means that giving them the maximum possible support as quickly as possible is vital.

Amendment 155 would halve the qualifying period in which other statutory provisions for children become spent. Amendment 162 would give heavier support to DPPs who are unsuccessful in staying on parole or getting released at all. My worry about changing sentence planning reviews from annually to quarterly, however, is that if nothing has happened it might devalue the relevance of the review and dishearten the prisoner.

Amendment 163 would halve the time between referrals for consideration by the Parole Board to one year, which I heartily commend. The issue for me is the cost in financial and human resources, to which the Minister might want to refer. The only upside of this concentrated help is the fact that there are not many DPPs in terms of the overall cost that is being expended on IPP prisoners.

If these young people are to have a real chance, they need the help now, while their mind and their development can still be receptive to another way of living their life.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to add a few words to what has already been said about Amendments 162 and 163 devised by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. The really important part of Amendment 162 is in proposed new subsection (2), which would set out in statute the aim of the convenor of these planning meetings. It states that they are taking place

“with a view to ensuring that all possible steps are taken to enable their safe release at the earliest possible time”.

Those words emphasise the purpose of the reviews and therefore enhance the care that would be taken to conduct them by the Secretary of State.

As far as Amendment 163 is concerned, the first part of it is already the existing law. It says that for

“a person serving a sentence of detention for public protection, the Secretary of State must refer his case to the Parole Board … after he has served the relevant part of his sentence”.

That is a tariff and is already standing practice. What is new is the proposal that the Secretary of State must refer a person’s case to the Parole Board,

“where there has been a previous reference of his case to the Board, no later than the period of one year beginning with the disposal of that reference”.

The emphasis in both these amendments is on the regularity of reviews. When I was Lord Justice General, I saw this working well in my visits to the Parole Board. As I mentioned earlier, there are files prepared that have to be examined in detail, but the Parole Board appointed a particular member to take on a particular case, so that each time it came up for review, the member could reinforce what was in the files by explaining his or her own view of what was taking place and, as time went on, reinforce it by previous discussions. In that way, continuity was provided to the whole process.

Each board will have its own method of dealing with it, but the structure of what is provided by these two amendments provides a basis on which the Parole Board can exercise its views with a view to achieving what is set out in proposed new subsection (2) in Amendment 162, ensuring that all possible steps are taken to ensure safe release at the earliest possible time.

Employment of People with Criminal Convictions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Burt of Solihull]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage businesses to employ people with criminal convictions.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to say that the rate of prison leavers in employment six months after release almost doubled in the two years to March 2023, from 14% to over 30%. New Futures Network, the Prison Service’s specialist employment team, runs quarterly recruitment drives. These national campaigns have seen more than 200 employers and partners working with HMPPS to deliver more than 230 events in prison. Several other measures support the Government’s drive to get former prisoners into work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I know—because I told him about it this morning—that the Minister is aware of the ban the box campaign to do away with the criminal convictions tick box on job application forms so that applicants can be assessed on their skills before their past mistakes. We know that work after prison dramatically reduces reoffending rates and helps to create a safer society. It helps companies to access a rich talent pool, yet three-quarters of them discriminate against applicants with convictions, excluding millions of jobseekers from the market. I thank the Minister for agreeing to look into this campaign, led by the charity Business in the Community, to see how the Government might support it.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, as your Lordships know, under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 the Government have been progressively reducing the need to disclose previous convictions, particularly in relation to community sentences and sentences of under four years, and now even some non-violent sentences of over four years can be regarded as spent. As the noble Baroness has said, the ban the box campaign run by Business in the Community, which comprises more than 150 employers covering over 1 million roles, asks employers to delay the point at which applicants are asked to tick a box on and give details about any criminal convictions so that they can expose their skills at interview before any disclosure of convictions is made, if such disclosure is still required.

The Government are very pleased to commend the work of Business in the Community, which has now led the ban the box campaign for several years. In 2021 it passed the milestone of covering more than 1 million roles, and as long ago as 2016 the Government signed up to it for the Civil Service. The noble Baroness rightly identifies that this is a very important initiative. Increasing rates of employment on release from prison is very important, and the Government will continue to support the initiative.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, in the main I welcome the measures introduced in Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the Bill, with provisos. While I welcome the enforcement of the victims’ code in law, it needs to have sharper teeth by requiring the measuring and monitoring of service levels—otherwise, how can we know whether agencies are complying?

I heard the Minister’s arguments about transparency in his opening remarks, but the charity Victim Support found that as many as six in 10 victims do not currently receive their rights under the victims’ code. Improving enforcement rates will need adequate funding. What additional resources will be allocated to ensure that the code is enforced?

There is a narrative running through the Bill to empower and protect victims and give them more of a say—but not all victims. The Government are leaving out two or arguably three classes of victim. According to the Centre for Women’s Justice, more than half the women in prison or under community sentences are themselves victims who have been coerced in some way into crime, as so ably described by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle. I expect the Committee stage to involve amendments to ensure a new statutory defence for victims: that the victim was made to or pressured to commit certain offences.

The second group of victims are victims of human trafficking and other migrants who fear to report abuse to the police because, according to research by the Victims’ Commissioner, every single police force in England and Wales had passed on data to Immigration Enforcement. If the Government truly mean it when they say that no victim of domestic violence should be fearful of coming forward, they must erect a firewall, as several Peers have said today—otherwise, the most vulnerable victims will continue to suffer.

There is much more to say about victims, but time does not permit because I want to move on to Part 4 of the Bill, which I do not agree with. The victim protection theme continues, in that public safety is made paramount. Indeed, the thrust of the Bill concerns not prisoners but protecting the public against them and, apparently out of sheer vindictiveness, punishing some of them to the extent of contravening the convention on human rights, which should be for everyone. For example, why rob the whole life tariff prisoner of the right to marry or form a civil partnership? It boils down to the medieval concept of “civic death”, like the fact that we continue to flout the convention by not allowing prisoners to vote. If you have committed a severe crime, been found out and punished with imprisonment, you become a non-person—your stake in society is lost. Taking away the right to marry from whole life tariff prisoners is vindictive, especially, as I learned only today, because it appears to be based on just one case. If the Minister believes it is not vindictive, let him explain why in his concluding remarks or write to me.

The new right for the Secretary of State to refer release decisions for so-called top-tier prisoners to an Upper Tribunal or High Court is better than the Secretary of State, a politician, making that decision, but best of all would be to allow the Parole Board to make all release decisions, as recommended by the Law Society. After all, that is what it is there for. According to the Howard League, referral to another level will bring further delay and uncertainty. Why not just let the Parole Board do its job?

Finally, I want to talk about indeterminate-sentence prisoners, who are arguably victims in their own right since almost all have now been forced to overstay their original tariff and 85% have served more than 10 years over tariff, according to the charity UNGRIPP. While I welcome the measure to introduce a new right for IPPs to be eligible for release from licence after three years, the Bill still fails to deal with the 1,312 IPP prisoners who have never been released, and possibly never will, because they are deemed to be unsafe to the public. Last week the Justice Secretary said at an all-party group meeting that these prisoners are likely never to be released, so that is why the Justice Committee’s recommended re-sentencing programme could not be adopted, but what sentences were given for similar cases before and after the advent of IPP prisoners? Surely that is exactly why they should be re-sentenced. The Crown is holding out the false hope of release for these poor people, year after miserable year. The UN special rapporteur on torture, Dr Alice Jill Edwards, argued that we

“must reject the misleading public safety arguments against reviewing these unfair sentences and review all such sentences. Locking people up—and in effect throwing away the keys—is not a solution legally or morally”.

I do not accept the Government’s argument against re-sentencing, and I never will.

Prison Capacity

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that a comparative study of the kind my noble friend mentions would certainly be a valuable exercise. I remember some years ago the former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, went on a community service course. He pretended he was a convicted solicitor and turned up on a Saturday morning with other people. I think he came away somewhat perplexed by the complexity of organising community service. You need quite a lot of intensive resources, and, as the noble Baroness pointed out a moment ago, it is quite expensive and difficult to do. Everybody thinks it is a good thing, but how we deliver it is for further discussion.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, in the spirit of helpfulness, I wonder if I can help the Minister with his overcrowding problem. As the Statement said, there remain about 3,000 prisoners who have been sentenced to indeterminate sentences—a sentence that was abolished over 10 years ago. The Minister’s announcement in the Statement that there will be a cutting of the licence period for IPPs—a recommendation of the Justice Committee—is very welcome. Could the Minister cut the numbers on the prison estate much further if he implemented the main recommendation of the Justice Committee report to resentence those 3,000 people who are suffering the daily torture of uncertainty, not knowing when their prison sentence will end? Could the Minister look at that during the Victims and Prisoners Bill?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, it is the Government’s position, as I have set out, that the resentencing exercise is not the answer. All the prisoners of which we speak are there because the Parole Board deems them unsafe for release. The Lord Chancellor’s Statement mentions the possibility of some fairly drastic reforms to the licence period. I am sure we will return to that, and to the point of the noble Baroness, in more detail when the Victims and Prisoners Bill reaches this House.

Miscarriages of Justice

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the functioning of the Criminal Cases Review Commission—its resources, its governance and the test it applies—will be considered in the context of the Law Commission’s current review. The Government would like to thank the Westminster Commission in particular, in which my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier and the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, participated, for its work on that. It is of interest, and the Government look forward to hearing the Law Commission’s response to these difficult matters.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, a grave injustice, which should have been rectified years ago but continues to this day, is the failure to end imprisonment of the nearly 3,000 IPP prisoners. Following on from the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, the number of such prisoners being recalled has now overtaken those being released. The Justice Secretary himself recently described imprisonment for public protection as

“a stain on our justice system”.

The Conservative chair of the Justice Committee recommends resentencing as the only way to end this. Will the Minister look favourably at amendments to this effect when they are considered during the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Bill?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, on IPP prisoners, the Government have responded to the Select Committee report by promulgating a very detailed action plan alongside a review by the Chief Inspector of Probation of the criteria and operation of the processes of recall. The Government will further consider the matter during the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. This is very difficult because, unlike cases of people who are unfairly convicted, these persons have been fairly convicted; the only reason they are in prison is that the Parole Board does not consider them safe to release.

Imprisonment for Public Protection Action Plan

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on securing this debate. The Government’s response and action plan are

“as shoddy a response as I have ever seen to a Select Committee report”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/4/23; col. 444WH.]

Those are not my words but those of Sir Bob Neill, the Conservative chair of the Justice Select Committee, which produced the original report.

I was delighted with the JSC’s report. It was thorough, facts-based and bold. To use the word of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, it was moral. It really took care to think about the people it was talking about. As we know, the main recommendation was to conduct a resentencing exercise, informed by an expert panel, to end the mental torment that IPP prisoners face. Sir Bob said that resentencing would

“give certainty to everybody and give hope”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/5/23; col. 605.]

Within the first four weeks since the publication of the Government’s response, three IPP prisoners have already committed suicide. We have heard about the mental fragility from which these people are suffering. I am not saying that the publication of the response caused these deaths directly, but it has certainly done nothing to lift the general feeling of hopelessness. Nothing has been done to stem the increasing self-harm, suicide and deteriorating mental health of this cohort.

Amazingly, there is no acknowledgement throughout the whole government response of the damage being done to these prisoners—the whole system is conspiring to make them less able to achieve release and make a success of their lives, if and when they are eventually released. I am tired of making the same depressing points, both in debates and during the passage of the police Bill. Is it not the truth that there are no votes in making the lives of IPP prisoners possible, or in giving them justice, hope and an end in sight?

My noble friend Lord McNally commented during the police Bill that the progress of IPP prisoners was being foiled by a series of Catch-22s. Catch-22 was read recently on the radio. The main character, Yossarian, is an American World War II fighter pilot. Every time he reaches his target number of missions to be allowed home, the target is increased or the rules are changed. When he feigns insanity, he makes the mistake of saying that he does not want to die. He is declared sane because that is the decision of a sane man.

The Catch-22 for IPP prisoners works like this. We set out a route for IPP prisoners to work towards release and then we block the path. We say that they need to attend various courses, then we ensure that those courses are either rare or not available at all. We do not put the resources in to provide a path to jump through the hoops that we set. We make them wait endlessly for Parole Board hearings and, of course, we do not give the Parole Board the resources to do its job in a timely and effective manner. We give these prisoners a possible route out through open conditions. When, against the odds, the Parole Board recommends them for open conditions, the Secretary of State blocks their path. I asked the Minister earlier why currently fewer than one in six Parole Board recommendations for transfer to open conditions go through. Apparently, the Secretary of State can do what he likes and override the Parole Board, even if it deems a prisoner fit.

The final Catch 22, and arguably the cruellest, is that when we finally release a prisoner, having not prepared them properly, with insufficient resources, we expect them to instantly behave as law-abiding citizens after all they have been through. And, need you ask, we have underfunded the probation service so they cannot properly be supervised, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, mentioned. Any infringement of parole terms, such as loss of accommodation, attracts a recall, so we put them and their families through it all again. It is a bit like a cat playing with a mouse—or, as the JSC calls it, the “recall merry-go-round”. It is not so merry for the victims and their families.

My rant over, I have two questions for the Minister, who I know does care. I expect he will not be able to answer them both. I would love to know, under this excuse for an action plan, how long the Government think it could be before the last IPP prisoner changes their status to release or other circumstances under the current rules. I know the Minister cares but I suspect that his political masters do not. I bet he will also not be able to tell me what additional finite resources will be devoted to enacting this plan, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, asked. Without resources, nothing will change, and the Catch 22 will continue for ever.

Parole Board Recommendations: Open Conditions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Burt of Solihull]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what proportion of Parole Board recommendations for prisoners to be transferred to open conditions were accepted by the Secretary of State for Justice from January to March; and on what grounds such recommendations can be rejected.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)]

My Lords, the Question refers to the transfer of a life or other indeterminate sentence prisoner to an open prison. That is an operational decision for the Secretary of State. He is not obliged to follow the Parole Board’s advice but will take it into account. From January to March 2023, the Secretary of State considered 90 recommendations by the Parole Board for a prisoner to be moved to open prison. The Secretary of State accepted 14 recommendations and rejected 76.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, it is an old saying in Parliament, “Never ask a question of a Minister unless you know the answer already”, and I read with interest the Minister’s response to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, on 27 April. The figure that the noble and learned Lord has quoted is less than one in six referrals from the Parole Board, and I cannot get my head around how small it is. The Minister outlines the criteria to be taken into consideration, but the Parole Board making the recommendation will surely know what criteria the Government are going on. What is the point in it keeping on making referrals if the Secretary of State is not going to listen?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I think I should clarify that this particular advisory function of the Parole Board has no statutory basis. It dates historically to the time when the Parole Board was part of the Home Office. The Parole Board has no operational responsibility for the safety and security of the open estate, nor for the rehabilitation of prisoners, nor for the categorisation of which prisoners are suitable for which prisons. In June 2022, the Secretary of State adopted new criteria for the transfer of prisoners to open prisons and unfortunately, in the Secretary of State’s view, those criteria have not been fully followed by the Parole Board’s advice. Those decisions by the Secretary of State can of course be challenged in the courts.

Prisons: Education

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to improving the statistics in this area, and I will investigate whether we can publish that further information.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, the best education in the world, public or private, is useless if there are not the staff there to enable prisoners to get out of their cells to receive it. But if they could, the education service has been carved up by just four main providers, and governors have little or no say in who delivers education in their prisons. The House of Commons Education Committee report has already been mentioned. What are the Government going to do about this issue?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

Staffing levels are a continuing problem, but full-time equivalent prison officers have increased by 3,677 between 2016 and December 2022; it now stands at 21,632. In the Government’s view, there is no problem with the quality of our existing providers. The challenges of prison education are evident to all, and the Government are doing their best to tackle them.

Prisons: Chaplaincy Service

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, when deciding on the policy of the Prison and Probation Service with regards to its pastoral service, the views of all faiths should be taken into account. I was surprised to learn from my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon, that this is sometimes not the case. I sincerely hope that the Government take these views into account and look into this matter urgently.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I can give the noble Lord the assurance that he seeks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the Government can point with some pride to a fall in reoffending rates in recent years and an extensive programme of recruitment for not only prison staff but the probation service. In terms of the discussion today, which is about chaplaincy, we look forward to greater involvement of chaplains in sentencing planning, resettlement planning and the steps taken when prisoners are released to ensure that their release is successful and that they do not reoffend.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for my earlier overenthusiasm. Prison chaplaincy provides a very valuable pastoral and counselling service for all prisoners and staff in the Prison Service. Chaplains are forbidden from proselytising and have a general responsibility to help all who seek help and advice. However, given that according to the 2021 census 37% of the population have no faith at all, has the time not now come for non-religious pastoral carers to be included in the new chaplaincy, faith and belief forum?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, it is the Government’s intention to see that that happens.

Rape: Prosecutions and Support

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I will certainly do my best to accommodate the noble and learned Lord.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, many victims of rape are reluctant to follow through on prosecutions because they need medical and other care, and they want to be believed. A report from over 20 years ago by a policeman whom we may know, one Brian Paddick, and the academic Betsy Stanko, led to the establishment of sexual assault referral centres across England. But this year, an NHS survey found that 72% of victims are unaware that this support is available. If more victims knew about and used these centres, would more successful prosecutions not follow?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are making every effort to increase support for victims of rape and sexual assault. We now have a 24/7 helpline, as I said, have increased recruitment of ISVAs—independent sexual violence advisers—and the rape support fund is £21 million this year. So I hope we will be able to address the point the noble Baroness raised, of which I take good note.