European Convention on Human Rights: Protocol 12

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

So I will write to the noble Lord about that. Nevertheless, my point stands: many other states have considered this and have not at present decided to sign the protocol. It is worth pointing out that none of the larger states within the European Union or the Council of Europe have signed it, either.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have a duty not just to protect people’s rights and freedoms but to promote public understanding of those rights and freedoms. So can my noble friend the Minister explain why this further innovation of a free-standing right against discrimination in Protocol 12—as opposed to a right against discrimination in the context of other convention rights, such as Article 14, which we are signed up to—would not benefit people, in the light of his comments that the Equality Act already does the trick?

[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.

Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th May 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

1: Clause 1, page 1, leave out lines 5 to 7 and insert—
“(4A) But sentencing guidelines may not require or prohibit the provision of a pre-sentence report by reference to an offender’s protected characteristics alone.”Member’s explanatory statement
This and other amendments in the name of Baroness Chakrabarti replace the reference in clause 1 to “different personal characteristics of an offender” with the tighter definition of “protected characteristics” in the Equality Act. It further restores some discretion to the Sentencing Council as long as guidelines do not require or prohibit pre-sentence reports on the basis of such characteristics alone.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I apologise to the Committee that I was not able to speak at Second Reading because I was unable to stay for the whole debate, but I attended a significant portion of it and I have read Hansard for the rest. I apologise as well that, subject to how long we are engaged in this Committee, I shall have to shuttle between the Moses Room and the Chamber for Committee on the Employment Rights Bill, where I also have amendments—no discourtesy is intended. Who knows, the Chair might give us a nod with her advice as to how business is going in the Chamber. We may have Divisions on the earlier business in the Chamber.

I take this opportunity to welcome my noble friend the Minister to his first Committee stage of a Bill. I am sad that this is the first Bill that he has had to grapple with. I should have liked a more auspicious Bill for him to begin with—but who knows? With the Gauke review to come, I still have high hopes for cross-party or non-party sensible approaches to sentencing, of a kind that I think we heard a little flavour of perhaps at Questions just now.

I have made no secret of the fact that I am not a fan of this Bill, either of the politics or the constitutionality of it, and I also have practical concerns about it. It is a real shame that this Bill came out of a soundbite war, essentially, about two-tier justice, and so on, which was really an extension of the appalling sights that we witnessed last summer. It is a shame that the Government felt it necessary to respond to less than thoughtful voices on all that, and it is a shame that they were unable to reach a sensible diplomatic resolution with the Sentencing Council.

Also, as a proud member of the governing party, I believe in a certain amount of affirmative action. Again, in this regard, I pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister. One reason why he is such an asset to the Government is that the Timpson brand, not just on the high street but in terms of penal reform, is such a well-respected brand, partly for its extraordinarily progressive experiment in a version of affirmative action, offering employment to people who otherwise would not get a look-in, for whom employment makes all the difference—that is, people who have been in custody. I pay all tribute to my noble friend and to his family.

The Labour Party has been a pioneer in affirmative action, with all-women shortlists and the idea that sometimes, to deal with entrenched discrimination and injustice, one has to tilt the dial and try to take some affirmative measures. In a nutshell, that is the spirit of the Lammy report. That is where I am coming from, without making the Second Reading speech that I did not make.

We are where we are, as many noble Lords said at Second Reading. So, in the spirit of good faith and attempting to improve the Bill, I have in my name Amendments 1, 5, 11 and 13 in this group, and I support all the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, and his colleagues, which I think are in the same spirit, attempting to minimise in particular any constitutional damage. Let us not throw the baby out with the bath water if we are concerned about perceptions of so-called two-tier justice; let us just get this right and make sure, of course, that people are being treated as individuals and not as ciphers for any particular group, but that their circumstances are also appropriately taken into account, which really is the whole point of a pre-sentence report in the first place.

First, in my Amendment 1, I take issue with the broad and quite vague concept of “personal characteristics” offered in the Bill and suggest that, if the Government are so concerned about this sloganistic perception of two-tiered justice, they should probably go to the tighter definitions in the Equality Act of protected characteristics on the one hand, but also not really clip the wings of the Sentencing Council too much: make sure the Sentencing Council does not clip the wings of individual sentencers on the one hand, and let individual sentencers make decisions about when they should and should not require a pre-sentence report. But this concept of personal characteristics is very vague.

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his letter of last week, but I think that relying on Strasbourg case law about Article 14 is really not the best approach in the context of domestic law. Not that I am not a great champion of the convention, you understand; there are criteria that are useful at that kind of international law level. But at the domestic level, we should be a bit more granular and precise. In the context of looking at convicted people as individual human beings and at sentencing as an exercise in looking at those individual human beings and at what will help with rehabilitation and preventing reoffending, this very broad, vague concept that is been adopted in the Bill is a mistake and is in grave danger of shutting out the sorts of considerations that actually would be very useful when deciding in the context of rationing.

It is a shame we have to ration pre-sentence reports. Let us be clear—let me put myself on the record. I would like to have a pre-sentence report, ideally, whenever someone is going to be sentenced to a community penalty or to custody, and especially for the first time. If I am going to be told that that is totally unrealistic, so be it, but I certainly do not want their individual circumstances to be shut out of that assessment, and the Bill as currently drafted risks that. That was put incredibly well by a number of noble Lords at Second Reading and I refer colleagues to Hansard on that.

So that is why I suggest in my amendment to Clause 1 that it is one thing to say that a protected characteristic under the Equality Act should never be the reason why you definitely get a PSR or you do not get one, because we are concerned about two-tier justice and all of that—so you should not just get one because you are a woman or because you are black. But if that is part of the matrix of your general experience, knowing what we know about oversentencing and disproportionate outcomes, on the one hand, we need the tighter definition that comes with the Equality Act rather than in the case law from Article 14, and on the other hand, we should not clip the wings of the Sentencing Council too tightly.

Why should we not do that? From a constitutional point of view, the Sentencing Council plays a very important role in bridging the constitutional gap between the Executive and the legislature on the one hand, and sentences and judges on the other hand. What do I mean by that? If Parliament, with or without the initiation of the Government—it usually is on the initiation of the Government, let us be clear—wants to tell judges what to do, Parliament has vehicles for so doing. The primary vehicle is primary legislation and there is also secondary legislation. But the point of sentencing guidelines is not to do that.

The point of the guidelines is so that judges passing sentences of any level rightly and necessarily have discretion, which they must exercise in the interests of individual justice. Sentencing guidelines are about helping them structure that discretion so that we do not have a total postcode lottery and, in a sense, so that brother and sister sentencers can share their thinking about the sorts of factors they might like to have in mind before they sentence or, in this case, before they commission a pre-sentence report. That is what my first amendment is about: do not clip the wings of the Sentencing Council too tightly. Do not use vague terms that come from the jurisprudence of Article 14 rather than the tighter definitions in our established domestic legislation.

Moving on to other amendments in my name in this group, I draw the Committee’s attention to Amendment 5. This flips the dial and looks positively at the sorts of factors we would perhaps want. We have talked about what we do not want the Sentencing Council to be invoking in its guidelines because we are afraid of any suggestion that people are getting special treatment. But what about the sorts of things that ought to encourage the use of pre-sentence reports? I repeat that I would like everyone to get one but, if they have to be rationed, what sorts of factors would we actively want a judge to take into account and therefore the Sentencing Council to take into account and suggest to judges?

These factors are found in my Amendment 5, which includes

“where the sentencer believes that their own life experience is particularly far removed from that of the offender”.

We do not like to talk about this, but that was partly what the Lammy review was about. This is not an affront to people of a particular type; it is just saying that it is very hard. It is one thing to sit in judgment when you are trying to come up with positive, creative community and/or custodial sentences that are going to make things better and not worse. Maybe you should try to understand an offender that you do not understand—so, where the sentencer believes that their own life experience is particularly far removed from that of the offender.

The amendment also includes

“where the sentencer believes that an offender is a member of social group that appears to be over-represented in the prison population”.

I refer once more to the excellent Lammy report, which is how we got here in the first place. I am embarrassed, but also proud, to say that it was commissioned by a Conservative Prime Minister and written by the now Labour Foreign Secretary. It seems to be possible to have a different kind of conversation about sentencing and the criminal justice system, which I hope will continue later this week with the advent of the Gauke review.

The third area for consideration proposed by Amendment 5 is

“where the sentencer believes that an offender or their dependants may be particularly badly”

affected

“by the imposition of a community or custodial sentence”.

A famous Strasbourg judgment, Thlimmenos v Greece, makes a point about equal treatment; it is a very important Strasbourg decision. Non-discrimination is not just about treating people in the same way; it is about understanding the different needs and experiences of different people. If I require everyone coming to my restaurant or hotel to go up a steep staircase, I am shutting out anyone in a wheelchair. Thlimmenos v Greece is the landmark Strasbourg decision that said we also need to think about treating people with different experiences and needs differently in order to enforce the very important human rights principle of equal treatment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Again, I apologise for not being too repetitive, but I am very keen on making sure that I am accurate in everything that I say. I will write to the right reverend Prelate.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all Members of the Committee who made their very forensic and clear points about the Bill and the manifold problems with it. I am also grateful to my noble friend the Minister, who replied with about as much kindness, courtesy and elegance as it is possible to do in these very tricky circumstances. I will not be pressing my amendments today, and I am glad that he and his advisers will reflect a little more before Report, which I think they would be wise to do.

I will just leave my noble friend with one thought about the points that I made. He has spoken often about preferential treatment, and I remind him of what I said about the high steps to my restaurant or hotel. If I add a ramp, a hoist or a lift for the person in the wheelchair to gain access to a service that they would not otherwise get access to, is that preferential treatment or a genuine, progressive, liberal and even one-nation Conservative attempt to level things out a little? I know what I think, and I suspect what some other Members of this Committee might think as well, but with that I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord is exactly right. When people have been in prison, it is our job to help them when they leave so that they do not come back. Unfortunately, at the moment, far too many people come back. Electronic tagging has an important role to play—and that role will increase. Tagging is not just for making sure that people can be at home on a curfew; it is so that we can track them where they are. There are also sobriety tags. So, yes, there will be a tool at our disposal when people are released after their recall.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, may I risk a thunderbolt by paying tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and—at the risk of a second thunderbolt—suggest that there is not such a big difference between what he mooted and government policy? There is a distinction between the regulatory misdemeanour of being late for a probation appointment and committing a violent crime. There is something in what he said, and in my noble friend the Minister’s response, about differentiating between a violent crime committed while on release and a minor regulatory misdemeanour that could be dealt with in the way proposed by the Government.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that there is sometimes a big distinction between the offences that people commit. It is important that those committing serious further offences and those who are managed on a MAPPA 2 or 3 are treated differently from those with lower offences. I am clear that everybody who commits an offence needs to be dealt with by the law; but they also need to have an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves so that they do not create further victims in the future.

“Hillsborough Law”

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when they intend to introduce the ‘Hillsborough Law’ as set out in the Labour Party Manifesto 2024; and what steps they are taking to ensure any such legislation will meet the objectives set out by the bereaved families.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Hillsborough disaster is one of the greatest stains on British history, and the families of those who lost loved ones have shown endless determination to get justice. Having consulted with these groups over the past few weeks, we believe that more time is needed to draft the best version of a Hillsborough law. We remain fully committed to bringing in this legislation at pace.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful, as always, to my noble friend the Minister for his compassion. As far as the families are concerned, the Hillsborough law is the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, which received a First Reading with cross-party support in 2017. They worry that starting from scratch will lead to a dilution of its vital protections. Will the Government please show them any new draft in advance of introduction? There is considerable irony in such a secretive process over a new duty of candour.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand there have been multiple meetings between Hillsborough Law Now and the Government, Andy Burnham, Steve Rotherham, Liverpool MPs and my noble friend Lord Wills. I also understand that the Prime Minister is taking a personal interest in this matter. I know that the Government have undertaken to look very seriously at all the questions raised and will come forward with legislation at pace, as I said in my original Answer.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Our independent judiciary is best placed to decide whether a community or a custodial sentence is required. From my experience, pre-sentence reports can be very useful in supporting the judiciary in their decision-making. They are even more helpful when the pre-sentence report is written by someone who knows the offender well and has a lot of training and background information on that person.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that, contrary to the confected outrage from across the House, sentencing is not a matter for politicians and should be independent of government? Does he also agree that it would be a jolly good thing if all offenders, whoever they are, had the benefit of a pre-sentence report?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. It is up to the independent judiciary to decide whether to request a pre-sentence report. What we do know is that in a number of cases they are very appropriate. We also know that our judiciary—in which many noble, and noble and learned, Lords in this House have taken an important role—is respected around the world. We need to ensure that that is maintained.

Courts: Backlogs

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble and right reverend Lord for his observations. We are taking a different approach, which is to look at the overall working efficiency of the court system. I acknowledge that there are substantial backlogs, particularly in rape cases, because they are often very complex cases. There is also the added distressing fact that many rape victims drop out of the process because of the lengthy delays. I acknowledge that that is a problem, but we believe that the best way to address this is to look at how the system operates as a whole. We are looking forward to receiving Sir Brian’s recommendations in due course.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope my noble friend the Minister knows that I have a lifetime of respect for professional tribunals, lawyers and judges, including Sir Brian, and their fair remuneration. Notwithstanding concerns about the backlog, which are considerable, I hope he agrees with me that there will always be benefit in jury trial for the most serious cases. That benefit is about public confidence, legitimacy and participation in the legal system on which the rule of law depends.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I completely agree with my noble friend: public confidence is absolutely paramount. That is one reason why jury trials were persisted with—quite rightly—during the Covid period. Having said that, there are certain types of cases where it is maybe not appropriate that a jury trial should be available. I anticipate that Sir Brian is looking at those sorts of cases.

Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, in the light of threats to fundamental rights and the rule of law, what plans they have to promote greater public information and education in this area.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, with the caveat that the word “eater” on today’s list should read “greater”, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede) (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Prime Minister has made clear, the UK is unequivocally committed to the European Convention on Human Rights. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor has said she will champion the rule of law at home and abroad, and my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General has described it as our lodestar. We are committed to rebuilding public trust in our political system by explaining how the rule of law serves us all and by promoting human rights as British values.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister—it is very nice to be able to say that—for that Answer. The Human Rights Act 1998 was a wonderful innovation: a modern bill of rights for this country. There was very little public education and information to go with it, and that has made it vulnerable to attack and misrepresentation, including from allegedly moderate Conservative leadership candidates, even today. Will the Government therefore now use this second opportunity and every resource available, digital and otherwise, in government, to put things right?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. We consider that the UK’s three national human rights institutions, each with specific jurisdictions and functions, have a role in this. They are the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Scottish Human Rights Commission. Each has an “A” status, as rated by the UN, and a role in promoting human rights and awareness of human rights within the United Kingdom.

My noble friend’s original Question went wider than that, to include reinvigorating an appreciation of human rights. While the bodies I have just described have a statutory responsibility, there is nothing to stop central government doing that as well. As I think I pointed out in my initial Answer, both the Lord Chancellor and Attorney-General take this matter extremely seriously and see it as central to what they are doing.

My noble friend also referred to today’s press reports. Tom Tugendhat MP said in his pitch to be leader of the Conservative Party that he is ready to leave the ECHR. That is in marked contrast to what the leadership of the Government are saying.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

80: Clause 16, page 13, line 14, at end insert “or a sexual offence against the child or a child in the family”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the presumption of custody for children of offenders of child sexual abuse, requiring a Crown Court to make a prohibited steps order protecting the children of an offender on sentencing.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, we are now in the family court because in the real world and in a joined-up justice system, victims are being dealt with not just in the criminal justice system but in the family system.

I have Amendments 80, 83, 84, 91 and 92 in this group. I will try to deal with them as succinctly as possible given the hour and what noble Lords across the House have had to endure in the last 24 hours. I am dealing with three issues. The first relates to Clause 16, the so-called Jade’s law. I will speak to that in a moment. That is covered in Amendments 80, 84—which is consequential on Amendment 80—and 83, which is distinct, but I am led to believe that the usual channels have agreed that Amendments 80, 83 and 84 will be treated as a package. I will wait for someone opposite to jump up and tell me if I am wrong about that.

Amendment 91 deals with “cowboy experts”—I am trying to be as succinct as I can—that is, unregulated experts giving opinions and getting paid. These unregulated opinions and expertise lead to considerable injustice in the family court, including people having to spend a lot of money and people losing responsibility for or contact with their children. Amendment 92 would ensure that those suspected of or charged with domestic abuse, sexual violence and child abuse are not permitted unsupervised access to their children.

Jade’s law is Clause 16, on which the Government are to be commended. Amendments 80, 83 and 84 attempt to tighten up loopholes in Jade’s law, and they are supported by the family of Jade Ward. On account of the time, I will not recount the details of that case. Noble Lords will know that, in its current form as proposed by the Government, Clause 16 places a parent convicted of the murder or manslaughter of the other parent under a prohibited steps order. This is so that we do not have the murderer or manslaughterer effectively controlling the family from behind bars. The Government are to be commended on responding to the campaign and taking up that issue, but we think there is a loophole in that there are sex offenders—not just murderers and manslaughterers—who are attempting the same coercive control, by way of the family courts, from behind bars.

Amendments 80 and 83 would extend Jade’s law and are supported by the family of Jade Ward, whose campaign originally led to Clause 16. We would extend the provisions of Clause 16 to those convicted of a sex offence against a child in the family.

I am aware that, in response to an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill in the other place from my right honourable friend Harriet Harman, the Government have announced that they want to do something and give a concession in our direction in relation to those who rape a child under 13. With huge respect to the Government, that is not enough, because there are very serious sex offences that are not rape and there are very vulnerable children who are just over 13. A child is a child—not least for the purposes of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, if one can still talk about such instruments in Parliament—until they are 18, and certainly there are very serious sex offences that are not rape. So we wish to go further in the ambit of Clause 16, which is Jade’s law.

We also have Amendment 83. This deals with the exception to Jade’s law, as rightly constructed by the Government in the principal amendment. Understandably, and very sensibly in my view, the Government have created, from subsection (5) onwards, an exception to the prohibition in relation to the murderer or the manslaughterer, normally but not always a woman, who is a victim of domestic abuse that led to the murder or manslaughter.

We seek to include domestic abuse, as defined in legislation. At the moment there is an exemption where the offender is convicted of manslaughter and it appears to the Crown Court that this would not be in the interests of justice. We say “the interests of justice” is too vague a concept and they have to be a victim of domestic abuse, as determined by the 2021 Act. “The interests of justice” is too vague a concept to ensure proper protection for all those we seek to protect.

--- Later in debate ---

Government Amendments 81 and 82 clarify certain technical points about the operation of Clause 16, which I do not think I need explain in more detail.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope noble Lords will forgive me for forgetting courtesy in my brevity. I failed to mention the various supporters, some of whom have identified themselves: my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Helic, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. As always, I am also grateful for their expertise—including correcting an error in the explanatory note—and the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Meston.

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Minister for understanding the problem with unregulated experts. He alluded to a potentially broader, and quite possibly effective, solution by way of procedure rules and, under pressure from the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said that it would be extraordinary if this did not happen. I will hold my fire until Report and have great hope—

[Noble Lords]

This is Report.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Then I have no hope. But I will take comfort from the Minister’s comments, because that would be a better, rounder solution in relation to proceedings and it could be broader than just victims. I would prefer that outcome. I hope the Government as a whole will look at unregulated psychologists more generally, in relation not just to proceedings but the public more generally. I take comfort from that and am grateful for it.

On Amendment 83, the current provision for the Jade’s law exemption is vague. If we are trying to deal with domestic abuse, let us call it what it is—it is defined in statute.

On the presumption of parental involvement, the logic of the idea that convicted sex offenders should be presumptively allowed parental involvement escapes me. Jade’s law should be extended. The Minister is almost with me. He wants to act in another Bill, but the clock is ticking for this Parliament and we have a Bill right here on Report in which we could protect children from sex offences, including very serious sex offences that are just short of rape, for reasons which the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, put more graphically and with greater expertise. We should take this opportunity to act. I wish to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 80.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend the Minister for all the conversations and meetings we have had with his officials and other Peers. In Committee I expressed my concerns about provisions in the Bill, so I am speaking in support of Amendments 46 and 47 but, having listened to the Minister, I am delighted that we have resolved this issue.

The provisions in the Bill relating to delivering code compliance are important because they must be strong enough to give effect to the level of change that we require. I have always maintained that the success of this Bill will depend on whether future victims receive their code entitlements. I am delighted that the Government have listened to our concerns and reviewed their proposals. The government amendments tabled last week are an important step in the right direction. Statutory non-compliance notices, coupled with statutory changes to ensure that future Victims’ Commissioners are able to provide rigorous scrutiny of compliance data, are important and I welcome them.

Naturally, I want to see the Government go further. It is important that details on how the Government’s compliance regime will operate are set out clearly in statutory guidance. I also want to see trigger points for non-compliance enforcement to be set out clearly. I am delighted that there will be transparency as the minutes of the task force meeting will be made public.

Of course, setting out a compliance regime is one thing but making it happen is another. I do not underestimate the challenges in building a dataset that provides us with a comprehensive understanding of exactly what is happening and what is not. Importantly, we also need to understand how well services and entitlements are being delivered. While these provisions are a step in the right direction, we still have a long way to go before we can say that all victims are getting the support they deserve.

We must not confine ourselves to compliance monitoring. We need to tackle the culture of our criminal justice system when it comes to victims. Earlier the Minister referred to training, which certainly has an important part to play, but we need to go further to understand why the victims’ code is of secondary importance in the eyes of so many practitioners.

Defendants have statutory rights; victims do not. The victims’ code was described to me by a government lawyer as “persuasive guidance”, but at times I, along with many victims, would question just how persuasive it actually is. I make no secret of the fact that I would like to see victims’ rights elevated to statutory rights as proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, in Amendment 23. I also support Amendment 16 from the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir. It is important that every victim has a right to review when there are multiple defendants in the dock. As somebody who has personally experienced that, it is so important for the victim to have that individual right to make sure they get answers and an understanding of what is going on.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is pretty much an understatement to say that it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner. She and my noble friend Lady Lawrence of Clarendon are very special Members of your Lordships’ House, if I may say so, for their extraordinary superpower and ability to turn experiences that no one should have to endure into a subsequent lifetime of public service, for which I think we are all very grateful.

I will take my lead from the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. I do not think it is a secret that my many amendments in this group were tabled with her blessing and that of the London Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman. I am also grateful to a number of victims’ groups and NGOs for their support of these amendments.

This is Report, not Committee, and we have had a long day, so I do not want to trouble noble Lords for too long, but I am grateful to the Minister and his team. Petty France may have shown Marsham Street that it is possible to engage just a little—half a loaf is better than no bread. Of course, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, and I are going to disagree about the extent to which government amendments to this part of the Bill are a huge step in the right direction, but they are a step. I thank him and his team, including those who are not in your Lordships’ Chamber. This is the way, perhaps, that we ought to try to do legislation.

The motive behind my many amendments was to try to put victims’ rights on a proper statutory footing and to make them equivalent to suspects’ and defendants’ rights. Divide and rule is a really bad thing, and for decades Governments of both persuasions have sometimes been able to be in an arms race where victims’ rights are set against defendants’ rights. As the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, put it so eloquently yesterday at Questions, if you treat a suspect badly and delay justice, that is justice denied. The same is true for victims, and for some years now we have told victims that they have rights and a code, but those rights have been totally unenforceable and that is not fair. That false expectation has caused enormous trauma and concern.

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, for moving things on just a little, but I hope that a future Government of any persuasion will go further still. I hope I am not dishonouring the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and letting her down in saying that. I can say thank you for what has been achieved but still be more ambitious for change.

The justice department has, I think, had the biggest cuts of any department in recent years. To deliver rights for victims takes resources and investment. Sometimes with suspects’ and defendants’ rights, you can deliver something by holding back, but when it is victims’ rights you really need to invest in the different entrances—in the staff of any criminal justice agency who will be there and so on. I am so grateful and do not want to seem churlish, because this is something, but I hope that it is the building block for further reforms so that we can have a level playing field.

Finally, I remind noble Lords that suspects’ rights came from a Conservative piece of human rights legislation: the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Given that both parties often compete for the law and order agenda—forgive me, I should say all parties—it seems odd to me, as a human rights campaigner of many years, that we would entrench and codify suspects’ and defendants’ rights in a way that we have yet to do for victims.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I start by referring to Amendment 16 from the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir. I will not repeat the points she made but she emailed me just prior to us starting this evening’s debates on Report. I am interested that she notes that this is a loophole caused by us exiting the EU. I have immense sympathy with the amendment. If it is a clear anomaly caused by us exiting the EU, I remember considerable debate on the retained EU law Bill about what to do when things were discovered. Ministers said on more than one occasion that in the EU withdrawal Act there is something called the correcting power, and that that can be used to correct any anomalies, providing they are not the Government’s whim because they have changed their policy on something. I do not know the detail because I have not seen where the loophole has come from, but it seems to me, on the amendment the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, has described, that if this is caused by our leaving the EU then there is a remedy of legislation. Perhaps the Ministry of Justice will take that away and look at it, and the Minister will write. It can be done quite simply in most cases by regulation, which is why the retained EU law Bill took such a long time to wind its way through Parliament—I worked on a lot of those amendments. It seems that if the Minister has sympathy with this, there is an easy remedy.

My own Amendment 34 seeks to ensure that each criminal justice body makes arrangements to provide adequate training regarding violence against women and girls for all personnel supporting them. The hour is late, so I will not say very much, other than that there is already a substantial amount of training in other areas but the guidance on what that training should be and how it should happen is not the same. The Domestic Abuse Act statutory guidance is clear, and at paragraph 225 provides that:

“Public agencies should invest in awareness raising, specialist training and systems … to ensure that victims receive effective and safe responses”.


Unfortunately, that is not the same in the code of practice; it is not as strong. My Amendment 34 attempts to strengthen that.

I am mindful of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I know that he has spoken, but his amendment is slightly broader than mine and, if he chooses to divide the House on it next week when we return, I think our Benches will be happy to support him.

I end by reflecting on the debate we have had on the Minister’s amendments and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. It seems to have been the prime debate that we have had since the start of this victims Bill about its function and practice. I echo the thanks from all around the House for the steps that the Government have taken to strengthen it. I am still with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that it is not quite there, but I will take any change at all.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Amendment 152 is very simple. The Bill contains a power to change the period of three years. There are two solutions to this. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will address the first, which is whether we should remove the power altogether. The second—my preferred solution —is to alter “change” to “reduce”. “Change” enables you to increase, and I am sure that no one in Parliament wants to see an increase in the period. So I think it would be better to have a power but to make sure that it can be exercised in only one way. Having said that, I very much hope that this will not be controversial and that the Government can agree to this or to something very similar. I beg to move.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the privilege of rising on behalf of my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who is incredibly disappointed not to be here. He has a long-standing and unbreakable prior commitment. I know that he would want me to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for the kindness that he displayed and for his crystal-clear description of these amendments and of the injustices and technicalities that they address, which any lay person could understand. I am very grateful, as I know my noble friend would be. I share in the tribute to my noble friend. The fact that the former Home Secretary has asked the former director of Liberty to speak on his behalf is perhaps testament to the character of my noble friend.

My noble friend supports all the amendments in this group, most of which belong, at least in initiation, to the noble and learned Lord. He also signed Amendment 156 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, because of this concern that no period should be increased by the Secretary of State.

For my own part, speaking for myself at this moment and not for my noble friend, of the two approaches—taking the power to alter entirely or leaving it as one only to reduce—I rather agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. He has done so well in the explanation that I need say little more, other than that I also remember today our friend, his noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, for whom righting this wrong, this stain on our justice system, was also incredibly important. Too many people in public life are happy to forget and ignore the mistakes of last week, let alone of two decades ago, but, if this is the House of Elders in our parliamentary system, such as it is, this is exactly the Committee to be embracing the amendments put so brilliantly just now by the noble and learned Lord.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his comments and endorse everything that he said, particularly about the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who we all wish was here today. I will address one or two of the pragmatic issues. The amendments in this group all relate to IPP licences, and I support them all. They are intended to affect the applications of licences to be fairer and speedier, so that we can release or re-release IPPs as fast and as safely as possible into the community.

Clause 48 currently removes the element of annual review in favour of one-off review every three years. However, if the Parole Board decides not to terminate the licence of this point, Amendments 149 and 150 restore the right—removed by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act—to an annual review by the Parole Board. The Prison Reform Trust comments that having a sunset clause of a further two years might just constitute a high bar for some prisoners, and that the Parole Board should be able to terminate the licence after one year, otherwise licences could drag on for years, as before.

The circumstances described in Amendment 152 are probably quite rare, but it is worth ensuring that a person would not have to suffer if they had been recalled but the Secretary of State had revoked the recall, presumably because there had been an error of some kind and they should not have been recalled. The prisoner should not be penalised because of an error not of their making.

Amendment 153 continues in a similar vein, but this time gives the Parole Board the ability to maintain the sunset clause. However, in this case, it is slightly more complicated. Firstly, the Secretary of State can recall if they conclude on reasonable grounds that the prisoner has deliberately revoked the terms of their licence and the safety of the public would be at risk. The Parole Board can overturn the Secretary of State’s decision to recall a prisoner if on subsequent review, and if it is privy to more information than the Secretary of State, it subsequently concludes that the prisoner is not putting the public at risk.

Amendment 157 ensures that the Government use their wide-ranging powers to change the qualifying period using only secondary legislation and that they can revise it only downwards. If they want to revise it upwards, it will have to be done with primary legislation. This is within the spirit of the Bill today. This amendment ensures that a future Government would not be tempted to use this power to make the situation worse for IPP prisoners, not better.

All in all, this suite of amendments is sensible and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, pragmatic. It is offered in a spirit of helpfulness. I sincerely hope that the Minister will see this and maybe feel that it is appropriate to introduce government amendments to this effect.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I will first briefly recap some basic points that apply equally to the second and fourth groups of amendments that we will come to.

First, this Government recognise the highly regrettable history of this particular sentence. The Lord Chancellor himself has described IPP sentences as

“a stain on our justice system”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/5/23; col. 592.]

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, rightly said, the question is what should be done. I will briefly summarise, to encapsulate our debate, what the Government think should be done.

The Government are making some very determined efforts to mitigate the situation of IPP offenders who are still subject to a sentence that was abolished in 2012. To bring noble Lords up to date, there were originally approximately 8,100 people subject to these sentences. Of those people, as of last December 1,227 had never been released, 1,625 had been released and later recalled, and there were still about 3,000 on licence in the community. Currently, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, pointed out, an offender cannot apply to the Parole Board to have their licence terminated until 10 years after first release.

Taking the released and then recalled population first, this is a challenge because that population is slowly rising. The major statutory change in Clause 48 will reduce the qualifying period before the offender becomes eligible for licence termination from 10 years to three years from first release, with a presumption of termination after three years and an automatic termination two years thereafter—provided that the offender can pass two years in the community without further recall. That is, as I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, a huge change and a major achievement for the Government to be proposing. It should substantially mitigate the problem of prisoners being released and then recalled, which we will come to in more detail as this debate continues.

Regarding the second cohort—perhaps the first, depending on your point of view—of those who have never been released, most of these people have come up before the Parole Board, which is responsible for deciding on their release. In many cases, this has happened many times and the Parole Board has decided that it is not safe to release them as the risk to the public is too great. What is the Government’s approach to that problem? Spurred on by the 2022 report of the JSC, to which I pay tribute, the Government are developing a robust, coherent and detailed action plan in consultation with relevant stakeholders, including the families, with the aim that each prisoner has a tailored sentence plan, appropriate support and clear objectives to work towards eventual release.

This last cohort is difficult, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, has just pointed out because, aside from having committed very serious offences, many suffer from trauma, mental health issues, substance issues and so on. However, the Government are determined to see this cohort further reduced and to get rid of the idea that there is no hope. In the Government’s view, no one has given up on the IPP prisoners who have never been released. They have to be worked on. That is a hard task, but one that the Government—any Government—should take on.

For example, the number of those released has been reducing over the last two years at roughly 200 per year. There are now 200 of these prisoners in open conditions who are being prepared for further release. It is not as if nothing is going on or as if things are just vegetating and no one cares. The Government are very focused on doing something about this most difficult cohort. That is the overall framework, which I hope your Lordships will view, despite the difficulties of the past, as something of a new beginning for the future.

With that background, I turn to Amendments 149 to 151 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. The effect of these would be that, if the Parole Board refused to terminate the licence at the new three-year point, the offender would have the right to apply annually to the Parole Board for a licence determination. As the Government understand it, the offender would be in the community rather than waiting out the two-year period, which results in the automatic termination of the licence. The offender would be able to apply to the Parole Board for termination after one year.

The Government recognise that released offenders in many cases need better support and have accepted all the recommendations to that effect in the recent report of the Chief Inspector of Probation on the recalls of IPP prisoners. However, the Government are not at present persuaded of the need for Amendments 149 to 151, on the following basis. If the offender has applied and the Parole Board, after three years, does not terminate the licence at that point, it does not seem to the Government unreasonable to expect the offender to spend two years in the community with the incentive of the certainty of licence termination at the end of that period. This amendment would enable the offender to make an interim application at the end of year four. That would impose further resource costs on the Probation Service and Parole Board because reports have to be prepared, hearings have to be convened and so forth. It would necessarily take the Parole Board several months to process that application.

We have come back several times in this debate to the pressures on the Parole Board and the time these applications take. It appears to the Government that, even if you could apply after year four rather than waiting until the end of year five, there is probably only a marginal gain for the offender. The Government are not at the moment persuaded on these amendments, although the Government continue to be in listening mode on this part of the Bill, as on every other part of the Bill.

Amendments 152 and 153, also moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, address what one could call in shorthand “questionable recalls”. I think there are two sorts of recall that we should be thinking about. The amendments suggest the possibility of the Parole Board disregarding a recall for the purpose of calculating the two-year period. Perhaps I may first clarify what is considered to be the existing position. If a recall is based on a fundamental mistake of fact—for example, the probation officer thinks that the offender has missed an appointment but the offender is in hospital because of a road accident the previous day—the Lord Chancellor considers that he already has the power in such a clear case to treat the recall as a nullity, as never having happened. That is a relatively clear case and I respectfully suggest that Amendment 152 is unnecessary.

The situation envisaged by Amendment 153 is effectively a challenge to the judgment call made by the probation officer about the recall. Technically it is a decision by the Secretary of State, but in practice of course it depends on the report by the probation officer. Amendment 153 would require the validity of that recall—the “appropriateness” of that recall, to use the word in the amendment—to be considered by the Parole Board and treated as a nullity if the board then considers that the recall decision was not appropriate. Although the Government understand the thinking behind the amendment, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation found, in both 2020 and much more recently in 2023, that in practice HMPPS recall decisions are very largely appropriate.

At present, the Parole Board does not have any power to adjudicate on the appropriateness of the recall; its task is to decide on the issue of public protection and whether the offender is safe to release. For that purpose, the Parole Board will typically have much wider and more detailed information than was available to the individual probation officer faced with the recall decision. Amendment 153 would, however, turn the Parole Board process into an appeal from the recall decision and require the Parole Board, in effect, to second-guess what it would have done had it been the probation officer with the information then available to the probation officer.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for giving way. I should like to better understand this part of the argument. When the noble and learned Lord said he is satisfied that in most cases recall is appropriate, did he mean recall in general or recall in IPP cases in particular? Secondly, when he was discussing the difference between decisions on executive recall on the one hand and dangerousness and public protection on the other, did he not think that there was a relationship between the two? When one is considering dangerousness, one might have a rather different view of what is required in relation to public protection if one or more recalls were inappropriate because they were for non-criminal, minor conduct that at no point presented a danger to the public?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for those questions. As to whether I was speaking of IPP specifically, I cannot off the top of my head recall whether the 2020 work was specifically in relation to IPP, but certainly the 2023 work, which is the most recent and the most valuable and which I highly recommend everyone to read, was specifically in relation to IPP when the Government were considering what to do following the JSC report when concern was expressed that recalls might be being made inappropriately. That inspector’s report took a sample of recalls, studied them very carefully; it was thought that a small number were questionable but that the vast majority were appropriate on the basis of the information that the probation officer had at the time.

Up to a point, the circumstances of the recall are part of a general picture of the dangerousness of the offender—I accept that. But the real point is that, when the Parole Board comes to consider public protection, it will have much more information, very often much more up-to-date and fuller, than the information that was before the probation officer at the time, who might well have to take a decision in an emergency on very limited information, but because of the risk, as they see it, to public protection. So it is very difficult, in the Government’s view, to give the Parole Board power to go all the way back and say, “This was inappropriate”. However, having said that, I would like to come back to the question of recall when we get to Amendments 154 and 168, to be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Carter. It is a question of executive re-release on recall, which might be another way of approaching that problem. So that is the Government’s position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 154 in my name and to Amendment 168 at the same time, as they sit together in this grouping. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust, and I thank it for its significant input and support for these amendments. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who, unfortunately, as we have heard, cannot be with us today, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, for adding their support to my two amendments by adding their names.

I shall deal first with Amendment 168, since Amendment 154 is consequential on it. Amendment 168 is about executive release—that is to say, release by the Secretary of State following a recall to prison. At present, under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the Secretary of State has a power to release a determinate sentence prisoner on licence at any time after the prisoner has been returned to prison. He must not do so unless satisfied that it is not necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should remain in prison. Amendment 168 addresses a lacuna, which arises in the case of IPP prisoners who are recalled to prison, since the Secretary of State has no executive power to release them, even if it is obviously safe to do so.

Why does this lacuna need correcting? Let us look at the facts. There are, as the Minister has said, 1,625 IPP prisoners who are in prison following a recall. The Justice Committee, in its third report, said that the reasons for recalling IPP prisoners vary, and it was often not because the IPP prisoner had committed any further offence but because of a minor or technical breach of licence conditions. For example, the lack of availability of approved premises, believe it or not, or other suitable accommodation, was sometimes a reason for recall, even though it might, unreasonably in the circumstances, have been a condition of a licence.

Once the IPP prisoner has been recalled, they become subject to the usual parole process to secure their release. This can take months or even years. The Justice Committee found that, between 2015 and 2021, the average number of months spent in prison by an IPP prisoner following recall and prior to re-release was 18 months—the equivalent of three years on a traditional fixed-term sentence. I believe that the average time has now increased, as I think that the Minister said, and that period in prison following a recall has risen to on average 28 months before re-release. That is a wholly disproportionate additional period to serve if the recall was for a minor or technical breach of licence conditions, or if it is apparent that the prisoner is safe to release at an earlier stage.

The Justice Committee recommended the use of executive release for IPP prisoners in such cases, as is possible for determinate sentence prisoners. In their response, the Government stated that they would not accept the recommendation because it

“falls to the Parole Board to determine whether the … release test is met”.

But that fails to explain why determinate sentence prisoners can be executively released when they, too, are otherwise subject to a Parole Board review.

Amendment 168 is therefore about ensuring that like cases are treated alike, when there is no good reason for treating them differently. It provides that the Secretary of State should have a power of executive release at any time following the recall of an IPP prisoner, if the Secretary of State considers that it is not necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should remain in prison. That will ensure consistency with the position of determinate sentence prisoners, while ensuring that public safety is not put at risk. There is no logical reason to treat IPP prisoners differently.

Amendment 154 is consequential on Amendment 168 because, if the IPP prisoner is executively released by the Secretary of State following an unnecessary recall, the IPP prisoner should obviously have the period unnecessarily spent in prison disregarded for the purpose of calculating the new sunset clause for IPP licences. However, as a safeguard, the amendment proposes that the Secretary of State should have the power in each case to determine whether this is appropriate. This will depend on an assessment of various factors, such as the degree to which the recall was unnecessary and whether the prisoner is safe to release.

In concluding on the two amendments, I can do no better than to refer to the truly tragic recent case of Matthew Price, who last year took his own life while on licence from an IPP sentence. I am sure that the whole Committee will join me in expressing the deepest condolences to Mr Price’s family. The coroner said that:

“Matthew’s mental well-being had been adversely affected over a significant period of time by the continuing impact of serving an”


IPP sentence, because of anxiety about the ever-present potential for recall to prison. The shocking thing is that Mr Price had been on licence for nearly 10 years. That demonstrates the devastating mental impact that an IPP sentence has. On 22 February this year, the coroner issued a so-called regulation 28 report to prevent future deaths, in which he stated that there was

“a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken”

urgently. My amendments would not be enough to remove that risk completely, but they would help by providing another avenue of release from a recall while, crucially, ensuring the safety of the public. I hope that the Minister will feel able to accept them, and I beg to move.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to rise in support of my old boss, the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere—one of the finest government lawyers I had the pleasure of working for and learning from in the late 1990s. He served Governments of both persuasions with such distinction that he went on to become the first ever counsel to No. 10, such was his expertise in these and other matters. It is wonderful to see him deploy those skills, including in the devastating way in which he has just argued for his two amendments in this group.