Sentencing Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I was schooled in this subject, if I was schooled at all, by the late noble and learned Lords, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Judge. They both took me through this and were absolutely certain in what they were saying: noble Lords will have heard Lord Brown’s verdict that this is possibly the greatest stain on our judicial system. As the Minister knows, I feel very strongly about this, and indeed joint enterprise.

But the thing that I would like to talk about very briefly is proportionality. I am very attracted both to the solution from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and to that from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. Earlier, we heard the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, arguing very eloquently and successfully on Amendment 74. Equally, we heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, putting a very strong case from his point of view. But the fact is that some of the people in prison for this are not in prison for things anywhere near as serious as the things that noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, mentioned and that the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, said would be okay, because they would be carefully scrutinised.

There are people serving endless sentences who were originally sentenced only to 18 months in prison. They are still there. Their families are still concerned. We have to look at proportionality. What were they originally sentenced for? How long were they sentenced for? How does that colour the views of the Parole Board or judges? I think that is an essential point which leads us to feel shame: people are in prison for very minor offences compared with rape and murder, and are there on an original sentence that was relatively minor compared with those for murder and rape. So we really do have to look at this.

I will not go on any longer. I just implore the Minister to use the mercy and clemency he has shown so clearly in dealing with the prison system in this case. There is a unanimous feeling around the House: nobody yet has gone against the point we are all making that something has to be done.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, to start with, I would just like to point out that the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, is undoubtedly personally committed to resolving this issue. Nobody, I think, is making any party-political points and nobody is personally having a go at the Minister. But that is not sufficient for us to go home with tonight. We still have to say that, regardless of how honourable and wonderful the Minister might be, IPP has dragged on. So I will be voting for the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, but since he spoke so brilliantly to start this debate, all the speeches have been as though I have never heard the subject before. I feel like crying, I feel like screaming. In other words, this is an incredibly important scandal that gets to you every time, and gets to members of the public every time when you share it with them. They are equally appalled; they cannot believe it.

One of the points that I noted from the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, is that it will make the indeterminate determinate; there will be an end in sight. Apart from anything else, never mind the sentences, I feel as though this debate is indeterminate and going on for ever, because I seem to have repeated it endlessly. When I heard UNGRIPP making the point that for the current decrease in the IPP prison population it will take a minimum of 11 years to release everyone currently on an IPP sentence—that is, 31 years since its introduction and 24 years since its official abolition—you do think, “It’s got to end”. Nobody is doing this as a joke or a game to just make the same kinds of speeches.

Amendment 96, from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, particularly appeals to me. I am not always a fan of judges, it has to be said, but one of the things I like about it is that every single prisoner would be looked at, and each and every circumstance would be considered. That is very important, because there have been times when it has been made to sound like one size fits all—you know what I mean, release them all or what have you. This has the advantage of taking into consideration every single circumstance and what particular prisoners would need. I think that is very important.

Something that I do not think has had enough mention tonight is that in some instances the resolution is that a prisoner will need to be transferred to a hospital, and it might not be straightforward to release them from hospital. They might be very seriously ill at that point. But the main thing would be, because the end would be in sight, if they were ever well enough to be released from hospital, they would not then go back to prison on the IPP sentence that very often has made them ill in the first instance. I want to quote a psychiatrist who said, “How do you motivate somebody to take part in treatment at a hospital if the outcome of that is effectively to facilitate their return to prison?” That is a terrible tragedy.

I will just finish with an anecdote, because it makes the point. Rob Russell, who is on an IPP sentence and in prison at the moment, was sentenced in 2009 for making threats to kill his former partner. I hope I have illustrated today, when I have spoken, that I am not a fan of being soft on perpetrators of domestic abuse. This is somebody who threatened to kill his former partner. He was sentenced in 2009 and has never been released. He is now in hospital. I want him to get well, but I do not want him to go back to the IPP sentence. Can you imagine if he gets well and goes back to prison? He could be on the same landing as somebody who has been convicted for domestic violence, not threats but actually committing violence against their partner: but as that person is on a standard determinate sentence, they could be offered early release—“Earn your way to release”—but Rob will not be, whereas he actually just threatened. I honest to God think that is grotesque.

The Minister today, who I am a great admirer of, justified the risks of freeing people early who have been violent on the basis of freeing up space in prisons, because we have to protect victims and give them space. IPPers might well present a risk when they are freed into the community, but, as has now been explained, so will all those people on early release that we have just discussed all day. There is no doubt that something will happen with some of them. I do not wish it; I just know it. The fact that those serving an IPP sentence have to prove every time that they will never do anything again is ludicrous. If I was Rob, who has been mentally ill, and I had to compare myself with this person who is getting out early, the sense of frustration and hopelessness would honestly make my mental health deteriorate again.

So I simply think that it has to end and we have to do whatever is required. The Minister would be helped if it was legislative. Whichever amendment works, works for me; I will vote for it. This cannot carry on. I know that is too melodramatic. I just mean that, genuinely, this needs to end. It is grotesque in the context of this Sentencing Bill, releasing people for a wide range of reasons when we cannot release people who are in prison decades after their tariff for minor things, and we will not even look at assessing each of them to see whether they might be safe beyond the IPP Parole Board. It is just ridiculous.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I co-signed Amendment 76, from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and shall support it. The amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, would achieve the same outcome. Either amendment would right this injustice. The present position is simply cruelty.

I have very little to add to the speeches, all of which have been principled and humane. Across the House, noble Lords have gone to great lengths to acknowledge and address the risk of further offending while seeking to end the appalling injustice of the continued indefinite incarceration of IPP prisoners. My noble friend Lady Ludford referred the House to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and challenged the Government to come forward with a response to the human rights case. There is none.

I simply do not understand the reasoning behind the proposition that we cannot or will not release IPP prisoners when prisoners serving determinate sentences are entitled to be released, and are released, at the end of their terms. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, pointed out, resistance to ending this injustice fails to balance the actual harm of the present regime to IPP prisoners against the possible risk of further offences by a released IPP prisoner. The Government have a duty to balance risks and harms. On this issue, the balance is between the actual harm to IPP prisoners and the theoretical but possible harm that is risked by releasing them.

As we have heard, subsection (6E) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 76 would leave the Parole Board in charge. It is more than reasonable. Justice and humanity demand that we end this.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness May of Maidenhead (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Keen, and I wish to echo two points. The first is that it is so important to victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse that they do not fear that their abuser, the perpetrator of those crimes, is somehow automatically going to be back in their community. The reassurance that they would get from knowing that the custodial sentence is available is important to those victims.

The second point is, as my noble and learned friend has raised, the issue of the Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls and the strategy for violence against women and girls that is being brought forward. May I gently suggest to the Minister that, if the Government are serious about that, then they should accept this amendment? If they do not accept it, then that suggests that they are not as serious about their intentions on violence against women and girls as they are claiming.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too will be brief because I have agreed with everything that has been said so far. It is important to acknowledge that a strategy and policy on violence against women and girls can only mean something if in practice it results in taking that issue seriously. I would expect everybody across the House to agree that this exception is proportionate and correct, but if this amendment is not accepted, then I am afraid it makes me query whether a policy on violence against women and girls is anything other than a piece of paper that does not mean very much and certainly it will be viewed by women and girls with some scepticism.

I also want to draw attention to the fact that sexual offences and domestic abuse are escalating issues. Somebody might do something considered to be quite minor as a sexual offence which therefore may not require the full weight of a custodial sentence, but we know that these particular offences get worse. Ask anybody who has been a victim of them and you will find out that the perpetrators, once found guilty, have built up to what they have done. So we have to have custody as a mechanism for dealing with even the less serious examples of sexual offences and domestic abuse.

I also remind the House that David Lammy, the Secretary of State for Justice, has talked about the importance of taking the issue of pursuing alleged perpetrators of rape and sexual assault so seriously that he is even prepared to sacrifice jury trials. I completely disagree, by the way, with the use of the issue of sexual assault to undermine jury trials—there are empty courts as we speak where people could be being tried, and I do not think this would resolve it—but it does indicate that the Government are prepared to say that they will make exceptions when it comes to such cases where women and girls are victims of heinous crimes. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister to accept this amendment as being perfectly sensible. It will get cheers from around the country, because it is right that we take this particular form of crime very seriously and act on it rather than just using the words and the rhetoric.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches do not agree with this amendment. That is not because we do not take the issue of sexual offences extremely seriously—we do, just as we do the issues of domestic abuse and domestic violence. That is why we sought to make domestic abuse an aggravated factor in sentencing, and why we have argued for the fact of domestic abuse in an offence to be recorded even in the case of offences that, of themselves, do not imply domestic abuse, such as common assault or assault occasioning actual bodily harm. We fully share and applaud the Government’s determination to halve the number of incidents of violence against women and girls over a decade, and we will do everything we can to help the Government achieve it.

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The key issue is whether people will even be in prison for long enough to access the telephone legal advice scheme before they are removed or deported under this Bill’s provisions. This amendment probes the point around how, where and when people in scope will access legal aid services if there is no time for them to do so.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is no fault of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, who has just explained why his amendment should perhaps not be in this group, but I am not going to talk about what he has just said. I want to go back to the purpose of this group, which is to discuss the purpose of prison, and to make a couple of quick points.

One of the problems I have with the whole of this Bill is that sentencing issues were originally motivated and framed as necessary by the Ministry of Justice because of an overcrowding crisis. We were told that we had to reduce sentences or let people out early from sentences because there were too many prisoners in prison and there were not enough prisons, and that it was all the previous Government’s fault and all of that argument.

In a way, that has felt far too pragmatic to me when discussing the very serious issue of who you put in prison and why, and what the purpose of prison is. This small group of amendments indicates that there is an appetite for that kind of discussion. It is one of the reasons I was particularly pleased to see the amendment tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.

Earlier, in group 2, the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, set aside what we were discussing and said, “By the way, we on these Benches think that too many people are sent to prison for too long, that prison is generally terrible and that it leads to bad results”. That is a caricature, but I am making the point that it is a debate one can have. But this Sentencing Bill was set up as being about how we can reduce the number of people in prison because there are too many prisoners. That has allowed something of a muddle in some of the discussions that have gone on, and that is why I have reservations about it.

The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, on purposeful activity are important because it matters what prison is for—it should be considered all the time. We should remove from ourselves this notion that prison is always a horrendous situation. On the one hand, it is not meant to be a holiday camp, but it is not meant to be something so horrendous that we say that we cannot send anyone there—which is effectively what we have done. We have basically said that prison is awful, drowning in criminal activity, with gangs of all ethnicities ganging up against each other, ideological coercion going on—we hear about that all the time in relation to Islamism—and people self-harming. It is so grim. If you read the chief inspector’s reports, you would think that we should never send anyone to prison. That is a disaster. We need a justice system where we can be confident that we can send people to prison and that while they are there purposeful activity will be important.

It is a mistake to imagine that purposeful activity—education, training and so on—is not happening because of overcrowding. For as long as I have been interested in this issue, purposeful activity has not been consistently happening in prisons where there is no overcrowding or other such issues. To say that is a cop-out. I was pleased to see these amendments because they say that this has to be done as it is part of a prison’s job. I would like to see that hardening up, with no excuses given.

I want to slightly challenge the idea of what counts as purposeful activity. It is not only about practical skills, with accredited training, where you can then go off and work in a practical job. Purposeful activity can be, believe it or not, activity of the mind. I have done work on debating competitions in prisons. The point is that it gives people things to think about other than fighting each other or their awful conditions—it can be quite instrumental in that. Being locked in the cells and bored is a recipe for disaster.

One of my favourite initiatives is where prisoners take pups and train them as therapy dogs. It is an expensive activity and it happens only in a limited number of prisons. Often, it is long-term prisoners who may never get out who are doing it. They are doing something useful and practical, and they become completely transformed by the fact that they have a purpose in prison. They spend all their time thinking about how they can rear the dogs, train them and get them ready, as well as writing to the people the dogs get sent to afterwards to see how they are getting on, and so on. Some of them are in for life, but who cares? To me, that is a humane and useful purposeful activity, and one that does not necessarily mean that they will go and work—no disrespect—in Timpson. There is more to life—that is the point I am making. I want people to be trained to get jobs, but I do not think that purposeful activity should be narrowly confined to only that.

To conclude, we need a proper debate in this country about the purpose of prisons. We should not allow the state of prisons to mean that we do not send anyone to prison—that would be disastrous for justice and for public protection. The state should get over its incompetence and sort things out. Further, this Sentencing Bill has relied far too much on the problem of too many people in prison to be seriously trusted when it comes to making decisions about what sentences people should get based on justice, rather than based on pragmatism. That is a mistake.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 71 to 73, in my name and those of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and my noble friend Lady Hamwee, who unfortunately is unable to be here today. I thank them both for their support.

The House will have seen that the amendments call for the establishment of an independent panel on sentencing and reducing reoffending. I will not repeat in detail the arguments that I made in Committee, but I will summarise them. The establishment of such a panel was a firm recommendation of the Gauke review and it is a recommendation that we support. The point made by the review is that it would be of great value to government to have an independent body assembling evidence on what works in punishment and advising government on sentencing policy.

That is, of course, a totally different function from that of the Sentencing Council, which advises sentencers on what sentences they should consider imposing within the context of the law as it stands. Not only would such a panel assist government but it would assist the public in understanding sentencing policy—what works and what does not; what the thinking is behind developments in prison policy, probation and community sentences more widely; and, of course, on the resource implications of policy. The public are entitled to understand how public money is spent and what public expenditure achieves, as well as where that expenditure fails in its objectives. We have suffered for a very long time from popular misunderstanding among press and public of the evidence in these fields, and an independent panel such as the Gauke review recommended would do much to let in light on this difficult area.

Texas, not often regarded as the most liberal of states in the union in many ways, as the Minister has reminded us, has succeeded in closing prisons and reducing crime by minimising reliance on imprisonment and introducing an earned progression model. I suggest that informing the public and advising government, and so ensuring that policy follows the evidence, are important functions of policy generally, nowhere more so than in the field of criminal justice. If Texas can move in that direction, so can we.

I will just say a few words on the other amendments in the group. I fully support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on the importance of defining and being very clear about the purposes of imprisonment. Our system accepts the concept of imprisonment without, frankly, our being entirely clear on what the purposes of imprisonment are. In that, I agree with one of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. I also agree with her that her portrayal of my arguments earlier this afternoon was a caricature and inaccurate. But I do agree with her that we need to be very clear about what the purposes of prison are. In that context, it is right that we have been reminded by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, of the work of the late Lord Ramsbotham on the purposes of imprisonment.

I agree with every word the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said on the importance of education, skills, employment and vocational training. Although I saw some difficulties with her amendments in Committee, she has softened them, as she said, and they are now worthy of complete support—subject, though, I suggest, to Amendments 65 and 67 in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, which have been accepted by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, emphasised the importance of making time in prison meaningful and productive. Of course, prison is intended, and functions, as punishment, but it needs also to be thoroughly and carefully directed at turning offenders’ lives around and so reducing reoffending.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, spoke of prisons with a purpose. That is the object that should inform our entire approach to all elements of our penal system. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, have both highlighted important injustices—the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on remand and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, on legal assistance for foreign offenders before deportation. I close by expressing the hope that the Government will respond to both their very specific but completely justified points with a legitimate response.

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Furthermore, all the signs point to the contribution of EDS to prison overcrowding only getting worse. There are almost five times as many people in prison serving an EDS as there were a decade ago, when the number was just under 2,000; now, it is well on track to reach 10,000. This trend is likely to continue and increase further as a result of changes in this Bill. This new clause would in no way reduce public protection, but it would enhance the opportunities for incentivising rehabilitation and safely tackling overcrowding in our prisons.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I stand to support Amendment 74 in particular. Its motivations have been well outlined by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie.

In a letter relating to IPP prisoners that the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, sent to some of us at some point, I noted down that he said—this does relate, by the way—that there must be a clear reason to consider the early release of the prisoner before they have served the sentence imposed on them by the sentencing court. Thousands of open-ended IPP prisoners are incarcerated without a release date, we were told, because they have to convince the Parole Board that they are safe enough to be released, all in the name of public protection. I raise that now because there must be clear reasons to consider whether people are safe before you release them. Yet here we have an early release scheme—an earned release scheme—in which even serious sexual and violent offenders can earn their way out of prison, but you cannot earn your way out of an IPP, which seems rather inconsistent.

We have already heard that earned progression is not going to be earned anyway. If you read what has been written about earned progression, put forward by everyone from the inspector of prisons to concerned prison officers, the unions and so on, then the idea that there is a consistent way to test the earning capacity of prisoners who are inside to check whether they have earned their right to be free is unlikely. It has been agreed that it is going to be automatic.

We have to consider who we are talking about. Earlier on, I spoke about the violence against women and girls strategy and my concern about our being in a situation in which we potentially make an exemption for non-custodial sentences for what some might call minor sexual offences, or stalking or domestic violence. In a way, one was assured that one should not worry and that these were minor events. Whether we like it or not, we are talking here—let us be honest—about the people who are perpetrating, for example, child rape as grooming gang members. We are talking about rapists and people who have been convicted of sexual assault. In total, thousands of offenders who are sent to prison for serious crimes, very often against women and children, will potentially leave prison early. The public, broadly speaking, might find that disconcerting.

I am not opposed to the concept or principle of earning your way out of prison. At least, it is an interesting experimental idea. I do not think it is what will happen in our Prison Service, but I like the notion. I get all that. I am also not arguing in principle against any early releases, although I cannot bear the fact that they have been conducted on the basis that we do not have room for people. I would rather it was based on some kind of principle than saying, “Oh, it’s a bit overcrowded. What can we do?” That seems the wrong approach. I am in no way a mad “lock ’em up and throw away the key” type, but it is perfectly proportionate for this amendment to say that certain categories of crime will simply not be considered for this scheme. That is fair enough, as far as I am concerned.

I genuinely think that the Government should simply accept this. I genuinely hope that Members from other parties, Cross-Benchers, Liberal Democrats and Back-Benchers from wherever will go along with this, because that is what happened down in the other place. I would expect it to happen here, because it is absolutely common sense. It is also very important that we do not undermine trust in the criminal justice system or the prison system by making a mess of this, and therefore not making this exemption work.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, we cannot accept that this amendment is either necessary or right. The Bill is posited on the earned progression model, which involves a phased system of early releases. It is all very well for the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, to say that she cannot stand the idea that there will be early releases because of overcrowding, but the fact is that we have a very serious issue which the Bill seeks to address. I, for one, accept the Government’s position that the Bill would be seriously damaged by abandoning the earned progression model in the cases with which this amendment is concerned.

No one can say that, as a party, the Liberal Democrats are not completely committed to the Government’s target to end violence against women and girls, or at least to halve it within a decade. No one can say that we do not take that commitment seriously. We accept that sexual offences are serious offences, but there are many other serious offences as well. The point that I suggest should weigh with the House very heavily is the concern for the position of victims. If this Bill fails to solve the prison capacity crisis then victims will be the losers, as people cannot be brought to justice or imprisoned because there will simply be no space for them. That is the harsh reality.

The position on early release is exactly the same as the reasons that I gave in respect of the first group about the presumption. It requires us to be tough and to resist the blandishments of the sort of points that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made. I do not accept the accuracy of the position taken by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, because we would be left with a dangerous problem that we have to solve, so I shall support the Government in opposing the amendment.

Restriction of Jury Trials

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I repeat what I said to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie: it is a pleasure to see the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, on exactly the same topic that we dealt with a short time ago.

I do not understand why it is felt that, from the victim’s perspective, it makes any difference at all whether it is post-charge or pre-charge. A victim dropping out is a victim dropping out and not getting the case that they thought they wanted to see during the court process. The fact is that there are all sorts of reasons why victims decide they do not want to participate in the process any more. There seems to be a suggestion that, in the pre-charge period, those victims are living underneath some kind of rock and not hearing about the problems in the criminal justice system, including the amount of time that victims have to wait to have their cases heard. The fact is that, in any event, even 9% dropping out post-charge is far too high. The statistics show that the average wait in the Crown Court for victims of rape and serious sexual offences is 391 days, which is an awfully long time—over a year—for them to wait.

I turn to the second of the noble Lord’s questions on the length of sentence. The reason for that is that cases that ultimately result in shorter sentences tend to be shorter and less complicated cases to hear, so they are much quicker. It has never been the case, as noble Lords know, that all cases in the criminal justice system are heard by juries; 90% of cases are heard in the magistrates’ court. This Government are proposing simply to move that line a little to ensure that the most serious cases, which are going to get the longest sentences in the Crown Court, are dealt with more quickly.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, does the Minister not worry that, in waiting and hoping that their case might be brought to trial, the suffering of so many rape victims has been weaponised in an attack on the jury system, one of the fundamental aspects of our democracy and of a free society? Their pain is being used to attack something that matters to all of us. Is that not overly cynical and doing a real disservice to those women, particularly, who are waiting for justice in relation to rape accusations?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I hope that the noble Baroness is not referring to the Government I am part of when she says that the experiences of rape victims are being weaponised. This Government did not come into power with the objective of trying to remove jury trials from anybody. The point is that the system is not working for anyone. Some of those most severely affected are those who have made complaints of rape and serious sexual offences, where the length of time that they have to wait can have terrible effects on them. I am not suggesting that it does not have a terrible effect on everybody, but the system recognises that it can be particularly difficult for people in those categories of cases. It is not a question of weaponisation. The one thing I have tried to be very careful not to do is to make party political points about this. This is something of an emergency. It has taken a long time to get to where we are and it is going to take time to alter it. We have to have a radical plan, and this is the plan that was recommended by Sir Brian Leveson. It would be reckless of the Government to commission an independent review and then not act on its recommendations.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I will be brief. At Second Reading, I drew attention to my real concern about the potential lack of resources, in terms of both personnel and finances, to deliver all of the things contained in this Bill. Therefore, it seems very important to me that, as we go forward, we are collecting as much data as possible as the Bill beds in—information on what sort of support requirements are needed to help prevent people re-offending, on what help is being provided and on how much of that provided help is actually being taken up. I look at Amendments 56 and 58 in this group, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, as very good examples illustrating the need to collect this sort of data. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Hamwee has Amendment 58A in the next group, and, when we get to group 7, there are two amendments from me—Amendments 131 and 133—that would have the same effect.

So, across the Committee, there is clearly concern about gathering information as we move forward. It would be helpful and save time in later deliberations if the Minister when he responds could give the broad thrust of the Government’s view on this particular issue.

I end with a point made by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, who said that it is very clear that not only should we gather this data but we should have some explanation behind the data. For example, we may well have a situation where an offender, in prison or on a non-custodial sentence, is expected to do a number of days of education or skills work yet does not do that amount. The question is, why is that?

Well, from my knowledge of what happens in prison, it is certainly the case that a number of prisoners do not fulfil the required number of days simply because classrooms and staff are not available. I also know that in prisons it is often the case that prisoners get notified of an available slot for their education after that slot’s work has already started. So, my noble friend is absolutely right that, in addition, we must collect information about the availability of resources that are not being taken up.

Finally, speaking as chair of your Lordships’ Justice and Home Affairs Committee, I say that we have come to the very clear conclusion that we do not like the use of “rehabilitation” and think the public would find it easier to understand if we talked about “activities designed to reduce reoffending”.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, explained very well some of the reasons why this group of amendments is so important. I note, as somebody who is a fan of rehabilitation—although I quite like the rebranding that has just been suggested—that the truth of the matter is that what passes for rehabilitation, certainly in prison, is often shoddy, not available or not up to scratch. By the way, that is not a criticism of the people trying to deliver it. It is for all sorts of reasons.

I am very keen that we think hard about what kind of rehabilitation is being offered in the community. I just cannot see how, even with a pledge to invest £700 million more into probation services, the Government can deliver what is in the Bill. This is part of the problem I have with some of the suggestions around rehabilitating people via community sentences. I am worried that rehabilitation and community sentences will be discredited if this goes wrong. The amendments are trying very hard to ensure compliance and that sentences are completed, and that the victims and the whole of the community and society understand what they are trying to do. That is why these amendments are crucial.

I want to state very clearly that community sentences are criminal sentences. They are not supposed to be a soft option. They have to be taken as stringently and seriously as if you put somebody in prison. If somebody is put in prison and they escape—however that might occur—we think that they are trying to escape justice. My concern is that, if we do not have the resources, or do not keep our eyes on ensuring that community sentences happen properly, that is escaping justice. Therefore, it has to be taken very seriously.

I have some concerns about Amendment 52 in relation to mandatory “healthy relationships” courses. I have some cynicism that the way to solve the problem of violence against women and girls is through education. I have a certain dread of the kind of excuse being, “Well, you know, I committed that offence because I didn’t know that consent was needed. I wouldn’t have done the rape if I’d been sent on a good course”. I hesitate to say this, but some people are violent against women and girls because they despise women and girls: it is not a question of having sent them on a well-resourced course.

I have heard an awful lot of excuses in recent years from people who say, “I wouldn’t be a sex offender if only this had happened”. Well, you would not have been a sex offender if you had not committed the offence of sexual assault. So I do not want this to be an excuse for letting those largely male perpetrators off the hook.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee has spoken to our amendment, which would require the Secretary of State to carry out an assessment of the potential benefits of mandatory healthy relationship rehabilitation programmes for offenders sentenced to offences against women and girls. We have heard the Minister talk many times about the Government’s target of halving violence against women and girls during the course of the Parliament. That is a target we completely support.

The area of relationship education is a difficult one, but we have evidence that education in healthy relationships helps to address unhealthy preconceptions and outdated—what some used to call “chauvinistic”—attitudes in young men. Sometimes those attitudes spill into offending, and my noble friend was entirely right to talk of harmful sexual behaviours. She also spoke about what young men in particular see and experience online, and how they take encouragement from that to do sometimes unspeakable things.

The question of rehabilitation for sentenced offenders is whether education would address this. I accept that making such programmes mandatory is not easy, but doing so would or might emphasise their importance. I hear the cynicism expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, about education for healthy relationships, but we have seen how relationship education in schools encourages healthier attitudes among pupils and greater understanding among young people of the concept of consent, as against the concepts of violence and force. I suggest that, for offenders who commit these offences, education would have the same beneficial effect, particularly if it is combined with a sentence for the offender, whether that is a custodial sentence or a community order. An assessment of that beneficial effect would be entirely beneficial.

In a sense, of course, this is a probing amendment, because we encourage the Government to make the position clear. We hope they will adopt the spirit of the amendment in any event, and that the Minister will commit the Government to undertaking such an assessment of the place of healthy relationship education, but we note that the amendment is also supported by the Opposition Front Bench.

I turn to the rest of the group. Amendments 53 to 55 and 57 would impose extra directions to the probation officers and impose burdens on them as regards the nature of the arrangements they make for rehabilitative activity and the flexibility they have in adjusting those activities.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question; it is a good one. However, in my amendment we are talking about future sentences, not existing ones, and we need to find a way of encouraging a radical change in prisons. This is Committee and this is a probing amendment. However, we do need to look at making an element of requirement for these long servers, or it just does not happen. I speak with my experience of the public sector and what happens if there are no requirements. I look forward to hearing how the Minister plans to take this agenda forward in the new world, and I hope that he will agree that a suitable amendment to the Bill could be extremely worthwhile.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, this group of amendments covers a range of different issues, all under the heading of accountability and transparency. I say, generally, that we must concede that the public, for good reason, are pretty cynical about prison policy at the moment and are suspicious of changes in sentencing. There are all sorts of controversies that have arisen around both of those things. Many of us spoke to these issues at Second Reading. For the Bill to not simply become part of that cynicism, we need to ensure that the decisions made in relation to this legislation are as open to public scrutiny as possible.

In that spirit, I particularly support Amendment 93A from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, which calls for a report on the efficacy of reforms in relation to community sentences and suspended prison sentences. In some of the discussions we have had, it is as though we are saying that, if we increase the number of suspended sentences and community sentences, reoffending rates will simply go down, because people will be in the community and there will be rehabilitation everywhere. Somehow, prison is intrinsically blamed for making people in prison absolutely guaranteed to carry on offending when they leave prison. That is one description we heard from a number of noble Lords at Second Reading.

My concern is that we might fool ourselves sometimes about a rehabilitative utopia in the community. I used an analogy at Second Reading about mental health care. Of course, if you posit the situation of locking people up in psychiatric hospitals and then say, “How will they possibly get well?”, and that we should have much more community provision, I will often agree. The problem is that, if you release people from those hospitals into the community without provision, it is a disaster for everybody: both for innocent victims, in some instances, and for patients.

My worry is that the worthy aims associated with the Bill will not be able to be delivered because of a lack of resources in the community. I am also concerned that, despite the undoubtedly honourable, genuine and sincere intentions of the Minister in this House, the arguments used to justify this piece of legislation elsewhere by the rest of the Government have been much more pragmatic and utilitarian. Effectively, they are saying, “We have to review sentencing and do all these things because our jails are too full”. That is not the same as a principled commitment to improving things. So, at the very least, we owe it to the British public to check what happens once this Bill comes into action. Whether it delivers—its efficacy—is incredibly important because, if it does not work, people in the community will suffer. So Amendment 93A is crucial.

I absolutely support the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, in her Amendment 93B. One of the reasons why we say prison does not work and people argue there is a problem with it is precisely that the purposeful activity—or just using prison in a way that could be constructive and giving prisoners access to training, work, education and so on, while being a punishment—is just not being delivered at the moment. You can say that it is happening, but it is not.

The Minister knows that I am involved in a project called Debating Matters Beyond Bars, which runs debating competitions in prisons. The prisoners involved in these often say, “It’s really good to have the opportunity to have a bit of pugilism that is intellectual rather than fisticuffs”. Having something to think about, talk about, debate and discuss is education, too. But it is absolutely excruciating trying to get those kinds of projects off the ground in prisons, because there just are not the resources. The number of prisoners I have met over the years who have been enthusiastic about doing some kind of education or training but were unable to access it simply fuels this notion that prisons are not working and have become seething morasses of frustration. That cannot be good for anyone. So I would like to make this mandatory as well. It would be quite difficult, because that is not entirely to do with accountability—except that, if we could see accountability and transparency in what is happening with education and training in prison, it would inform the broader debate rather than just being mentioned.

Finally, I am absolutely not sure about Amendment 127 from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, which would enable public scrutiny of Parole Board proceedings. I watched every episode of the BBC series on parole—they were fascinating insights—and I think that parole hearings, the boards and what happens in relation to parole are crucial and key. The noble Lord has included reference to objections from victims, families and legal representatives, but my concern is about the notion that everything should always be open. I have argued for political transparency and accountability, which is fine, but the Parole Board does things that might require discretion and some privacy. For example, it has been drawn to my attention that members of staff might want to say off the record that the Parole Board should not let a prisoner out. I do not necessarily want that being made widely available. So it is more complicated than just saying, “Open up the Parole Board”. Those are my reservations.

The whole parole system requires careful scrutiny. The frustrations of prisoners, their families and victims often centre on what happens at parole hearings. Noble Lords will know about IPP prisoners, whose whole fate rests on what happens at Parole Board hearings. I understand people’s frustrations about feeling that they are not given a fair hearing and not being able to make public what happens, but it is not a black and white issue and I am therefore uncertain about that amendment.

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Amendment 86, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, which suggests universal ethnicity and nationality reporting, carries significant dangers. I am not suggesting that ethnicity, where it is relevant, should not be recorded. The grooming scandals have taught us the importance of not fighting shy of noting ethnicity. But the breadth of Amendment 86, which covers, in effect, all offences and would require that all offences be not just monitored but publicly reported—that is, the recorded data to be published and laid before Parliament—is significantly dangerous. It could encourage populism. On that, I am afraid I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who has supported that conditional sunset clause.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I appreciate that anything to discourage populism is a popular call in this House for some people. I just ask the noble Lord what the danger is apart from encouraging populism. When I put my name to that amendment, even though I did not speak on it in the end, some of the controversies around sentencing, crime, law and order, prison, and so on have been a failure to provide information. The noble Lord mentioned the grooming gangs, but the more information there is, the better. What is there to be frightened of? One does not have to draw the conclusion that any negative things will come from having more information. As these kinds of details have been hidden for so long, having them made available for the British public so that they can make their own decisions is something we should trust the British public with. The noble Lord is keen that we trust probation officers. I am keen that we also trust the public.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I too am keen that we should, generally speaking, trust the public. But Amendment 86 requires

“all offenders convicted and sentenced in the Crown Court or Magistrates’ courts”

to have their

“country of birth … nationality … ethnicity … immigration status, and … the offence(s) for which they were sentenced”

recorded, published and laid before Parliament. That could encourage the drawing of entirely the wrong conclusions by the British public.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have been struggling to find the amendments that I was speaking to, to which the noble Lord referred when he talked about my opposition. I remember querying terms such as “associated offences” and offences which have “a connection to terrorism”, but I think that the context was a little more nuanced than the noble Lord suggests.

I agree with the noble Lord about enforceability, but to have a particular officer responsible for enforcing each prohibition does not seem to me practicable—if I have understood the proposal properly. I have points to make about enforceability in the next group; the answer may well be electronic monitoring.

I wish to raise a point that comes a bit from left field. I am sure that I am not the only Member to have received an email invitation today to a meeting to be told about “alcolocks”, which are, apparently, programmed mechanisms installed in cars, which can detect whether the driver has been drinking. The Minister is nodding. I thought that I would use this opportunity to see whether he knows anything about this. How does the car know whether you have had six brandies or half a pint of shandy? I do not know—but it seems quite intriguing. I shall not hold him to it if he does not know.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, I have more qualms about these particular prohibitions, broadly from a civil liberties point of view. The problem with the idea of bringing in endless surveillance and state bodies to keep their eye on people, banning people and prohibiting people on the basis that this is necessary because it will allow people to avoid prison is that it turns the community into something with prison-like conditions. I do not feel easy with that in terms of there being a ban on public events and entering drinking establishments, with new restriction zones and so on.

Where I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, is on how on earth it will work, practically. How will probation cope with monitoring these prohibitions? I cannot understand how it would be feasible. We keep discussing the problem of probation not having enough resources and we are then assured that more resources will be made available; we are now asking probation to do even more than they were doing before. Resources always implies money, but this is about a lot more than money. I would have thought that a lot of the new things that this Bill is asking probation officers to do will require a lot more training.

The Minister will know that, for example, because of the huge case loads that probation officers have, the last thing that they want to be dealing with are IPP prisoners, who are at the very least challenging. We know that, in many instances, in order to get them off the books, they adopt a risk-averse attitude, which means that anyone who even just technically breaks a licence condition—maybe they are a late for a meeting, or something like that—suddenly gets recalled into prison. So there are all sorts of complications around saying simply that probation will do it.

I know that when I raise problems with probation, immediately there is a rush with people saying how brilliant probation officers are; this is not a slight on them as individuals but a problem with the service. In fact, if anything, it is probation officers themselves who feel frustrated and are tearing their hair out because they are expected to do so much with so little. There is a real reason why there is a difficulty in recruiting new trainee probation officers and where there are insufficient staff numbers.

What I do not understand is how we would monitor this. Let us say that there is, for example, a prohibition on going to the pub or a drinking establishment—I cannot remember what they are called now. Are probation officers going to be standing outside the pub? How will they know whether someone is entering a pub or not? That is why I think that the amendments in this group are quite useful. Is this just a box-ticking exercise? If it is a practical thing, someone will have to let the drinking establishments know and monitor whether anyone goes into them. I also think that there is a whole paraphernalia, and there are potentially quite difficult issues when restriction zones are put in place. Who decides where they are and what they are based on, and who is going to monitor them?

There is a wide range of new restrictions and prohibitions that are only being put in place because of the move to remove people from prison. Community probation officers do not have the resources; this will be not just technically bureaucratic to enact, but it will not keep the public safe or enable them to keep an eye on efficacy. Consequently, I would like to tighten up the whole notion of these orders via amendments such as these, but I am not even convinced that they are the way to go or that they are anything other than a problematic example of why there is a prior problem of letting everybody out of prison too early when you do not have the resources in the community.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the three key principles behind David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review was to expand and make greater use of punishments outside prison. The new community requirements introduced by Clauses 13 to 16 are designed to implement that principle. They are intended to give the courts a wider range of options to punish offenders in the community, from stopping them from going to watch their favourite football team to imposing a restriction zone that requires them to stay within a particular area.

The amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has quite rightly raised questions about how these are to be enforced and monitored. Their amendments would prevent the court from imposing these requirements if there are not arrangements for enforcement in place or the court did not believe they can be enforced, and they seek to ensure that the relevant authority supervises requirements imposed by the court.

I hope that it will help noble Lords if I begin by explaining how these orders will be monitored and enforced. It is very important to remember that community and suspended sentence orders are already a well-established part of the justice system. This Bill simply expands the range of options available to judges when they pass a sentence.

As with all current community requirements, probation staff will monitor an offender’s compliance with their order; they use a range of tools to do that, such as intelligence from partners, including the police. This includes electronic monitoring, where appropriate, and probation staff are already skilled in using these tools to enforce community orders. If probation staff learn about non-compliance, they have a range of options. They can return the offender to court, which can result in even more onerous requirements; they can impose a fine; and, in more serious cases, they can even send the offender to custody.

I hope that an example will help to illustrate this. Let us imagine that Harry, an ardent supporter of Sheffield United Football Club, is banned from attending football matches under one of the new community requirements. To enforce this order, the court has ordered that he must wear an electronic tag. Harry breaches his community order by going to a game. His probation officer learns about this from the data from his tag. In other circumstances, a breach may be identified through intelligence sharing between agencies. They decide that the breach is serious enough to return Harry to court, where he receives a further fine.

In short, these new requirements will be enforced by probation staff who are skilled and experienced in enforcing similar requirements. This Government are making sure that the Probation Service has the capacity to do this vital job and keep the public safe through recruitment, increased funding and investing in technology, including even more alcohol tags. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to a new sort of alcohol test, which I am unaware of but sounds interesting. I also emphasise that the Bill does not require the courts to use these requirements. Critically, the court must determine that any requirements imposed are the most suitable for achieving the purposes of sentencing. For all the reasons I have set out, the Government’s view is that these amendments are not necessary.

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[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, before the Minister responds, I will make two apologies. The first is to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham; my noble friend Lady Hamwee tells me that I referred to him twice as the “noble Viscount, Lord Hogg”. The second is to my noble friend Lord Foster, because I referred to the points that he made on electronic monitoring as having been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. I apologise to them both.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I will join the trend. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for calling him “Lord Sanderson” in my enthusiasm to agree with him. Misnaming is almost as bad as misgendering, but I hope he will let me off. I was glad to take credit for the very important points made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about electronic tagging, because I agree with him.

I want to query the Minister now, rather than interrupting him later, about this group. There is something I do not understand. The group is focused largely on enforceability, yet in the previous group, the Minister claimed that these kinds of prohibitions were part of the punishment. He is right to suggest that these are punishments for those people—they are not in prison, but they are still being punished. But I do not find it easy to understand how these orders punish the individuals. Are they related to the crimes they committed? The example that the Minister gave earlier was that, as part of the punishment, someone will be prevented from going to a particular football match. I understand that, if someone supports Liverpool, it might be a punishment to watch them at the moment, never mind anything else.

How do the punishments get decided? There was the example that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, gave of the potential downside of saying that we will have a curfew and someone cannot attend their Gamblers Anonymous meeting. Also, if we are going to say that, as part of the punishment, someone cannot go to public gatherings, who decides which public gatherings are included? Some public gatherings are obviously morally good for people. Do we not want them to go to a political public gathering?

Can the Minister just clarify how it is decided which person in the community gets one of these orders and who makes a decision about who should be banned from a pub, football match, public gathering, political gathering or what have you?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Prashar, and the noble Lords, Lord Marks, Lord Foster and Lord Jackson, for tabling these amendments.

Amendments 60, 61 and 66 refer to the enforcement of the new community requirements. I hope that the noble Baroness and noble Lord will be satisfied with a summary of the answer I gave in the previous group: responsibility for enforcement sits with the Probation Service, which has a range of options available to respond to non-compliance. This includes returning the offender to court, where they may face further penalties. This can include being sent to custody.

The noble Baroness asked how this works in practice, and I hope I can assist. Where electronic monitoring is imposed, the electronic monitoring service provider will receive an automatic breach notification if the offender breaches a licence condition predetermined by a court or probation officer. They will then provide information on the breach to the individual’s probation officer by 10 o’clock the following morning, for them then to take the appropriate action. If the noble Baroness would like further clarification and to speak to the experts whom I work alongside, I would be very happy to arrange that.

Amendments 102 and 104, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, concern the enforcement of new licence conditions. As with the new community order requirements, the enforcement of licence conditions will mirror current practice. Where it is supervising offenders, the Probation Service will monitor offenders’ behaviour and any potential breach of licence conditions. It will have available to it a suite of options to respond to the breaches, including issuing a warning and increasing supervision; where needed, it also includes recall to custody.

Again, I hope that an example will assist your Lordships. Lucy has recently been released from prison after serving a custodial sentence after seriously assaulting someone in a pub. Her licence condition includes a ban on entering any drinking establishment. After several weeks, Lucy admits to her probation officer that she has frequently been going to pubs and clubs. Even though she has not been arrested, her probation officer decides that more intensive supervision is needed to manage her risk, and puts this in place.

As with community orders, where an offender is on licence, there is no expectation for businesses or venues to manage these conditions. As the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, rightly pointed out, imagine a probation officer, already under pressure, having to notify every pub, bar and venue within 20 miles that certain offenders cannot go there. Imagine businesses having to store securely, monitor and update this information and, by implication, having to be responsible for enforcing these conditions. This is not for venues or people in the community to manage, and it will not help offenders integrate back into their communities. The Probation Service will continue its management and supervision of these offenders; it is best placed to respond to any breaches, including recalling offenders to prison if necessary.

However, we must be clear: we cannot monitor every offender in every moment of every day, and nor should we. Complying with licence conditions is an important way in which offenders can show a reduction in their risk as they reintegrate into their communities. It is how they can rebuild the trust they have lost by committing crimes. The punishment correlates to offending behaviour and the decision of the sentencer who takes into account the nature of the offence.

I hope that this reassures noble Lords and noble Baronesses that these measures will provide our Probation Service with a full suite of options to support it in managing offenders in the community—a task it is best equipped to do. Of course, we are also supporting the Probation Service with more funding, more recruitment and better tools to help it do what it does best: keeping the public safe. We therefore believe that these amendments are unnecessary, and I urge noble Lords to withdraw or not press them.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I so want to be able to welcome this Bill; instead, I feel rather despondent. I ask the Minister, of whom I am something of a fan, not to take that personally.

The issue of sentencing matters—to me, to all of us here and to the public—and it has been rightly agitating the public of late. Recent debates have raged over controversial sentencing decisions. Lucy Connolly’s social media posts saw her sentenced to prison for longer than actual rioters who used violence against asylum hotels—is that the right kind of sentencing? Then there are the regular rows about whether some crimes are punished too lightly, whether mitigating circumstances are used too liberally and whether sentencing for serious offences such as sexual assault or child abuse adequately reflects those heinous crimes.

Conversely, many are concerned that some crimes are punished too heavily. Should activists be locked up for protesting? Are too many young people and women being locked up when better alternatives exist? Others worry about all the laws being pushed through Parliament that criminalise ever more activities. Over in the Crime and Policing Bill, we are seeing the creation of a plethora of new offences such as respect orders, the breach of which can lead to two years in prison. So there is plenty for us to discuss and debate in relation to sentencing.

In that spirit, I welcome the Bill’s attempt to clip the wings of the Sentencing Council. Debating sentencing is our responsibility, not a quango’s. I agree with the Justice Secretary’s point that any sentencing framework needs greater democratic oversight and that

“policy must be set by parliamentarians, who answer to the people”.

Let us be frank: the people are tearing their hair out about the mess that parliamentarians are making of sentencing and prisons as we speak. The now-weekly revelations of prisoners being freed from jail by mistake make a mockery of our deliberations here. What is the point of hours and hours pondering sentencing if, once they are sentenced, the system is going to let them go by accident? These are not harmless lags: of the 262 released by accident in the year to March 2025, 87 were convicted of violence against a person and three for sexual offences. Never mind the accidental releases—we have also witnessed the travesty of an emergency release scheme that has seen 38,000 prisoners released early for no other reason than official mismanagement of prisons.

Then there is another anomaly: too many criminals are not being caught to be sentenced, not because they are criminal masterminds but because the forces of criminal justice seem to have abandoned swathes of the country to lawlessness. We will all know friends, family members and colleagues whose stolen phones, laptops and bikes are fitted with tracker devices. When they report that to the police and say, “I know where it is, officer, and who has it”, the police shrug and do nothing. Let us not mention those many instances of mass shoplifting, which is such a scourge in so many communities yet is ignored by the authorities. These are criminals missing from our sentencing consideration because of state negligence, and the public are inevitably frustrated.

With that backdrop, it feels surreal and demoralising to be asked to have a meaningful debate about sentencing policy. But, ever hopeful, I hope that we can try to dig deeper, as this Second Reading debate has done, to consider all sides philosophically. Are ever-longer prison sentences the key to tackling crime, or is prison itself, as the Minister implied, creating more criminals than it is rehabilitating? I am worried that the Bill avoids those proper debates. Despite what the Minister said, the Bill will hem us in, because the Government’s justification for it is hooked on the problem of prison capacity and overcrowding. We are told that

“we cannot … build our way out of this crisis. Without significant reform, demand for places will outstrip supply by … early 2028”.

It is posited as a technical problem.

What is demoralising is that we are basically being told that we have no choice but to reform by reducing sentences. Regardless of what we think, or if we disagree, we are met with the retort, “It’s the overcrowding crisis, stupid”. The proposals in the Bill are all about reducing sentences—not based on principle but for technocratic ends, with a contested evidence base and without the resources, as we have heard.

One of the key proposals is to reduce by a further 10% early releases of fixed-term sentences. The public are already bewildered about why it is so routine to release prisoners after only 50% of their time inside. Then the Government’s recent emergency release scheme lopped off another 10%, which has meant that tens of thousands have been freed after serving 40% of their sentence. This Bill now suggests a further 10% reduction, to 30%. How can that do anything but make a mockery of sentencing? If someone is given a sentence of 15 years and will be out in five, what is the point of the original 15-year sentence in the first place?

Clause 1 introduces a presumption against the use of short custodial sentences of 12 months or less, so you get sentenced to a year in prison but will not go to prison. Meanwhile, suspended sentences will be expanded from two to three years. I am often on the prison reform side of such policies, and there may well be merit in bringing in either of those measures or even the leaked revelations that the majority of women prisoners should not be incarcerated. But the Government’s emphasis on freeing up space in prisons to justify such moves is likely to sideline the need to persuade the public, who might well query whether these policies will weaken deterrence or threaten public safety. Hiding behind the Damocles sword of an overcrowding crisis seems to be an evasion of political accountability and could well fuel public cynicism.

The choice of sentence has a real-world consequence. Take the case of Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, the Algerian sex offender mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth, who was a repeat offender and visa overstayer when he was convicted in November 2024 for indecent exposure. He was then put on the sex offenders register for five years—fair enough—but his sentence was only an 18-month community order. That non-custodial sentence does not meet the threshold for automatic deportation, so when people ask why he was even in the country to offend, the answer is: sentencing choices. I have some worries that community orders and suspended sentences —forced through not based on efficacy but because we are told there is no room to lock people up—will create even more problems.

The Secretary of State, David Lammy, talks of expanding

“effective sentencing outside of prison”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/9/25; col. 1407.]

What does expanding effective sentencing outside of prison mean? It sounds as though communities are now expected to accommodate a quasi-militarised security and surveillance regime. It seems that convicts in the community can now be banned from certain pubs, attending sports and other public events, and confined to restrictive geographical zones, and, of course, there is more use of electronic monitoring. To me, that sounds more like prison than freedom. As the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has asked, who is going to monitor all these provisions and supervise a huge influx of prisoners into our communities? It seems delusional to rely on an already overstretched Probation Service, as we have heard so eloquently expressed by so many people, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, who just summed up what the problems were.

The problem of probation gaps is one reason why we should not fool ourselves or the public by saying that using community resources and sentences as an alternative to incarceration is always humane, progressive or effective. This was the presumption of the Mental Health Bill, but as we debated that Bill earlier this year, the review of the Valdo Calocane case was published. Catastrophic errors in his medical treatment in the community led to schizophrenic Mr Calocane stabbing three innocent people to death, so we should not romanticise what punishment in the community means.

Finally, the Minister will not be surprised to hear that I cannot finish this speech without noting that, when sentencing policy goes wrong, it can wreck the lives of so many people, including prisoners, and discredit criminal justice. The imprisonment for public protection—the IPP—was a sentence brought in in 2003. It was so wrong-headed and such a stain on our justice system that it was abolished, and yet here we are, 13 years after that abolition, with, as we have heard, 2,500 prisoners still languishing on a sentence that went wrong. I just finish by stating that even the Prison Officers’ Association has hit out at the Government for clinging on to this grossly unjust sentence. Napo, representing probation officers, has called on the Government to “finish the job”. I really hope that we use this Bill to finish the job when it comes to IPP. “Prison overcrowding”, you say? Surely, the state can let out some obvious candidates: that is, at least some or quite a lot of the IPP prisoners.

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

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 4th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, this is quite challenging because this group of amendments was designed as a voting group, but I have been informed that there are not enough people in the House, so we will not be taking a vote on them. That is what I was informed of a few minutes ago, which somewhat cuts the legs from under me, to be quite honest. I do not want to waffle on about all the things that we have been talking about with the hope, belief and view that we were going to vote on them, so, with that in mind, and with the greatest reluctance—and I really mean that—I will be withdrawing this amendment.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I apologise that I was unable to be with your Lordships at Second Reading, but I read the excellent contributions in Hansard. That, as well as listening today, confirmed that, like everyone else, I want to commend the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, for this Private Member’s Bill. It has done a huge amount, yet once more, to raise the issue. The noble Lord is one of those thorn-in-the-side type of people—you know, the awkward squad—and that is the greatest compliment I can give him, because I think that is how things change.

Important issues have already been raised. I did not speak on the first group for time purposes, so I will bring some of it forward. The noble Lord’s approach to this resentencing exercise is refreshing, because he has offered to do whatever he can to ensure that it is not turned into, as it is too often caricatured, some chaotic mess with inadequate oversight. Instead, through all these amendments, we are looking to use whatever mechanisms we can to convert these never-ending IPP sentences into regular, normal, determinate sentences with an end in sight. That means we are prepared to make compromises and look at all options—nothing is off the table. In that spirit, rather than treating all IPP prisoners as an undifferentiated blob, I am glad to see that today’s amendments try to tackle the different cohorts within the IPP population and work out how best to deal with each group reasonably, and maybe differently, to edge towards justice.

The focus of my Amendment 7 is IPP prisoners suffering mental illness, giving the resentencing court the power to continue incarceration if someone still presents a risk to the public, as, due to mental disorder, they may be dangerous. This would, in effect, replace an IPP sentence with a secure hospital order, and would be a backstop safeguard for the Government to use in dealing with one difficult group of IPP-ers.

One key aspect of the context here—we have heard this again and again from the Front Benches on both sides of the House—is that, in explaining his resistance to resentencing, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, stressed that

“the first priority and responsibility of any Government is to protect the public”—[Official Report, 15/11/24; col. 2044.]

and that, therefore, the focus will always continue to be on public safety. I am not convinced that that is not too crude a measure of the Government’s main priority—always to protect the public—but, regardless, it seems that the MoJ is fixated on and perhaps even paralysed by the notion of dangerousness and IPPs. I have never been convinced by the argument that IPPs are en masse a distinct group of offenders who are especially dangerous—much more so than other prisoners on determinate sentences for far more heinous crimes, who are often released into the community at their sentence end or are let out on early release to solve the state’s prison crisis.

I want to take this chance to cite a letter that I received from one IPP prisoner, in which he talked of his frustration at seeing early-release prisoners walking out every day, laughing and joking having told prison officers to shove their sentence plan, boasting about how they are going to earn 100 times more than prison officers by selling class-A drugs, and having had adjudications for offences relating to alcohol, phones, drugs, violence and cell destruction all wiped clean—yet they still get an early release. My correspondent pointed out that IPPs are almost choirboys in comparison, but they are left to rot.

However, I concede that one risk factor makes hundreds of IPP prisoners not choirboys: the very nature of the IPP sentence is so psychologically toxic that it has itself damaged prisoners’ mental health and cause problematic behaviour. This theme has been well rehearsed in all our debates in this Chamber and is evidenced in all the literature. As we know, the despair and sense of hopelessness associated with this sentence contributes to making some IPP prisoners ill; we know about the appalling self-harm and suicide numbers. What is more, ill IPP prisoners have a double whammy: they are often wary of disclosing a decline in their mental health to prison staff in case it could knock back a parole hearing. So the IPP regime contributes to untreated illness, with no intervention to stop deterioration, and that creates even more risky behaviour.

The irony is that the prisoners are arguably becoming less safe to release precisely because they are being held indefinitely, which creates so much pent up anger and frustration, and loss of agency, with no hope. That potent mix is leading to instability, people lashing out and disengagement, all of which are barriers to progressing release. It also means that, in the context of this Bill, a percentage of IPP prisoners could be too ill to be considered for resentencing.

This is partly because prisons are not the right location to deal with mental illness. As the Minister knows, the Government have agreed that prison is not the right setting for prisoners who are ill; he knows this because it was an important element of the Mental Health Bill that passed through the Lords, declaring that prisons should not be treated as places of safety. I moved amendments on that issue, with a focus on IPP prisoners, in Committee and on Report.

My amendment today follows up on that discussion. It acknowledges that, given that the punishment part of the sentence of an IPP-er has long since been discharged, where there are still concerns about risk and dangerousness because of mental health challenges, a mental health setting is more appropriate than prison. This would allow the Sentencing Council to use hospital orders to ensure that the public protection aspect of such concerns is dealt with appropriately, while also making sure that the prisoner is in the right setting. Where someone has apparently become not safe enough to release because of an illness that the state has helped to induce, this seems to me to be a reasonable and elegant solution.

In this way, IPP-sentenced individuals can access targeted help for their distress and have their deterioration and behaviour clinically managed. This can allow progression via specially designed therapeutic and pharmacological in-patient care, in a psychiatric setting that can, we hope, build up and help the recovery of ill individuals with dignity.

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[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

I remind the noble Baroness that the advisory speaking limit for this debate is 10 minutes.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I am sorry. The status quo position is that, when Mr Thomas becomes well and stable in hospital, he will be returned to the prison as an IPP-er. That seems unconscionable. All this amendment does is suggest that people are referred when they are mentally ill to a hospital and that the hospital then uses a clinical assessment to decide when they are well. When they are well, they are not dangerous and can be released. That can be part of the resentencing procedure.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am conscious of the time. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has put her finger on a problem that the Government have not properly faced but which they will have to face soon: the commendable action plan they have been pursuing with vigour will not reach a large number of prisoners who have not been released before, because, for the action plan to work at the individual level, the individual has to engage successfully with the processes of the Parole Board. We know now that, of the 1,000 or so prisoners who have never been released, a significant number no longer have the mental capacity to do that. Those are the people to whom the noble Baroness draws attention.

I wish to add to that group a further, possibly overlapping, group of prisoners, who may have mental capacity but refuse to engage with the process because of understandable disillusionment arising from their experience of the process in the past. These people will not be addressed by an action plan that requires that successful engagement. The Government have to come up with something else, because at the moment they have nothing for them; the alternative is that they simply stay in prison until they die. If not today, because we are coming to a close, then on an occasion not too far in the future, I think the House would like to hear what the Government propose to do for these people.

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The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 made significant changes to the IPP licence period. It allows for the termination of the IPP sentence in a safe and sustainable way, ensuring that the public and victims are safe and, most importantly, provides a clear route for the end of this sentence for the IPP cohort. As my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton challenged me, the action plan is where we will get this sorted out. I want to do more, we will need to do more and it is the IPP action plan that is best placed to make this happen.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I was slightly confused in the summation. The implication, if you were just listening in and did not know about this subject, is that, largely, people were given IPP sentences originally because of sexual and violent acts. That is not accurate. Maybe the Minister could clarify what he meant by that. One of the arguments that I was putting forward—maybe the Minister could reflect on this—is that the dangerousness we keep hearing about from different Governments’ versions of the MoJ is often associated with a deterioration of behaviour because of poor mental health created by the sentence. The Minister says that the Parole Board are the only people who can assess whether the behaviour is dangerous or not but, in the instances of mental illness, would it not be better for a clinical assessment? Hospitals have to make decisions all the time about releasing people based on whether they are dangerous or not. They are in a much stronger position, surely, than the Parole Board, which does not necessarily understand mental ill health.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

HMIP did a report into recalls of IPP prisoners and said that they are being used proportionately. I believe that the Parole Board has the right skills and experience to make these often very difficult and complex decisions. On the make-up of the cohort of IPP prisoners, I will write with the exact percentages as I have them for confirmation.

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Tabled by

[Baroness Fox of Buckley]

7: Clause 1, page 1, line 20, at end insert—
“(6A) A court carrying out a review of a sentence of IPP may substitute a hospital order, with or without a restriction on release, for a sentence of IPP.(6B) A court may not make a hospital order under subsection (6A) unless—(a) it has received evidence from two registered medical practitioners that the defendant is suffering from a mental disorder of a nature or degree which makes it appropriate for them to be detained in hospital for treatment, and(b) those medical professionals have recommended what treatment would be appropriate.(6C) A court may not add a restriction on release to a hospital order unless—(a) it is satisfied that the subject of that hospital order poses a significant risk to the public if not detained in a hospital, (b) one registered medical practitioner who has given oral evidence in court supports the making of a restriction order, and(c) it is satisfied that appropriate in-patient treatment is available for the defendant concerned.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure those serving IPP and suffering from a mental disorder who present a significant risk are detained in a secure mental hospital until discharged by the Mental Health Review Tribunal, the Mental Health Review Tribunal for Wales or a Secretary of State.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I want to say one thing. When people say that we do not want to give people false hope, the obvious thing is to do something real so that they have real hope. We do not have to give them false hope, we can change things, but I shall not move the amendment.

Clause 1 agreed.

Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 7th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, what a lovely maiden speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Nichols of Selby. She did Selby and her family proud—and, what is better, she talked a lot of grounded sense on this issue, so I welcome her.

I also welcome this Bill. What we are discussing here—that pre-sentence reports will now not offer differential treatment based on race, religion or cultural background—is important, but, as we have heard, it was a close thing. As the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, outlined, it is important that we note that it is a serious democratic concern that an unelected quango set up by elected politicians sought to act against the wishes of those same elected politicians, and it has taken urgent, fast-tracked primary legislation to stop it. I know from the Minister’s letter that this broader debate is off limits today, but I emphasise that this tension cannot be sidestepped and needs to be taken head on.

The noble Lord, Lord Beith, and others say that this Bill is unnecessary. Is the problem for us not that it became necessary because the independent Sentencing Council flouted democracy? That should matter. The Minister’s letter, which I referred to earlier, reassures us that this Bill will not affect pre-sentence reports in general. That is fine, although it has to be said that some attention needs to be given to PSRs. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation’s latest annual report said that 70% of PSRs inspected between February 2024 and February 2025 were deemed insufficient.

I also think that more clarity needs to be offered to the public about the role of pre-sentence reports in general, now that we are talking about them in relation to this Bill. While there may well be broad acceptance that, in making sentencing decisions, the specific individual circumstances of any defendant can be looked at and taken into account, I think reassurance may be needed for the public that the main focus of sentencing decisions should be appropriate punishment for particular criminal actions and individual perpetrators’ culpability.

More broadly, and going back to the specifics of this Bill, I commend the clarity of the Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, about why the original Sentencing Council’s revised guidelines offended the principle of fair treatment before the law and how they seriously risked eroding confidence in the justice system in general. There is indeed an ever-deepening trust deficit, and I am not entirely sure that this narrow Bill is sufficient to fix it. The reason is that differentiated treatment in criminal justice goes far beyond this sentencing issue. Ms Mahmood seemed to acknowledge that when she stated:

“As someone who is from an ethnic minority background myself, I do not stand for any differential treatment before the law, for anyone of any kind”.


To borrow a phrase from the Prime Minister, she gets it.

Interestingly, Ms Mahmood also used a key phrase in opposing this differentiated approach when she confronted a “two-tier sentencing approach”. That is a choice turn of phrase. Previously, the popular critique of criminal justice as two-tier really resonated, particularly in relation to the sentencing post last summer’s riots, which was sneeringly dismissed as a far-right conspiratorial myth by many Ministers and politicians. It was written off as some culture war trope, and we have heard similar slurs here today. Even as recently as April, the Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry into last year’s “civil disorder” described claims of two-tier policing as “unsubstantiated” and “disgraceful”. Does the Minister acknowledge why there is a widespread perception, reflected in polling and grounded in real-life experience and evidence, that often, even before sentencing occurs, some crimes can be handled differently depending on the race, religion or community membership of the perpetrator?

I have just written the foreword for a forthcoming report entitled The Many Tiers of British Justice: When Identity Politics Trumps Impartial Policing, by Hardeep Singh. I will send a copy to the Minister when it is published next month: it is a crucial read. It uses as an example, and explores in detail, the loss of confidence in the impartiality of police operational decisions, which seem increasingly to be influenced by the particular community being policed, or by broader political concerns, rather than by criminal justice ones.

The plight of the suspended and now sacked chair of the Met Police Federation, Rick Prior, indicates this tension. Mr Prior was removed from his job after a TV interview in which he discussed how his members’ fears of vexatious investigations meant that police officers hesitated before engaging with minority-ethnic Londoners. Referring to some Independent Office for Police Conduct investigations, Mr Prior reported that some police officers had stopped applying the law fairly to people of all backgrounds.

Some noble Lords have expressed concerns about speeches made today that have raised broad political concerns, suggesting that we should have stuck to the narrow tramlines of the Bill—a bit like “Get back in your lane”. But this is Second Reading, so we are allowed to stretch broadly. I will also raise my concerns, which rather mirror those, that criminal justice is being used in a proactive, political way, and that those involved should potentially stick to their lane. Indeed, one thing that the whole Sentencing Council controversy has revealed is the tendency to try to use criminal justice to compensate for perceived racial unfairness and alleged social injustices. The Sentencing Council in its original statement admitted this by saying the quiet bit out loud:

“The reasons for including groups for PSRs vary but include evidence of disparities in sentencing outcomes”.


That translates as, “The aim was to go easier on certain groups to address alleged inequalities”.

The Lord Chancellor, in the Minister’s letter, acknowledged the Sentencing Council’s good intentions in addressing disparities of sentencing outcomes, but I am not sure that we should flatter those intentions. Even if the Minister rightly emphasises that these discussions should be had by policymakers, with decisions accountable to the public, I have a nagging concern, and perhaps the Minister can reassure me as I finish off.

The Government seem to be accepting at face value the Supreme Court’s thesis that racial disparities or inequalities of outcome must mean inequality of treatment and racist discrimination. I fear that such conclusions are exactly what leads to inappropriate, proactive anti-racist correctives and cloud the ability to look dispassionately and objectively at the issue. At the very least, alternative explanations need to be considered. For example, ethnic minorities tend to plead not guilty at a higher rate, leading to less leniency at sentencing. One hypothesis to explain this is that there is more distrust of advice given by state-provided lawyers—distrust that might legitimately have its roots in the legacy of historic racism.

If criminal justice bodies and politicians push a narrative that the state is institutionally racist, will that not simply deepen and embed such distrust? What we need are not narrow Bills but broader discussions. However, in this instance I hope that the narrow Bill will clear the way for those broader discussions, which should be about the use of the law and the judiciary for political purposes—something I think is worrying.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question, and I recognise its complexity. That is why my right honourable friend wants to look at this question in the round, because the point he made is correct. I do not want to anticipate what the answer to his question will be, but nevertheless I acknowledge the complexity that he has pointed out.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I commend the Justice Secretary and, indeed, the Opposition for agreeing on the need for legislation on this matter. Does the Minister agree that, as illustrated perhaps by many of the comments that we have already heard, the guidance on pre-sentencing reports or differential bail et cetera, which is designed by an unelected quango, is not the place to pursue wholly political and often divisive and contentious policies around identity, whether it is race, ethnicity, faith, transgender and so on? It is just not the right place for it to happen. Is not the problem a bit broader in that whenever an unelected quango, such as the Sentencing Council, acts in defiance of Parliament, it undermines public trust in democracy, not just in the courts? That is why I am glad the Justice Secretary acted at last.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her support.

Sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

There are 241 IPP prisoners in secure mental health settings as of the last figures published. It is those who are of real concern to me, because they are so far away from being safe to be released. We need to make sure that we support them—as in the example I gave earlier of the prisoner whom I met recently—in their journey. The work that the Government are doing on the Mental Health Act, with the provisions being put in place, will, hopefully, contribute to a more successful outcome.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, next.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, following on from the request of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for more detailed data, will the Government make public detailed data of the different gradations of risk presented by the various cohorts of the IPP prisoner population, assuming that they are not treated as an undifferentiated blob? Then, could the Government apply the same risk-assessment criteria used for early release decisions to the least risky IPP prisoners and release them now—hardly early—because to exclude IPP prisoners from emergency measures to ease overcrowding seems irrational and even cruel?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will be pleased to know that I raised this when we had the Peers round table a few months ago—I am hoping to have another one in May—when we talked about the RAG rating of IPP prisoners. At the time, we just RAG rated those in prison, and I am pleased that everybody in the community is now also RAG rated, which will help. I am hopeful that noble Lords will suggest to me what they would like on the agenda for our round table, which I hope will be in May. Maybe we can discuss the important questions around data then.

Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

My Lords, we will hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches, which we have not heard from as yet.