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—

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[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.

Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I agree with every word the noble Baroness has said. My noble friend Lord Timpson has just whispered in my ear that he has been to Holland, so we are looking at that very closely. The other point he made is that they use a lot of tagging in Holland, so that is another factor when we are looking at reviewing sentencing as a whole, although of course the sentencing review will look at adult sentencing and not at youth matters.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am worried about a public loss of confidence in the contradictions around sentencing. I think there was public disquiet about the high-profile case of a woman given a two-and-a-half-year sentence for a social media post, which the noble Lord has pointed out was possibly somebody being made an example of. Yet letting people out before their sentence is up for more serious crimes seems to contradict that. Also—dare I mention?—many IPP prisoners have served their tariff in prison. Will the Minister comment on whether some of those could be looked at to see whether, having done their time, they could be released earlier than their indefinite sentence? They have done their time for the crime they committed and yet they still languish in prison. It just does not seem to make any sense to the public.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. In a sense, she exemplifies the difficulty of the various matters we are grappling with when trying to address the overall problem of having this large number of people in prison at the same time as the riots were happening over the summer period. I acknowledge that that is a difficult situation. Regarding the IPP sentences, the Government have set up an IPP action plan which they are working at full speed on, and proposals will be coming forward in due course.

Prison Capacities

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in two minutes I will speak about two films.

I recently saw the film “Sing Sing”, based on the wonderful Rehabilitation through the Arts programme at Sing Sing maximum security prison in New York. One key figure, Divine G, a former prisoner who plays his younger self in the film, is an inspiring reminder that, yes, prison is there to punish and prisoners need to acknowledge they have been anti-social and were a threat to their fellow citizens, but that prison can find ways to help prisoners to become the best version of themselves.

However, we also know that prisons can be unsafe hell-holes that breed criminality, cynicism, addiction and despair. This sadly brings me to the second film. I was proud to speak at the premiere of “Britain’s Forgotten Prisoners” at the Sheffield documentary festival in the summer. The director, Martin Read, does an excellent job of following the stories of individuals on IPP sentences, trapped in

“a Kafka-esque world of labyrinthine bureaucracy that has seen them swallowed up by a system”.

I cried at both films, one at the humane hope of rehabilitation and one at the frustration and cruelty of inhumane and unjust prison policy.

For prisoners to stand a chance of rehabilitation, they need to believe that, however firm the system is, it is at least relatively fair. Recent events suggest there is no fairness for IPP prisoners. Never mind two-tier policing; we have a two-tier prison policy. Imagine you have done the crime, you have done your time—years earlier, in fact—yet now, way beyond your release date, you are still locked up indefinitely. The excuse is that IPP prisoners are too risky and could present a threat to public safety, with no evidence ever given. Now fellow prisoners, who have committed far worse crimes and have not done their time, are being released early for pragmatic political reasons. Will the Minister promise to at least look at releasing a batch of IPP prisoners via the early release scheme as a gesture of good faith that could restore much-needed hope to the IPP prison community?

Public Libraries

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, perhaps it is understandable in the face of library closures to plead defensively their case as community assets, but as we listen to the long list of services libraries are said to provide for the elderly, the lonely, victims of domestic abuse and bullying, et cetera, I worry that this moves their focus away from their core and vital role as the repository of books made accessible to the public. Once libraries are rebranded as glorified community hubs, there is a danger that books are sidelined. This can create a confusion of purpose and allows all sorts of faddish political activism to move in on libraries.

There is a lesson from Wales, where I am from. There, libraries have become embroiled in an unsavoury culture wars dispute. Only recently, Welsh libraries hit the headlines as staff were being sent on training courses in critical whiteness studies and told to eradicate racism from the libraries by 2030. Once books are deprioritised, we can even have forms of censorship, with libraries advised to decolonise their collections from the libraries sector and its own professional association targeting “lawful but awful” problematic books. My plea: put books centre stage in any libraries strategy.