Criminal Justice Reform

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, wants to get up, but I want to respond quickly to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, about implementation. It is obviously very early days. The Prime Minister has made a commitment to legislate in this Parliament. That is a major step forward and I absolutely undertake to keep the House, and noble Lords who are interested in this, up to date as our thinking develops. But I am sure he understands that I cannot explain precisely how we are going to do it now.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, also on IPPs, we have failed so many people. So many of those prisoners were not able to access the courses that they were supposed to undertake to qualify them to apply for parole and so on. They must have been damaged by what has happened and the length of time they have had to spend in prison which they should not have done. What are we going to do to support that cohort of people?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. That is exactly what we are thinking about now. As we go forward with these plans on IPPs, we are actively considering how we support them, before release and afterwards. It is absolutely shocking that 80% of the unreleased IPP prisoners—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, mentioned this statistic—have served more than 10 years over their tariff. Of course that has had an effect on them and we must make sure that we understand and mitigate that effect, not just from the point of view of public protection but for the welfare and dignity of those people. I still believe in the welfare and dignity of prisoners; I know that is old-fashioned.