Sentencing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this is obviously a Bill with good aims: to reduce the prison population and put more resources into probation and rehabilitation. However, the problem is that the prison population is going up in the long term because Governments keep coming up with new reasons to lock people up.

We have had a lot of briefings on this particular Bill, and a recurring theme across them is the issue of resourcing capacity within the probation and rehabilitation system. Several organisations, notably Justice, stress that without significant investment in probation services and community-based interventions, the proposed reforms risk placing unrealistic demands on an already overstretched system. The Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prison Reform Trust caution that, while the Bill may provide short-term relief to the prison estate, it will not be sufficient to address the long-term growth in the prison population, which is driven by sentence inflation and systemic pressures. For example, the Government estimate that the Sentencing Bill will reduce demand for prison places by 7,500 places by 2028. This reduction is achieved through a combination of reforms, including changes to sentencing, release points, recall processes and remand measures. Despite this, the prison population is still projected to increase by 2,000 people by 2029.

Concerns that the proposed earned progression model risk becoming a mechanism that punishes poor behaviour, rather than genuinely rewarding good conduct, are certainly valid. There is the danger that adding additional days through the prison adjudication system would result in a prisoner reaching the end of their sentence without the licence period. In addition, increasing use of fixed-term recourse to prison will not improve the situation for victims or offenders. I have heard from those working with victims of domestic abuse about their fears of offenders being re-released without any assessment at all of the risk they pose to the people they have offended against. Of course, they are being put back on the streets and could commit crimes against other people. This certainly does not improve the lives of those being recalled. Sending somebody back to prison for 56 days does not allow them access to any offending behaviour work or reduce risks but simply holds them in an overcrowded prison before they come back out, often having lost their accommodation and any progress that they made before the recall.

On the probation resources, there is broad support across organisations for the presumption against short custodial sentences of 12 months or less and for extending the courts’ powers to suspend custodial sentences of up to three years. The Justice briefing underlines the need for adequate resourcing of various services, alongside guidance and training for practitioners. The Howard League, Justice and the Prison Reform Trust stress that the implementation of these provisions must ensure a genuine reduction in the use of custody, rather than the reconfiguration of existing penalties. Refuge urges the Government to ensure that domestic abuse offenders are exempted from the presumption against short custodial sentences and that appropriate monitoring arrangements are established.

While I welcome using rehabilitation measures in the community, as opposed to in prisons, a clear theme runs through many of the briefings we have received, which is that without serious investment, the proposed reforms risk collapsing under their own weight. I would be very interested to hear the Minister reassure us on that, because we could spend endless amounts of money, but if it is not spent in the right way, it is a terrible waste.

There are many issues that I wish I could pick up. The Howard League supports amendments to the Bail Act 1976, designed to reduce unnecessary remand, particularly for pregnant women, primary care givers and the victims of domestic abuse. Justice further advocates for the removal of the courts’ powers to remand individuals for their own protection, including children remanded on welfare grounds.

Although it is not included in the Bill, the Law Society highlights the opportunity for the Government to revisit the resentencing of individuals serving indeterminate sentences for public protection, as previously recommended by the Justice Committee in 2022. As the Minister knows well, IPP prisoners have been languishing in prison for petty crimes. On IPP releases, in August, 172 were freed for the first time, while it will take an estimated decade to free 2,544 prisoners still trapped in their sentences.

I would like a commitment from the Government, if they are keen on bringing down the number of prisoners, to please not release men charged with domestic abuse and stalking who repeatedly harass women. Here are three things that the Government could do instead: abolish the draconian anti-protest laws that result in five-year prison sentences for hanging a banner over a bridge; reverse the proscription of Palestine Action, which has led to hundreds of arrests for sitting down peacefully and holding up signs; and, personally, I want the Home Office focused on keeping violent prisoners in prison and letting peaceful protesters out on the streets to try to make the world a better place.

Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 7th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it was a pleasure to hear the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Nichols of Selby. I particularly liked her comment that politics is about service. I think that almost everybody in this House understands that extremely well and tries to commit to it. It is also a pleasure to be in a debate where the lawyers mostly agree. That is quite unusual. Quite often, one is debating this or that, but today it has been rather harmonious.

The Sentencing Council is an independent body that saw a problem and tried to do something about it. It has done what it was designed to do. Now, the Labour Government are running scared of these rather nasty right-wingers who are trying to interfere. I think it was Elon Musk, perhaps among others, who first said that Britain had a two-tier justice system. He was right. That is exactly what we have. Some groups are treated worse than others. We do not have equality under the law. We have known about women being less fairly treated for decades, with their being imprisoned for things that men would not be. The Sentencing Council came up with the mildest of changes to address that issue and has been slammed for it. The updated sentencing guidelines do not do anything dramatic. They just ensure that the courts have the most comprehensive information about offenders and offences. The revised guidelines put emphasis on pre-sentence reports in sentencing decisions and offer more clarity on the scope of requirements for community orders and suspended sentences.

The Government say that they want equality under the law, but everybody wants that; we all understand that it is absolutely desirable. However, the difference is that I accept the evidence that we currently have a two-tier system of justice where you can end up receiving worse treatment because you are a woman or because of the colour of your skin.

If the Government are going to reject the guidance from the Sentencing Council, what ideas are they putting forward? I am speaking only briefly because a lot has been said already that I agree with—and some with which I do not, obviously. I am puzzled by the fact that the Government do not have qualms—or perhaps they do; the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, might want to tell us—about the fact that the Greens, the Lib Dems, the Cross-Benchers and the Church are speaking against the Bill. They have the Conservatives and Policy Exchange supporting them—what is that about? Since when did the Labour Government want to be supported by this lot? I really do not understand where they are coming from.

Please can we remember that we are in a society now that is deeply misogynistic—more than, I think, at any time in my life? As a 1970s feminist, I thought that we had won that battle. I really thought that this was the future for women and that we would be equal in society. We clearly are not. The Government ought to address things such as that. I look forward to seeing some of the amendments from more learned people. I would almost certainly support them.

Rape: Prosecutions

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what are the main factors that have led to decades of low levels of rape cases being prosecuted, and continue to prevent such prosecutions, and what steps are they taking to resolve this.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I would like to thank in advance all noble Lords who are speaking today. I will be listening very closely to the two former Met Police Commissioners here today, because they probably not only understand the problems but know exactly where the solutions lie. I hope the Government will be listening to them as closely as I will.

We all know that our country is failing rape victims, who are mainly but not exclusively women. I could stand here all day and quote figures that show how bad things are now, and how bad they were a decade ago or even three or four decades ago. Misogyny is not new, and it is the root of most rapes. There have been times when women could be priests, or even gods, but extreme misogyny arose in Assyria two and a half thousand years ago and brought it into politics and religion.

I could talk about the way that young working-class girls in Rotherham were not believed and were ignored. We could explore the allegations of police collusion and corruption, with links to local drug gangs, or I could go back a decade and talk about the failures of the police when the Yorkshire ripper was killing sex workers. There is the scandal of Jimmy Savile, operating as a sexual predator in plain sight, with powerful friends in the BBC and Downing Street; or Worboys, the taxi driver who the police believe had 100 victims, some of whom had reported being assaulted before he was finally caught.

Each of these cases has the common threads of women and girls not being believed or fearing they would not be believed. There are the half-hearted investigations of women who do report and the professional scepticism of Crown Prosecution Service staff about whether a jury is going to convict. There is the character assassination of survivors and the intrusive exploration of their personal lives by the authorities, which are meant to be supporting them in getting justice. These high-profile cases open up the public debate, but they are the merest fraction of the lived experience of hundreds of thousands of women and girls who have reported, or not reported, gone to trial, or tried to, and then given up in despair.

What is striking in reading through the library of previous reports, inquiries and ministerial speeches is the repeated themes and recommendations. They tend to broadly agree with the existing policy relating to the investigation and prosecution of rape and then state that this policy is not being properly implemented. These kinds of failures are long standing. It can feel as though the repeated commissioning of these reviews and inspections is a way for government and other authorities to indicate concern, while never following through with the action and resources needed to make change. I am absolutely positive that this Labour Government will do better than that.

From the 1980s onwards, we had a slow but positive shift in the way the police and Crown prosecutors handled rape cases—from the setting up of rape investigation rooms and the swift collection of forensic evidence, to a merit-based approach to prosecution that looked at the evidence, rather than second-guessing what a jury might or might not decide. Coming out of the scandal of grooming gangs in several northern towns, Sir Keir Starmer, the then head of the Crown Prosecution Service, argued that it was not a question of the victim’s behaviour or criminal record, but whether the crime had happened. He said:

“if the yardstick traditionally used by prosecutors for evaluating the credibility of a victim in other cases were used without adaptation in cases of sexual exploitation, the outcome would potentially be a category of vulnerable victims left unprotected by the criminal law.”

He was absolutely right.

These changes, combined with the #MeToo campaign and a series of high-profile historical scandals, led to a huge increase in the reporting of rape cases. This was a success, but it came just as austerity led to the slow collapse of the criminal justice system. The result has been a disaster for rape victims—rape survivors—who have been seriously let down by an overstretched judicial system that has responded in the worst of all possible ways. It is a system that promises justice but delivers delays and failure.

The numbers of rapes recorded by the police increased steadily from the 1980s but tripled between 2014 and 2018, reaching their highest-ever volume. The number of reported rapes being successfully prosecuted has, however, dropped from 25% in 1981 to 1% or 2% in recent years.

Instead of our society recognising the scale of a hidden scandal and putting resources into achieving justice when hundreds of thousands of people started reporting this horrendous but regular, everyday crime, what the last Government did was to cut police, lawyers and police time. The Crown Prosecution Service quietly dropped the merit-based approach and rationed cases going forwards based on a Ladbrokes betting shop analysis of the odds of a jury convicting the alleged assailant—I am going to be very careful about naming the person I believe is responsible for that, because I am not sure whether saying it in the House of Lords gives me cover from prosecution.

The solution is more resources, and that means making it a priority within the judicial system—no more delaying trials for a year or more, so that the rape survivor gives up all hope of justice and drops out from emotional exhaustion. As long as rape is a crime that people think they can get away with, they will do it. Do this Government, or any Government, want rape legalised? The year-on-year failures make that appear, near enough, the outcome of austerity.

The other thing the Government can do is education and changing the culture. This is incredibly important and I feel that this avenue of recovery has not been explored. In France, Gisèle Pelicot has done this and changed the culture of shame from being all on the survivor to the shame being directed at all the men who raped her, all those who colluded and all those who did not report to the police what was happening. We need Ministers to get behind survivors and make it clear that rape is not just about grooming gangs, spiked drinks, dodgy taxi drivers or even police officers. All those need dealing with but, distressingly, most sexual assaults are about familiar and comfortable environments and people whom you know. Therefore, education is absolutely basic to sorting out this problem. I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister will say in reply. If he could pick up that point about education, I would be very grateful.

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

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the passionate speech of the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I would like sincerely to thank the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, for bringing this debate today.

We have discussed this in your Lordships’ House so many times that it is sometimes hard even to find something new to say about it, yet here we are, finding new sources of anger at this injustice. Imprisonment for public protection was always a disastrous tactic. I agree that some of the judges and lawyers involved really ought to have understood that. Yet, as the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, also said, we have common ground among a quite odd bunch of noble Lords. It is just like the fish farms debate: we have an immense range of people with very different ideologies, yet they all feel the injustice of this issue.

On the issue of IPP prisoners held for years beyond their sentence, last month, in answer to a Parliamentary Question, Shabana Mahmood, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, said:

“We are not considering a re-sentencing exercise for IPP prisoners, because that would automatically release a number of people who we do not believe it would be safe to release”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/10/24; col. 214.]


I do not know whether that has been updated but it is a massive cause for concern, because it simply is not true. As lawyer and campaigner Peter Stefanovic points out in his film on this issue, the House of Commons Justice Select Committee says that a resentencing exercise, overseen by a panel of experts, for everyone still serving an IPP sentence is the only way to address the unique injustice caused by that sentencing. It recommended that the panel explore how resentencing could happen in a timely way, but one that would not jeopardise public protection. That does not mean the immediate release that the Justice Secretary suggests; she must know that, and if she does not she really ought to.

We cannot say that we have a justice system if we have an innate injustice such as this. The sentencing and continued imprisonment of IPP prisoners has just been cruel. We Greens are well aware that prison is overused as a tool of justice. Far too many people are imprisoned, when there are much more effective ways of rehabilitation or stopping reoffending.

I can understand the anger of people who say that we should look up serial rapists and murderers and throw away the key, but in this instance, we have, for example, a 17 year-old who steals a bike or people who grab other people’s mobile phones. I find it very difficult to believe that anyone listening to this debate would not agree wholeheartedly with us. This was a Labour Government’s mistake. It is down to this Labour Government to fix it. We definitely need a free vote on this in both Houses. If we do not have one, it will be yet another injustice heaped on these prisoners.

Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods) Order 2024

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his position; this is the first time I have been able to debate with him. I hope he has plenty of time to sort out the mess of the prison system. I support the order; there is obviously no alternative to passing it.

The Minister touched on the reasons why that has occurred. My understanding is that the offender management unit in the Ministry of Justice calculates what the demand will be for prison places, taking into consideration all the changes in legislation. Anything that we do in legislation makes it change its calculation, and I am pretty confident that the unit told Ministers a long time ago that we had problems. One reason why I got involved in looking at the penal system was a debate initiated by Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood in 2017 on overcrowding in the prison system. We just let it go on and on until eventually we had to do something, which is exactly what the Minister is doing.

My only question is: is there any scope to do something about unnecessary recalls? Released prisoners can be recalled for fairly trifling bureaucratic reasons, which causes a lot of disruption and an increase in the prison population. Also, is there any scope to reduce the remand population, which the Minister mentioned? I look forward to supporting the Minister in his work.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it was a pleasure to hear the categories that will not be up for release, because nobody wants sexual predators and misogynists out on the streets—so I am delighted to hear that. But when the issue of prisons comes up, we always have to ask ourselves: what are they for? They ought to be for keeping dangerous people off the streets, but that is not what we do at the moment; we throw into prison an awful lot of people who should not be there. Through the Minister, this Government could think about changing who we put in prison because, quite honestly, the number of people going to prison is ludicrous when you think about some of the crimes they have committed.

Drug law reform is an obvious area. It seems absolutely ridiculous to put people in prison because of drugs offences when they have access to even more drugs there than they do out on the streets. Prisons are failing in that way, and I would be interested to hear what the Minister had to say about drug use in prison. Unfortunately, our new Prime Minister has indicated that he wants to continue the ideological war on drugs. Can the Minister at least review the evidence from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and publish its advice? The Conservative Government kept it secret because it called for the decriminalisation of personal possession of drugs.

It is good to hear about restorative justice, which is something further that that this Government could talk about. It is a voluntary process whereby people who have been harmed can work with the people who have caused the harm and perhaps identify how both parties can resolve or move on from it. We had amendments on this to the Victims and Prisoners Bill, so it would be good to hear the Government’s thoughts on this area.

Of course, if we are going to let people out of prison, we have to remember the scandal of the IPP prisoners. I was sad that the Minister did not mention them today because that category has clearly suffered the most incredible injustice. The legislation was designed to keep serious offenders in prison, but instead we ended up with nearly 3,000 people, most of them non-violent, trapped in prison. IPP prisoners turn to suicide and hunger strike. This is a legacy of the last Labour Government that the new Labour Government need to fix, as I pointed out.

One report says that someone got, in effect, 16 years in prison for stealing a flowerpot at 17. A prison sentence of 18 months should not turn into 18 years, which has also happened. It is no wonder that our prisons are overcrowded if we keep throwing people in there to rot for minor crimes. So do the new Government have a plan to work at pace to safely release IPP prisoners where possible? Is there a proposal for new legislation on this? We need the new Minister to sort out a plan on this. We need a resentencing programme to get the majority of IPP prisoners out of prison. Apart from that, I can say only, “Good luck”.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I wonder whether I may ask a very simple question. I very much support what is being put forward, but in my history no Government have ever answered the simple question: how come Britain locks up so many more people than comparable countries in the rest of Europe? It seems pretty barmy. I do not feel any less safe in Paris or Berlin than I do in London, and yet both those countries do not lock people up in the way we do. It is a fundamental and simple question. I hope very much that we will pass this, of course, but I hope it will be in the context of the Government being the first of any political party—the previous Labour Government refused to look at this as well—to look at this fundamental question and ask themselves, “Why?”

The answer must be that there are better ways of doing what we are trying to do. If it means ignoring pressure from the Daily Mail, then I am afraid that is what we have to do. Given the brave statement the Chancellor of the Exchequer made today about cuts, it might be a very good opportunity for this Government to take a new look at why we lock people up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I assume that if it is, I will not be able to have a sherry trifle, which is one of my favourite desserts.

To conclude, this statutory instrument is vital for addressing the capacity crisis in our prisons. It will pull us back from the brink of a total collapse of law and order in our country, which would put the British people at risk—something we cannot countenance. We should, however, be under no illusion: the measure we have debated today is not a silver bullet for prison capacity. It will not end this crisis and it is not the solution for the longer term, but it is a measure that buys us the time needed to take further steps to address the pressures in our prisons and put the criminal justice system on a sustainable footing, in turn providing greater protection to victims and the public. It rightly brings to an end the short-term measures of the previous Government that operated without due transparency, proper scrutiny or the safeguards to protect the public that are the heart of this Government’s approach.

Before I close, I wish to extend some further thanks, building on the remarks I made in my maiden speech in this place. As I said then, those who work in our Prison and Probation Service work every day with some of the most complex people, inside one of the most complex systems. Managing a prison system at around 99% capacity for an extended time will have been an extraordinary challenge not just for those on the front line but for all the partners in our criminal justice system, including civil servants at the Ministry of Justice and those working in the third sector. I therefore thank my colleagues at the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service not just for the way they have welcomed me into the department but for their committed and largely unsung service to guiding us through this current prison capacity challenge.

The last Government placed our criminal justice system and prisons in crisis, but the legacy of this Government will be different. It will see a prison system brought under control, a Probation Service that keeps the public safe and enough prison places to meet our needs—which will lead to having prisons we are proud of, but also prisons, probation and other services working together to break the cycle of the revolving door and reduce reoffending. Today’s measure is not the long-term solution—we are being transparent about this—but it is the necessary first step.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Will the Minister respond, perhaps at a later date, to my questions about drugs policy and the fact that this Government did not release a report?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. I will write to her, because I am not completely familiar with that and I would not like to get it wrong.

Prison Capacity

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

He is still on the right. In fact, he never sat on the left.

I accept that farms and gardens are very positive in prison environments. In fact, one of the prisons I visited recently is HMP Haverigg, a prison that Prisons Ministers rarely visit at all at the far end of Cumbria. One of my goals in this role is to go and see the prisons that Prisons Ministers have never been to. At Haverigg there is a big focus on gardening and market gardening, which creates not just extra skills but a great nurturing environment for the prisoners there. It is also a source of income, because they have a little shop at the gate. That is something I am a big fan of and I will be ensuring that we do all we can to support that

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I welcome the Minister to his place; it is a brilliant stroke by the Labour Government. However, I did not quite understand his reply on the IPP prisoners. Clearly there is an injustice there that needs to be sorted as fast as possible. It was created by the last Labour Government, so it would be appropriate for the current Labour Government to sort it out as quickly as possible.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The situation with IPP prisoners is of great concern. I know that huge numbers of Members on both sides of the House care about it deeply, and I share that concern. IPP prisoners are not caught by the changes that we are putting forward. I have spent a lot of time talking to IPP prisoners inside and outside prison—in fact, in my previous role a number of IPP prisoners were colleagues—so I know the complexity of the issues involved. I also know that we as a House need to be determined to find all that we can do to support IPP prisoners and their families, and to make sure that we still maintain safety.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I will briefly repeat some of the remarks I made in Committee about the issue which is now dealt with in Amendment 147. The cases the noble Lord, Lord Carter, mentioned demonstrate amply why many serving and recalled IPP prisoners have simply lost hope of ever being properly released. The purpose of Amendment 147 is to create, on a statutory basis, a mentor and advocate scheme to add to the support which may be available to IPP prisoners.

When I spoke about this in Committee, I was quite gratified by the Minister’s response, notwithstanding the fact that such an amendment has not found favour. The Minister said, having listed the kinds of support that exist for IPP prisoners:

“That is not to say that there could not be better organisation of voluntary agencies or, despite what I have said, some other route to consider whether there are ways of strengthening the support of prisoners on some non-statutory basis”.—[Official Report, 12/3/24; col. 1966.]


Since the amendment, in its current form as Amendment 147, has not found favour with the Government, I urgently ask both the Minister and the Government to look at offering the kind of additional support which would have been offered in an advocate and mentor scheme.

It is clear from everything that has been said from all sides of the House about the current situation of IPP prisoners that it is incumbent upon us to do everything we can. Although I understand that a scheme like this will not end up being statutory, it could provide added support for those prisoners and perhaps some small measure of hope that they may ultimately be treated somewhat more fairly than hitherto.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am very pleased that the Government and the Labour Front Bench have improved this Bill, because it was quite a difficult one when it was first presented. However, it would be so amazing if they both accepted this last little tweak of Amendment 149A. Although it applies to very few people, this is an issue of justice and of unfairness that could be put right. I know it is very late, but that amendment is very worth while.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 140, which is in my name, although I support all the amendments tabled by noble colleagues in the IPP group.

I thank all the groups involved in this that have supported us. I also thank the Minister himself for the huge efforts he has made on behalf of IPP prisoners, and the Government for the immense distance they have travelled so far in repairing the damage done by this sentence on the psyches and futures of the remaining rump of unfortunate individuals left serving IPP sentences. We all want to help them progress and leave this torturous situation, but we all know that it must be done in a safe way that will not endanger the public. Amendment 140 would go a huge distance towards achieving this for those the system has damaged the most: those stuck in prison three or more years after their tariff has expired, whether or not they have been released and recalled in the meantime.

Under the current law, any prisoner who is being transferred to hospital will be entitled to the same level of aftercare as any other individual who has been in hospital under qualifying sections. This is an estimated 600 prisoners out of the almost 3,000 still in the system. Section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983, on aftercare, provides wraparound care, which can include forensic psychiatrists working with police, probation, victim liaison officers, and local health and social care practitioners, as appropriate, under MAPPA auspices in their local areas.

For prisoners who have been sectioned, the duty means that multiagency planning starts before release and that prisoners come to their parole hearings with a package of support and care ready for them. This will enable them to live safely on the outside. It is hugely successful and throws a light on a path that would lead to many more successful releases. Over 90% of IPP releases by the Parole Board of prisoners who have had Section 117s between November 2021 and August 2023 would have had aftercare plans before release. This is double the percentage of IPPs who did not have Section 117s.

If you speak to any practitioner involved in the parole process, they will tell you that the number one problem preventing the release of people stuck in prison on this sentence is the lack of a package of support in the community to give the Parole Board confidence that they can safely be managed. With an aftercare package provided by health and social care, in consultation with probation, much more care is taken to ensure that the basics—the scaffolding on which the individual can rebuild their lives—are covered. This scaffolding may include suitable accommodation and support as needed from an allocated psychiatrist, working with police, probation, victim liaison officers, local health and social care practitioners, et cetera. Arguably, all prisoners should be entitled to this, but sadly we know that the system often lets them down.

I will give two real-life examples. Their names have been changed for obvious reasons. I am calling them John and Peter. John was sentenced when he was 15 for a minimum term of under a year, and he spent 15 years in prison. Peter was sentenced at the age of just 13. He had a DPP with a minimum of 12 months, and he spent 17 years in prison.

John had a traumatic childhood, which included abuse and being put in care. His first 10 years in prison were chaotic. Over time, it became clear that he had developed a serious mental disorder in the form of a personality disorder. In one prison, the prison psychologist suggested that he should be assessed for a transfer to hospital. He consented and was duly transferred under the Mental Health Act 1983, so he was entitled to the support afforded by Section 117. He said that

“for the first time ever I was able to go to the Parole Board with a really good and supportive release package on the table”.

It has not been all plain sailing for John since his release. He was rearrested for a breach of conditions several months later, but he knows that the support is still there to help him face the Parole Board again and to succeed when he is released. The support package will last for as long as John needs it.

Contrast this with Peter’s story. Peter initially did very well in custody and was first released when he was just 17. He has had long periods of stability, but then things broke down and he has been recalled five times. He now lives in a constant state of anxiety that he will be recalled to prison. He says that living at an endless risk of recall is “like living on eggshells”, and that his sentence has

“given me bad anxiety and paranoia—even when I am the victim I am the one who gets arrested whenever I contact the police— I fear going out and getting recalled because something might happen”.

On his latest release, Peter went to a special mental health approved premises, but was discharged from prison without his medication. After 12 weeks in a hostel, his accommodation entitlement was up and he had nowhere to go. His last recall followed a significant deterioration in his mental health and a spell of time as a voluntary patient in a mental health ward from which he was discharged without suitable accommodation and support. He said he was glad to be back in prison because at least he “couldn’t be recalled”. Because he has never been sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983, he is not entitled to the same wraparound care as John. But why should he not be?

Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Suitability for Fixed Term Recall) Order 2024

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, in October 2023, my right honourable and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said in the other place that the Government would review the use of recall to ensure that the prison system is working effectively and consider how to safely manage any risk posed by offenders, while not having people in prison any longer than necessary. That is the purpose of this statutory instrument.

Recall, as your Lordships know, is a preventive measure available to the Probation Service to bring an offender managed on licence in the community, following release from prison, back into custody. There are two kinds of recall. The first is known as fixed-term recall, which is for a period of 14 days if the offender’s sentence is less than 12 months, or of 28 days if they are serving a sentence of over 12 months. The other is standard recall, where offenders are recalled to prison and remain in custody until the end of their sentence, unless released earlier by the Parole Board.

Unfortunately, pressures on the Parole Board mean that it is sometimes quite a long time before a prisoner’s further release comes up for consideration. In the case of offenders already serving less than 12 months, the delays in the Parole Board might mean that it does not get round to considering their case before they are due for release anyway. This means that in the case of offenders serving less than 12 months, a recall is quite a severe consequence.

Between 2017 and 2023, the number of people in prison on recall rose by about 85%. In that period, there was a major decline in fixed-term recalls—20% in general and 27% for those offenders serving less than 12 months. The purpose of this statutory instrument is to rebalance that situation and mandate the use of fixed-term recall for lower-level offenders—those on less than 12 months, subject to certain exceptions that I will come to—so that they are automatically recalled for 14 days and then rereleased. Of course, they would then remain on licence until the end of their custodial period being served out in the community.

That is the essential purpose of the statutory instrument. I accept that it is against the general background of pressure on the prison estate at the moment but, in the Government’s view, this measure is fully justified in its own right, in fairness to offenders serving less than 12 months and as a way of rebalancing the system in the way I described.

As your Lordships know, probation can recall offenders if their risk while on licence increases because they fail to keep in touch, do not observe the curfew, have been under the influence of alcohol if the conditions forbid alcohol, et cetera. However, as I said, for those serving short sentences, the reality is that one recall might mean that they serve the rest of their sentence, are held in custody for too long, and when they come out they are not on licence as their licence has finished. It is much better, in general, for the short-sentence offenders to remain on licence when they are released back into the community for the balance of the sentence period.

The order will apply to lower-level offenders aged 18 and over serving custodial sentences of fewer than 12 months and assessed as requiring recall. It will not apply to the more serious offenders who are managed under what is known as MAPPA at levels 2 and 3, or those who have been charged with a further serious offence under Schedule 18 to the Sentencing Act 2020.

As my right honourable and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, updated the Houses the other day in their Statements on “Prisons and Probation: Foreign National Offenders”, we are preparing the Probation Service to be ready for increased demand, introducing changes to operating procedures that will allow front-line staff to maximise supervision of the most serious offenders and to deal with intervention and engagement at as early a stage as possible.

I take the opportunity to express our deep gratitude to all those working in the criminal justice system, including in prisons, probation and the police. They deserve enormous credit for their commitment. They are under heavy pressure and managing magnificently. I hope that this statutory instrument will further ease that burden and rebalance the system in the way I hope I have described. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I can sort of see the rationale for this, but it is completely misguided. Every time the Government talk about tougher sentences and being tougher on crime and the causes of crime, they start packing out the prisons. Of course, there is now no capacity. This is a rather cynical move to clear out the prisoners so that we can pack other people in.

I have a much better idea, which I will come to in a moment, but I do not understand why the Government are wafting this statutory instrument through yet find it impossible to do something fairly fast for IPP prisoners. I would like an explanation from the Government.

Part of the problem is that we tend to send people who committed low-level drug abuse crimes to prison. I suggest a constructive way forward, which is that we automatically release anyone in prison for low-level drugs offences, because they are less dangerous to other people and really only dangerous to themselves. Please could we have some rationale about the prison system, which is crumbling with this Government and could be better?

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, apparently it is my turn. In a way, this is a continuation of the Question put by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. The Minister knows the crisis in our prison system. That crisis has been made partly by legislation that we have passed in this House over the last decades.

I remember that, when I went into government with the noble Lord, Lord Clarke—Ken Clarke, who I still consider my friend—we had some ideas about reducing the prison population, which had then crept over 80,000, double what the noble Lord had experienced 20 years before when he was Home Secretary in the early 1990s. We sent a little package across to the No. 10 Politburo, but the message came back: “Not politically deliverable”. That has been the problem with Governments of all shades over the last 20 years: not being able or willing to try to bring down our prison population.

The noble Baroness is right that this is gesture politics, but it is a gesture in the right direction and therefore we support it. There is a concern that it is another example of central government moving responsibility to local government and local voluntary services, which then find themselves under pressure. If more probationers are in society and still needing supervision, will there be any more help for the voluntary services?

Apart from pointing out the ridiculous idea of putting in prison too many prisoners who do not need to be there and could be better managed in society, my argument, going back to the Question put by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, would be to look at the whole process of managing the way out for prisoners at the end of their sentences, which is expensive, difficult and almost impossible in an overcrowded prison. It came up in that Question—and the Minister indicated that it may already be happening—that some of the experience and wisdom of prison officers towards the end of their careers could be used in a management and mentoring role. Otherwise, we give this SI our support.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I rise possibly as an elder, owing to my advanced age; but perhaps not. I would like to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. As he said, there is almost nothing left to say about these prisoners. It is an injustice. I hope that the Government are considering accepting some of these amendments. We cannot say that we have a justice system if we have an innate injustice like this.

I support the tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, but also to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, with whom I have almost nothing in common; we have a very tetchy relationship but, on this, I think he is being superlative in working for the rights of IPP prisoners.

As Greens, we believe that prison is overused as a tool of justice. Far too many people are imprisoned when there are much more effective ways of rehabilitation or stopping reoffending. I can understand the anger of people who say that we should lock up serial rapists and murderers and throw away the key. I do understand that anger; but, in this instance, we have, for example, a 17 year-old who steals a bike, or people who grab other people’s mobile phones. This is clearly an injustice; I find it difficult to believe that anybody listening to this would not agree.

The lawyer and campaigner Peter Stefanovic put out an online video about this. It has had 14 million views. A petition to force the Government to debate this again got easily 10,000 signatures. There is massive public support for sorting out this issue. I know that the Government care very much about the will of the British public. The word that came through for me in some of the responses to the video was “cruel”. The sentencing and continued imprisonment of IPP prisoners has just been cruel. Please, let us see some progress on this Bill, then we can all take the Ministers out for a cup of tea.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for moving his amendment. I have tabled Amendment 156; it may be convenient to speak to it now. Before doing so, I have some general points to make about the whole issue of IPP, which I will not repeat in detail later.

I am grateful for all the work that my noble friend Lord Moylan has done along with the Prison Reform Trust and UNGRIPP. In 2017, as a result of a debate initiated by the late noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood—I am grateful for the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti —I decided to take a very close look at our penal system. I soon found that I needed to widen my interest to the whole of the criminal justice system because there is so much is wrong with it. One obvious example is joint enterprise murder, but that is for another day.

Let no one think that I am some sort of soft, bleeding heart, out-of-touch do-gooder. I am not. I believe in firm discipline, with all that that implies. But—I repeat, but—no more disciplinary sanctions should be applied, including incarceration, than are needed to have the desired, legitimate effects of protecting the public by incapacitation, and providing retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation. The current IPP regime clearly fails this test on all counts. I will not rehearse the heart-rending histories that we have all heard about. They are not in dispute.

I also accept that some prisoners on an IPP sentence may not be releasable any time soon even under a resentencing scheme. However, keeping prisoners incarcerated unnecessarily costs £44,000 per annum per prisoner and wastes resources. We know we have a terrible prison system because the Chief Inspector of Prisons tell us that is so. In his 2023 report, he said that inspectors have run out of superlatives to describe how poor the purposeful activity component of prison life is, or words to that effect. No wonder IPP prisoners find it so hard to demonstrate any progress with rehabilitation.

Employment of People with Criminal Convictions

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are very keen to allow prisoners release on temporary licence wherever that is possible. I emphasise the work that has gone into preparing prisoners for employment; there is now an employment lead in every one of our 93 prisons, and an employment hub where prisoners can access vacancies, make applications, et cetera. Every prisoner has an ID, a bank account and accommodation arranged when they are being released. There is an employment advisory board in every prison, and these measures are taking effect.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Green Benches. If everyone is quick, we can then hear from my noble friend Lord Polak.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I will be quick. I will just say that I will miss Lord Cormack very much.

There is a section of prisoners—the IPP prisoners, who are imprisoned for public protection—who are constantly being called back to prison, and their mental health is very much under threat; they are a very vulnerable population. Are prisons looking to rehabilitate those prisoners in particular, by preparing them for work?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, there is a specific action plan in place for IPP prisoners. The question of whether they are being prepared for work is a little premature because they first have to be prepared for release. We are going to discuss this matter in great detail in the debates on the Victims and Prisoners Bill, and I look forward to further discussions with the noble Baroness.