Sentencing Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

I look forward to hearing from the Minister as he addresses these issues and explains why it is not possible to go further in the programme of reforms undertaken over the previous few years by allowing public hearings to become the default position. I thank him in anticipation of his engaging on this issue. On that basis, I ask him to look favourably on this amendment, because I think that the time for reform has arrived.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough in general terms. In particular, I believe that we must assess the effectiveness of measures introduced—and, if they are not effective, we need to go back to the drawing board.

I also wish to speak to my Amendment 93B, which seeks to ensure participation by prison inmates in education and training or “other purposeful activity”. That was not my original description, although I find that the awful word “purposeful” was first used in 1598—but it also had a secondary meaning of “determined” or “resolute”, which makes me feel a lot better.

I have tabled this amendment because I am concerned about the state of education in prisons, both now and going forward. My wording is far from perfect, since to keep it in scope of this narrow Bill, it can apply only to custodial sentences from the day on which the Bill comes into force as an Act, whereas the problem is endemic across the prison estate. The amendment would provide for an annual review of progress, and the implementing regulations bringing it in would be subject to affirmative resolution, to make the amendment more palatable to the Minister and his officials.

As a fellow former retailer, I admire the Minister, his distinguished father and Timpson the company, the repair chain that they run, and their brilliant work on rehabilitation of offenders. However, I was sorry to hear that their workshop in Wandsworth Prison has not reopened. The truth is that the success of these and parallel efforts by other companies to get ex-convicts into long-term work requires offenders to be appropriately trained while inside.

The Government are hoping that the measures they are taking to free up prisons, some of which are hard for people to stomach, will provide more time and resource to supervise education, skills training and purposeful activity. However, on 15 October, Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, wrote a blog about the problems in adult prisons. He had been contacted by despairing governors and heads of education about the cuts in provision they are facing under new prison education contracts. The Prison Service has told him there will be an average reduction of some 25% of provision, but some prison leaders say they are losing as much as 60%. As he refers to, there are powerful reasons why we should

“ensure that an inmate does not spend day after day in blank inactivity”.

Why is there so little acknowledgement of the role of reduced reoffending as part of our goal of shrinking the prison population?

As few as 31% of prisoners are still employed six months after leaving prison. This is not surprising when 20 out of 38 prisons inspected in the last reporting year were rated poor or not sufficiently good for purposeful activity. It takes weeks to get prisoners into work and attendance at training courses is often shockingly low. The working day is short, often as little as five hours, particularly on Fridays, yet prisoners need to get into the job habit for their future success.

Another problem is the low literacy levels of many prisoners and, I suspect, poor English in many cases. We had a similar challenge at Tesco and, with the support of the trade unions, we arranged education that helped to keep employees in the firm, grateful for the lessons and the extra opportunities they opened up. With the widening of employment rights, it becomes even more important to use the many months that many spend in prison for remedial education and skills training, so that employers can take them on with confidence, without the fear of a long drawn-out industrial tribunal if they do not perform.

I know only too well that prisoners differ. There are career criminals who are very clever, entrepreneurial and risk-taking. They might have been captains of industry with a different background or ethical compass. They need something different and to be kept separate, but they need to be fully occupied so that they are not continuing their evil operations from inside prison. From time to time, some go straight, especially if they are inspired to change—for example, by taking a degree.

As the average sentence of those actually in prison becomes longer, the need for opportunities and for better education of the prison population becomes ever greater. Incentive schemes, early release and management of privileges are important. I hope that the Minister, in replying, will explain how the new sentencing laws can help with prison education by improving the incentive structure.

However, I believe that a more radical approach may be needed and that we should oblige prisoners who are still subject to custodial sentences to enter education, training, et cetera, as part of the prison regime, as is done in the military. Just providing adequate access to education, although important, is not enough. I have seen the failure of voluntary training in the Civil Service: the good and hard-working opt for the training and improve; those who really need it do not.

So I am looking for mandatory education or training for those who remain in prison after the Government’s reforms, all of whom will, in practice, be sentenced to 18 months or more. They will be serious criminals and badly in need of focused rehabilitation. That is why, to pick up a theme from discussion on day one, which I was sadly absent for, we cannot have a voluntary regime in prisons.

Our jails cost a fortune, and prisoners are bored, demotivated and wasting time as they serve their years. Education and the acquisition of skills, or helping out in the kitchens and gardens, can be transformational.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I agree with almost everything my noble friend has said. I have been on a prisons monitoring board, so I am very familiar with the inside of prison. But it troubles me that, if there is a requirement that the prisoner, as part of his sentence, does A or B, but the prison does not provide the facility, is the prisoner not then in breach of the sentence and is that not going to be a problem when he seeks to get release or goes to a parole board?

[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.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I have been sitting on my hands because whenever you tell a personal story, it looks as though you are not pleading what the noble Lord talked about—law. We arrived in 1974 and were treated with such great respect, love and care. For about 20 years we travelled on a British travel document. That kind of hospitality was of great help to us all.

The way I read this clause is almost as a revisitation of Guantanamo Bay—a very bad piece of work—or voluntary rendition, whereby people were taken from one country to another to sort out whether they were terrorists or not. This country should not use offshoring. The word “offshore” already does not have a good reputation in terms of money and offshore investment. This is a country that has been the mother of parliaments and the mother of legislation and where the rule of law is what governs all of us. How can we get a third country to take what we call refugees?

I can assure noble Lords that there will be many countries in Africa that will volunteer to do it. The question we have to ask is: how do those seemingly wonderful countries treat their nationals? Do they treat them in the same way that this country does? I would be very doubtful. For the sake of the rule of law, for the sake of this great Parliament and for the sake of the British people who have been very good in welcoming the likes of me, this clause should—please—not become part of the legislation.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I am also very impressed by the moderate contribution from my noble friend Lord Horam on the Australian experience. I have a question, therefore. How do the Australians get round the alleged breach of the refugee convention?

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I reiterate what was said a little while ago: this is about asylum, not general immigration policy. There is a considerable difference between the two; that does not always get recognised.

This proposal to offshore asylum claims is inconsistent with the global humanitarian and co-operative principles on which refugee protection is founded. Frankly, if everybody did what we are proposing, there would not be much of the refugee convention left, as I am sure everybody recognises and, in their heart of hearts, knows to be true.

Having made those introductory comments, I will endeavour to be brief. I want to ask one or two questions. The Minister in the Commons said:

“Schedule 3 aims to reduce the draw of the UK by working to make it easier to remove someone to a safe country where their claim will be processed. It amends existing legal frameworks to support our future objective to transfer some asylum claims to a safe third country for processing.”—[Official Report, Commons, Nationality and Borders Bill Committee, 26/10/21; col. 388.]


As I have just indicated, the Minister referred to “some asylum claims” being transferred. Will the Government spell out in their reply what categories or types of asylum claims would be processed in another country, and what categories or types of asylum claims would be processed in this country? In addition, based on claims made over the past three years, what number or percentage of total asylum claims and claimants would be processed in and removed to another country, and what number or percentage of total asylum claims would still be processed in this country? I assume that the Government have figures on that.

Information on the countries we have reached agreement with for offshore processing has been, to say the least, a bit thin on the ground, with Ministers saying to date that they are not prepared to enter into a “running commentary” on the conversations that are taking place. I hope that the Government will be a little more forthcoming today on which specific countries we have reached agreement with, or confidently expect to reach agreement with, and which countries have declined to reach an agreement with us. Also, how many different bilateral negotiations are we currently involved in?

It is unacceptable to be told by the Government that we should agree to a policy and its associated clauses and schedules, which, however repugnant, are meaningless and cannot be implemented unless appropriate agreements are reached with other countries—and then, when asking the Government to give information on whether and what agreements have been concluded, to be told by them that it is none of our business. That is what the Government have been doing to date. We expect better from their response today. However, if the Government are going to continue to play dumb on this issue, perhaps it would be better for them to withdraw Clause 28 and Schedule 3 until such time as they have concluded agreements with other countries, without which the policy cannot be implemented.

The only thing the Government have said is that the model the Home Office intends to proceed with is

“one where individuals would be processed as part of the asylum system of the country that we had an agreement with, rather than people being offshore and processed as part of our asylum system.”

So it is not just offshoring; it is also treating and dealing with people under another country’s asylum system rather than our own. The duty to ensure that the rights of asylum seekers are respected would still fall on the UK; it would be helpful if the Government could confirm that in their response.

Essentially, as has already been said, the UK would be outsourcing its refugee convention obligations, potentially to less wealthy nations. The UNHCR has been highly critical of efforts to offshore asylum processing, noting how

“offshoring of asylum processing often results in the forced transfer of refugees to other countries with inadequate State asylum systems, treatment standards and resources. It can lead to indefinite ‘ware-housing’ of asylum-seekers in isolated places where they are ‘out of sight and out of mind’, exposing them to serious harm. It may also de-humanise asylum-seekers.”

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that my son works in retail. I have added my name to that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia on Amendment 114 in this group. This threshold needs removing from the Anti-social Behaviour Act, and here we have the perfect opportunity to do it.

Retailers keep UK plc going. They provide us with the goods we need to live our lives, no matter what. They are key workers, but they do not have the key support they need. It is shocking that retailers lose £770 million a year to retail crime. Between the 307,000 shops, this comes to an average of almost £2,500 per shop, per year. Noble Lords may say that this amount of money could easily be a sunk cost for our supermarkets —but not for our independent shops. Assuming an 8% margin, retailers such as those belonging to the British Independent Retailers Association would have to make sales of almost £32,000 for a small shop just to make back what they have lost to these criminals. This is while the level of retail crime is still increasing: by 19.1% between 2014 and 2018, compared with 4.96% between 2010 and 2014, before the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act was given Royal Assent.

As only one in 20 of all shoplifting offences are now prosecuted, it cannot be a shock that such odds are likely to give any wily criminal the feeling that their crime does not matter and that they can do what they want with little or no consequence. Is it any wonder that retailers feel that, while they are being punished, perpetrators of retail crime are not? This needs to change. Retailers need to feel that they have the Government’s support and that they are not the ones being punished when someone steals from their shop. I therefore support this amendment from my noble friend Lord Dholakia.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Kennedy. I shall speak to my Amendment 104FB, which would require the Secretary of State a year hence to carry out a review of the adequacy of police resources devoted to assaults on retail workers. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I always had very good relations with USDAW in my many years as—I suppose you could say “a retail boss”—an executive at Tesco.

I start with an enormous thank you to my noble friend the Minister for arranging a meeting with the retail industry bodies, USDAW and several parliamentarians, including myself, with a star cast of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General. We all felt, for the first time, that we were having a high-level and constructive discussion on what could be done across the board about violence and abuse of retail staff. That is against a background of 455 security incidents a day, according to the BRC, and very few prosecutions.

The police response to these incidents has historically been inadequate. We need to ensure that the police have the right resources and can put a higher priority on prosecuting these retail crimes. This is particularly important given the role of retail workers in enforcing Covid restrictions such as masks, but also in addressing knife crime and shoplifting, as the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, explained, which in my experience is often caused by the need for individuals to get drugs, so it feeds into drug crime as well.

At the Zoom meeting, the industry welcomed the fact that the Government had recognised the seriousness of the issue and tabled Amendment 84, which we have heard about from my noble friend. This would mean that the worst offenders could see tougher sentences. The industry also very much welcomed the new relevant instructions from the Home Secretary and from the Attorney-General.

However, it is important to ensure that this new measure has the desired effect in terms of police effort. I believe there should be a regular review to monitor its effectiveness, hence my amendment proposing a review in a year’s time, which I hope the Minister will feel able to support.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 114 is in my name. We discussed it in Committee and I have studied at great length the response from the Minister. Unfortunately, it has not satisfied many retail traders, whose income depends on crime being prevented. The consequences for shop insurance and livelihoods depend on proper action on low-level crimes.

In 2014, a change in the law meant that shop theft valued at less than £200 would not be charged through the courts but, rather, would be tried summarily. The reasoning behind that was to make the prosecution of cases more efficient. The Government may claim that that has happened, but that is only because the courts no longer see the problem and no longer see that it takes an average of 30 convictions for this type of criminal to go to jail. The burden has fallen on small retailers, who now see savvy criminals exploiting the situation to steal with virtual impunity.

The cost of retail crime to retailers is huge. My noble friend Lady Harris mentioned the cost, according to figures supplied to us by the British Retail Consortium, to those such as members of the British Independent Retailers Association. Money that could otherwise be used to improve facilities, raise wages and improve the offers to consumers instead goes straight into the pockets of criminals.

--- Later in debate ---

It is very nice when, occasionally, you get plaudits from all around the House, so I am going to bask in it for one second and thank noble Lords—it will not happen often.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, perhaps she could get one final plaudit for her terrific performance in this area by agreeing that the Home Office, and indeed the other departments—the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office—will look with favour on a discussion with the retail and indeed the wider sector on the impact of these changes, say, in a year’s time. I think she rightly said that what matters is the experience of retail and other workers in the light of the new law. I fear perhaps that not much progress might be made, so if we find that we need to review this in a year’s time, I hope she will look positively at that.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am more than happy to do that. In fact, I think it would be a very good idea to meet up, because the discussions have been positive and fruitful over the last period. So, yes, I am very happy to do that in support of my noble friend.

I welcome the support for the government amendment, as I have said. I think it makes a real, significant step forward. Let us keep it monitored, as my noble friend said.