Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I also support the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, has given us an opportunity to make things a lot better. During that quite irritable debate two days ago—I was irritable, anyway, and I think people got irritable with me—on this policing Bill, it struck me that we just should not have as many women in prison. Some of the things that women go to prison for are ridiculous. It costs a lot of money; it disrupts lives, especially for the women, their children and their support networks; and there is an opportunity cost when compared to the opportunities that we should be providing via rehabilitation and reintegration. Women go to prison for things like not paying their TV licence or their council tax, and that really should not happen. It is hugely disruptive, the cost of doing so exceeds the unpaid debt many times over, and lives are ruined.

For the vast majority of women in the criminal justice system, solutions within the community are much more appropriate. Community sentences could be designed to take account of women’s particular vulnerabilities and their domestic and childcare commitments. Existing women’s prisons should be replaced by suitable, geographically-dispersed, small multifunctional custodial centres. More supported accommodation should be provided for women on release in order to break the cycle of offending and custody. Prisoners should have improved access to meaningful activities, particularly real work, education and artistic and creative facilities. And, of course, all prisoners should be able to attain levels of literacy sufficient to allow them to function effectively in modern society.

That all seems so obvious, but it does not happen at the moment because this Government are obsessed with being “tough on crime”. What does that mean? If it means sending more and more people to prison then it is a very disruptive and damaging way of handling the problem of crime. A royal commission seems an incredibly sensible way forward just to rethink the way in which we handle prisons, prisoners, crime and, in particular, women in prison who really ought not to be there.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I too support this proposal. The objectives set out in each of the paragraphs (a) to (h) of proposed subsection (2) of the amendment are plainly and urgently needed. It should not be necessary to establish a royal commission to focus on, pursue and achieve these objectives, but plainly it is necessary. These deficiencies have been identified, recognised and discussed for years but, as for getting anywhere in terms of achievement—on the contrary.

The main parties on both sides of the House, not least this Government, seem ever more intent on winning the law and order vote. Sentences are being increased; minimum and mandatory terms are being imposed. We now need the impetus, the force, of no less than a royal commission to start to recognise the intense problems of our whole penal system and to start to set the matter right.

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven (CB)]

My Lords, I do not regard the United Kingdom’s place at the top of the incarceration league table for western European countries as a badge of honour. It seems to me that this fact in itself calls for a broad strategic view of how sentencing is working in this country and why it is that we send so many more people to prison than other countries do.

One of the issues seems to be that criminal justice, particularly sentencing, has become a political football. A sort of auction has been going on between the main political parties over the last 20 years or so to discover who can present themselves as the toughest on this issue. I do not mean to minimise the effect of crime on victims or on society as a whole, but short sentences in particular are surely counterproductive. The best way to school a young man in crime and anti-social behaviour is to send him to prison for three or six months.

It seems to me that one of the great possible achievements of a royal commission would be to take some of the political sting out of this issue and to inject some rationality and even some science into it. I strongly support the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I too support this amendment; I did at Second Reading. Indeed, I have added my name to the amendment but too late for it to appear on the fifth Marshalled List. The case for it could hardly be simpler or more compelling. Frankly, the illustration of the scooter helmet from the noble Lord, Lord Bach, ought of itself to be enough to carry this. I am against absolutism and total purity and inflexibility routinely, but flexibility and discretion are almost invariably required to be welcomed and valued, and they are here. It is nothing short of bizarre, absurd and conspicuously unfair to single out this one public office as one from which people are uniquely disqualified in the circumstances already sufficiently indicated. I need not waste another word. My only regret is that the amendment is not being put to the vote.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I have worked with the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for many years in this House —sadly, on opposite sides of it—but I have never heard him make a stronger argument for anything. The only reason why I cannot say that I will support him is because I have not written a little note to my noble friend the Chief Whip.