Parole Board (Amendment) Rules 2022

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I respectfully submit that we are dealing with angels dancing on pins here. What is intended by this change is to make it clear that the responsibility for the decision rests squarely with the Parole Board, and to avoid the risk, however remote, that the expert report tends to usurp the role of the decision-maker, running the risk of them delegating their decision to the expert. This amendment brings the Parole Board process in line with the rest of the justice system. I respectfully refer your Lordships to the evidence of Professor Stephen Shute to the Science and Technology Committee of the other place on 7 September. He made this very point, saying that it is for the Parole Board to make the decision, rather than run the risk of the matter being left in the hands of the expert.

Analogy has been rightly drawn with what happens elsewhere in the justice system; for example, in relation to pre-sentence reports in the criminal process. One does not find the probation officer saying that the court should impose a community sentence. One asks the probation officer to assess whether the offender is suitable for a community sentence. This change will align the practice of the Parole Board more closely with the rest of the justice system.

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

Not realising that this was a high tea, rather than a dinner break, I confess that much to my regret I was not here at the start of the debate. Why, if this is designed to stop these individual experts pre-empting the Parole Board’s decision, is it left to the Secretary of State to be allowed to do so with his single view?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

If I may respectfully point this out to the noble and learned Lord, the Secretary of State with his single view does not pre-empt the decision of the Parole Board. He presents a single view to the Parole Board.

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

Why is that any different from the same operation being done by those who have been contributing to the background?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

In a sense, this is an inter partes procedure, with the Secretary of State on one hand and the prisoner on the other. The Secretary of State, like a party, is putting his view to the board. That is the single view that, in my submission, he is entitled to put.

While I am on the single view, this is likely to refer simply to the very top tier of cases, probably 150 to 200 cases a year out of the many thousands that the Parole Board deals with. It refers to very dangerous, highly sensitive cases of prisoners involving murder, serious violence and so forth. In those cases, it is thought right that the Secretary of State, through his representative before the Parole Board, should be able to present a single overarching view. That is a sensible approach which avoids confusion and uncertainty.

Nothing in any of these reforms prevents or limits the ability of the Parole Board to make the right decision or the ability of the relevant members of staff, whether psychologists, probation officers or whatever, to make the risk assessments or to put in whatever observations they wish within the assessment that they are required to make, except to make the relevant recommendation.

It is not a change that should in any way undermine the system. HMPPS staff will continue to provide reports to the Parole Board. Their reports will still contain the same detailed evidence and assessment of risk as before. The only omission will be a recommendation on what decision the report writer thinks the Parole Board should make. Far from undermining the Parole Board, the intention of these reforms is to draw a sharp distinction between the roles of those who provide evidence and those whose duty it is to assess the evidence and reach a decision. That is the essential background.