Prisoner Releases in Error

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question, especially referring to victims. Victims always have to come first. I appreciate what a difficult time it must have been for victims and their families knowing that prisoners who they thought were in prison were actually out in the community. Where a victim has a victim liaison officer and is part of the victim contact scheme, they will be engaged in that process. It is important to me that that happens. I refer to my noble friend’s initial comment around the fact that this has been a problem for some time. That is one of the reasons why in my speech I specifically said that I know that the previous Government were trying to improve this. Across government, politicians and civil servants have been trying to improve accuracy and systems. This is something that we need to embrace, but as part of the process, we need to understand that victims come first, and the damage this does to victims is significant.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, as has been said, prisoners have been released in error for decades. I know because I used to advise on sentence calculation in the 1990s in the Home Office legal advisers branch and I was the Prison Service legal adviser. It was difficult then; it is now fiendishly difficult because of all the changes to the statute book that have happened since then, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, knows well, because she was with me at the Home Office.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

The noble Lord was my boss.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

I was indeed. The statute book is a total mess as far as trying to calculate when a release date applies for a particular prisoner. Prisoners are all in a different position. Some have additional days; some have served a different remand time. All these factors need to be taken into account. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, a digital answer has to be the way forward. As the noble Baroness said, it will obviously work here because you can punch in the details of the sentence to work out exactly when the release date is. It will have to be updated, of course, as additional days are added to the sentence and so on. We must go to a digital solution, but how long will it take for that to be up and running? There needs to be a procurement process. These things take ages, and we do not have ages. We have identified a crisis taking place. Is there any estimate of when this will be up and running and functioning to stop these releases?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The digital team that has gone into Wandsworth is confident that it can do some quick fixes. I do not have an exact timeline, but we have given it up to £10 million to do those quick fixes. The nature of digital technology is such that we will be able to roll that out across the prison estate very quickly. One relevant point some noble Lords were discussing with me in your Lordships’ House last night is the Sentencing Bill, which we hope will make things simpler. I also want to touch on the point the noble Lord mentioned about how complicated it is. It is unfair on our hard-working staff to expect them to get this right all the time, especially those who have just started. We need to support them not just with digital solutions but with a lot of training because, even though we are going to simplify things, it will still be a complex process. I hope that the Sentencing Bill will simplify things for everybody involved in the justice system.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust, but I add that my points here are mostly my own. I wholeheartedly support the Government’s ambition to rehabilitate more prisoners so that we move away from the endless cycle of successive Governments ramping up the length of sentences so as to be seen to be tough on crime. For far too long, sentencing law has been focused exclusively on punishment, and insufficient attention has been paid to the other statutory purposes of sentencing, especially reduction in crime and rehabilitation. We all know that 80% of offending is reoffending—a really shocking statistic.

I welcome the recommendations of the sentencing review, and there are many good things in the Bill that build on that review. However, the Bill has not implemented all the recommendations, even though the review considered them to be

“a holistic package of measures that will work best in conjunction with each other”.

Many points could be made but, for the purposes of Second Reading, I will focus on what I consider to be the most important area; namely, the way in which the Bill provides for so-called earned early release at the one-third point of the sentence, and the likely consequences of that. My comments will echo points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and indeed just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.

Earned release is a commendable rehabilitative concept, which originated in the Criminal Justice Act 1967. That Act provided for Parole Board release for fixed-term prisoners at the one-third point of the sentence, if they had satisfied the board that they had been sufficiently rehabilitated so as to make it safe to release them—but it was a big if. A prisoner could be released on licence, with a two-thirds reduction in time served in prison, only if they could show they had taken steps to rehabilitate. That is not this Bill.

The Bill provides that a prisoner will earn early release at the one-third point merely by behaviour that avoids additional days for breaches of the prison rules; for example, offences against discipline, threatening, abusive or violent behaviour or possessing unauthorised articles. Immediately, one sees the likely adverse consequences of that approach. First, it will lead to a concentration of vulnerable and challenging prisoners within the prison environment. Individuals who struggle with multiple and complex needs, such as mental health, neurodiversity and substance dependence, are most likely to break prison rules and get placed on report and adjudications. Over time, therefore—and we must look at the long term, since this Bill will probably remain the law for years to come—the prison population will comprise a disproportionate number of people who have not accessed early release due to this factor.

Secondly, who will award additional days and on what basis? This becomes a critical issue if early release at the one-third point is to depend on avoiding such adjudications. If it is prison officers, that could clearly be open to abuse. It could also negatively impact on staff-prisoner relationships.

Thirdly, is avoiding additional days for things such as threatening, abusive or violent behaviour so as to gain early release really “earning it” in a meaningful sense? The 1967 Act experience teaches us that release is only truly “earned” if the offender engages in meaningful purposeful activity and attends any required work, education, treatment and/or training obligation where these are available. Only then can they be said to have taken steps to rehabilitate before their release. In an ideal world, therefore, release at the one-third point should not be automatic merely by avoiding punishment. It should be properly earned—as was recommended by the sentencing review—so as to demonstrate that the prisoner is less likely to reoffend or breach licence conditions when in the community and end up being recalled to prison.

I recognise that Clause 20 is partly an emergency mechanism to alleviate current capacity pressures. To provide that release at the one-third point must depend on engagement in purposeful activity might deprive Clause 20 of its utility, since the state of capacity and staffing crisis in prisons are such that access to such activity is severely limited. However, this means that the burden of rehabilitating prisoners will fall exclusively on the Probation Service, which will already be on its knees with the upsurge in community sentences. There is a massive danger that, in trying to create more prison capacity with release at the one-third point, the measure might in fact diminish it because of the number of recalls.

This is not fanciful. Let us take the number of prisoners who were released early last Autumn under the Government’s emergency release scheme SDS40: MoJ figures published on 30 October show that, between April and June, there were more than 11,500 releases under the SDS40 scheme and over 10,000 recalls, which is 15% higher than in the same quarter in 2024 and is a record high. Although some of these recalls may have been unrelated to the scheme, the department acknowledges that the unprecedented increase was likely driven partly by the implementation of SDS40. If there has been such an increase following release at the 40% point, how much worse might it be if prisoners are released at the one-third point under this Bill? Meaningful purposeful activity in prison before release would surely have reduced the number of such recalls.

But I recognise that the Government are between a rock and a hard place on this: on the one hand, they need to release more prisoners early so as to create more capacity and, on the other, they risk putting so much pressure on the Probation Service that a large number of released prisoners will be recalled to prison, thereby defeating the whole point of Clause 20. I do not know the answer to this in the short term, which must surely depend partly on a vast injection of new probation resources, the like of which we have never seen. Even then, you cannot wave a magic wand to produce overnight significantly more trained probation officers with the experience to deal with the increased burden. Whatever the answer in the short term, it still leaves the long-term problem of how purposeful activity in prison can, at some future point when capacity issues have subsided, be made a requirement before release at the one-third point. Otherwise, prisoners will have no incentive to participate in such activity, since Clause 20 will guarantee their release at the one-third point anyway.

Something needs to be done now, since otherwise Clause 20 will continue, unless amended by a future Bill, to require release at the one-third point irrespective of whether prisoners have taken steps to rehabilitate. The burden of rehabilitating prisoners would then, for the foreseeable future, fall exclusively on the Probation Service. One suggestion, so as to build some flexibility into the system now, would be to insert an enabling power in Clause 20 for regulations to be made which, at a future point, when capacity and resources allow, would enable Clause 20 to be modified so as to incorporate a requirement for purposeful activity. This would give the department the option of modifying Clause 20 in the future without the need for a fresh Bill. It would keep the options open, which is never a bad idea where prisons and probation are concerned.

Interpreting Services in the Courts (Public Services Committee Report)

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, we have heard some powerful speeches from distinguished and knowledgeable speakers this evening. I am very conscious that, like the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, I come to this debate relatively new. However, I have one ace in my pack. I have been briefed in detail by an expert who has worked at the coalface of our criminal justice system for 25 years as an interpreter in French and Italian: indeed, she was a witness to the committee, and I am delighted to say that she is with us in the Room today.

Let us remind ourselves of the importance of what we are discussing. Ensuring the fairness of criminal proceedings has always been accepted as paramount, and interpretation services are a core part of that. Even the otherwise skeletal provisions of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights state that fairness requires that everyone charged with a criminal offence should

“have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court”.

That is hardly surprising, since what can be more important than a defendant being able to understand the case against him or her in a language they speak?

However, the committee’s report shows that the current provision of interpreting services in the courts has broken down and presents a significant risk to the administration of justice. It causes delays to cases, results in defendants being detained beyond what is necessary and, ultimately, risks miscarriages of justice. Yet, unlike the backlogs in our courts, with delays in rape trials, et cetera, the problems besetting our interpretation services have been largely invisible, with little or no publicity—that is, until the committee’s truly excellent report.

The crux of the problem is the way in which the current outsourcing of these services is totally failing to deliver for interpreters and, therefore, for defendants. There are inadequate remuneration arrangements for interpreters, especially when work is cancelled at short notice, and there are concerns around poor terms and conditions of service, quality assurance, performance data and transparency. Yet the Minister stated to the committee that, in 2024, only 0.7% of trials were delayed due to the lack of an interpreter, and that recent data showed an increase in service performance to 96%. How do we explain the clear disconnect between what the Government say is happening and what front-line interpreters and legal professionals report is actually happening?

As other noble Lords have said, the answer lies in the reliability of the data on which the MoJ relies for assessing the quality of interpreting services in the courts. As the committee has pointed out, the complaints system for stakeholders is the best measure of performance, yet the number of complaints does not equate to the number of unfulfilled requests for language expertise. In more than 5,000 cases last year, language requests were not fulfilled, with no explanation, yet complaints were not lodged. So I am afraid the data falls far short of the reality.

What is the solution? I think that, before signing a new contract, we should take a step back and look at what has happened in the past. The National Register of Public Service Interpreters—the NRPSI—has since 1994 maintained the independently managed and not-for-profit register of nearly 1,700 level 6-qualified interpreters with a minimum of 400 verified hours of professional experience. This register has long served as the gold standard for quality assurance in the sector, offering a robust framework, verifying qualifications, upholding professional conduct and ensuring interpreter accountability within the justice system.

The NRPSI therefore deserves to be listened to. It says that the root of the problem is systemic and relates, as we have heard, to the outsourcing of language services since 2012. Far from streamlining court operations, the system now relies heavily on off-contract bookings as a workaround for the deficiencies of the contracted model. It has led to a hopelessly fragmented and less transparent system. Now is a pivotal moment to put this right, before the current failures are perpetuated by a new outsourcing contract in 2026.

Let us consider what happened before 2012. It was a one-tier structure, where courts sourced interpreters directly from the NRPSI under a national agreement, with set fees, terms and conditions, and vetting, with an efficient system for complaints and disciplinary measures. Once a court official had dialled up the NRPSI list of, say, regulated and recommended Italian interpreters, they would then email those professionals to arrange a booking, contracting with each freelancer directly. It had the huge virtue of simplicity, with no middle people such as outsourcers causing a delay and taking a percentage for their trouble.

It was changed to an outsourcing model in 2012, principally to save costs. So I ask the Minister: does saving costs really outweigh the merits of efficiency, quality and accountability that existed before outsourcing? In the words of my expert:

“The current outsourcing contract with the Ministry of Justice has all but collapsed. The overriding failing in court interpreting which I have noticed is the last-minute search for off-contract interpreters. I continue to receive last-minute requests, not just from court officials but more commonly from a wide array of small to medium sized agencies. There’s absolutely no need for so many parties to be involved. I find it hard to believe that all this complexity in the back offices is any cheaper or more efficient than the pre-2012 arrangements”.


That is testimony from someone who really knows what is happening on the ground, day by day. There is no substitute for that. While I do not blame the Government for being misled by the data, now is the time to acknowledge the reality and respond accordingly.

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

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 4th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, for giving us the opportunity to debate this injustice. We both serve on a committee with the justice unions, as they are called. I recently succeeded the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, as the Conservative vice-president of this APPG, because the noble Earl is being cast into outer darkness and has decided to go quietly and hand over to me, rather than wait to be sacked.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, because one notices in this APPG that no one is really interested if the justice unions can be kept down and kept quiet—that is it. One looks at the unions in the justice industry—prison officers, for instance—and sees enormous problems that the Government are not addressing seriously. I wish they would.

As for the Bill, one of the weaknesses in this country is that you can get swept away, and nothing sounds quite as good as imprisonment for public protection: “Yes, we’ll lock them up and throw away the key”. That really was how this came in; the Government wished to show that they were prepared to be tough with people, without much mention of why. I accept, as one of the Ministers said to me, that some of the people who are detained for public protection probably should not be let out, but that decision should be made by a tribunal or group of people who can judge the mental state of the people in prison for public protection. It should not be allowed just to drift on and on.

There are lots of amendments to the Bill, and I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, has signed them all. I can see that he is trying to find a solution and he accepts that there may be problems in finding a precise way forward, but I would like to hear from the Minister that the Government are prepared to give this a fair wind. The most important thing is that they acknowledge that there has been a severe miscarriage of justice that needs putting right. That would be an extremely good start.

I will mention another word that has not been mentioned: class. These people are not middle-class people. When I was in the European Parliament, I was one of the founders of its human rights sub-committee and we went all over the place. We went to places such as the Czech Republic, as it then was, and to unfashionable places where the British Government were very concerned about human rights, such as Nicaragua. I had a very enjoyable time in Nicaragua visiting its prisons. But the key thing I noticed was that, certainly in eastern Europe, most prisoners were forgotten because they were ordinary people. They had no universities behind them nor people campaigning for them. They were basically working-class people who had fallen foul of the system.

Under the very authoritarian regimes that existed, particularly in eastern Europe, many of these people were locked up, and for many of them it was an indeterminate sentence. The gulag was an indeterminate sentence. Most of the people in the gulag were working-class. They were not intellectuals. The few that were, such as Sharansky and Daniel, had big campaigns mounted for them. I helped with those campaigns, but the fact of the matter is that many of the prisoners, as Gorbachev found when he came to power and started overhauling the system, were there by accident. They should not have been there at all. They had no advocates, they had no people behind them—maybe a partner 1,000 miles away across Russia, but no organised campaigns. That is the case with many of these people. I wonder how many of the 1,000 know each other, talk to each other and are able to swap notes and see how they might get out of the situation that they are in.

I am not going to deal with individual amendments, but they all point in the same direction. They are a genuine attempt by the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, and the colleagues who have tabled them to move the matter forward. This House is unique, in a way. I do not think you would have a debate like this in the Commons because there are more vested interests down there, but here we can be dispassionate. One of the things I am saying we need to be dispassionate about is the fact that there has been a massive miscarriage of justice and that now has to be put right. It is up to this Government, just as it was to the previous Government. I fully support what Alex Chalk was trying to do. He was my son’s MP. My son was one of the few people who voted for him, but he did not hold his seat. He was a good Justice Minister, as was as the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, who I knew when he was in that job. We have to move things forward. Somehow Ministers have to get hold of the Civil Service and say, “This is a blot on the British record for human rights”.

Of course, some people should not be released, but their cases should be reviewed, and there should be some form of appeal and some form of sentence. If they are not to be released, the sentence should be subject to review. I suspect a number of them have become institutionalised, and that a number of them were mentally ill before they ended up in prison, but our job as a public body is to make it possible for the justice system to be seen to be fair. My concern is that of these 1,000 people in prison today, probably 700 or 800 of them have no family, friends or social network, and that when they are let out they are going to need a lot of support to adjust back into the community.

This is the beginning of a big challenge. I hope our Ministers will be able to take it on board and solve this blot on our justice system.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, many of the points that I was going to make today have already been made far more eloquently than I could have made them, so I will not detain the Committee for very long. I have just two short points.

First, I have always been quite impressed with the Government’s argument that they are responsible for public protection, that they therefore cannot release people who are assessed to be a risk to the public and that any resentencing exercise would just take us around in circles because it would have to incorporate a safety assessment and we would end up back where we are today. But I was very struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said and the statistic that 80% of IPPs in prison are there when their index offence was non-violent—I think I heard that correctly. That is an astonishing thing. I have learned something. If that is the case, how does the public protection argument stack up? Surely there is some answer to it if these people were originally convicted of non-violent offences.

Secondly, if the Government are nevertheless resolute that they do not want a resentencing exercise, I strongly commend the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, because the Bill and the amendments show how diverse the IPP population is. That is important, because this should affect the way the Parole Board assesses risk and the way that the Probation Service considers whether to recall.

To take just three categories illustrated by the amendments, first, there are those who have been previously released, who, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, are in a completely different category from those who have not. They have been assessed on a previous occasion to be safe to release. If they have been recalled, the fact that they have been previously released, and therefore considered safe, means that the burden and standard of proof on the Prison and Probation Service should be very high to show that they are still dangerous at their next review.

The second category is those who were juveniles when they committed their offences. The courts have been clear that young people are far more likely to rehabilitate quickly and are more open to it. For example, in the case of tariffs and detention during His Majesty’s pleasure, the courts have said that in the case of juveniles, their tariffs need to be reviewed much more regularly.

Thirdly and finally, there is the category of those who are mentally ill. We know from expert psychological evidence—in the third report to the Justice Committee—that the effect of the IPP sentence itself is a major factor in the mental health of IPP prisoners. The report said that

“someone may be deemed too high risk to be released based on their current mental health presentation, rather than based on their original offence.”

If that is the case, consideration should be given to transferring these prisoners to a more suitable environment than prison for treating them appropriately.

Whatever the Government’s decision on the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, I very much hope that it will lead to further progress in reducing the IPP and DPP prison population.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, looking around the Committee at the legal expertise present, I feel rather underqualified. However, I worked as a trustee for the Koestler Arts trust for some years, and that leads me to pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Hastings that what people in prison need to achieve rehabilitation—which I know that the Government want—is hope. What has happened as a result of IPP is that hope has been replaced by uncertainty and inequality. We clearly have to put that right.

The other reason that I wanted to speak today was that the late and learned Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, Simon, was a close friend of mine. He made such an impassioned speech from these Benches that it made me feel that I too had to take up this cause because IPP, as we have heard, has resulted in enormous injustice. I return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, as did the noble Lord, Lord Carter, that that figure—that 80% are non-violent—is terrifying. I say to noble Lords on the Front Bench, who are distinguished in the law themselves, that if they could—and I really imagine that they will want to—shed some light on this, to seek by some way light at the end of the tunnel, that would be welcomed across the House.

I will not go on, because it has all been said and this is not the time to do so, but I say to noble Lords: please try to find a way forward here.

Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 4th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I have not spoken before on the Bill, and frankly, like others, I was rather astonished that this was a topic requiring legislation at all. Like the noble and learned Lord, I have been what you would probably call a low-level sentencer for a number of years.

I will make two points. First, in recent years, in my experience, the quality of pre-sentence reports has greatly improved: from what were sometimes formulaic and feeble reports to nowadays, in my more recent experience, really providing an insight into the defendant’s background, life and attitudes, and conveying realistic recommendations. To that extent, they must always be regarded as helpful, greatly improving on, as the noble Viscount described, representations made by the legal representatives after a few moments in the cells or in the court corridor before coming into court.

Secondly, this experience has led me to adopt the attitude that, whenever in doubt, a report should be directed. I, for one, never regretted directing a report. For that reason, I certainly support Amendments 5 and 6. In other words, pre-sentence reports should, wherever possible and sensible, be the norm.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I have not previously spoken on the substance of the Bill before, either, but I am very attracted by the noble Viscount’s amendment, for the reasons that he and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, have set out.

I think the Government have accepted that their Bill is not intended to prevent sentencers inviting pre-sentence reports in the case of personal characteristics. They are getting at the guidelines that should not take account of personal characteristics. However, there is a danger that, as the Bill stands, sentencers might be deterred slightly from seeking pre-sentence reports in the case of personal characteristics, even though, were the Bill not on the statute book, they would otherwise have done so.

The amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, sorts that out. It makes it absolutely clear that there is nothing to stop the sentencer seeking a pre-sentence report in the case of personal characteristics, if that is desirable for the purposes of the particular case. That is exactly what the legal position should be.

So, I strongly urge the Government to give close attention to Amendment 1 and indeed the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, which, as has been said, seeks to achieve the same thing. This is consistent with what the Government think their Bill allows for, but there is a danger that it might not have the effect they seek, whereas the noble Viscount’s amendment would clarify the position in what everyone must agree is the right way.

[Lord Hardie (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, have not spoken before on the Bill. I understand the sentiment behind the noble Viscount’s amendment. As a former judge in Scotland, I do not demur from the advantage of having such reports. However, I wonder whether there is an element of confusion in the various amendments. In the sense that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, seemed to suggest, there may be confusion in the mind of the sentencer as to whether he or she can order a report.

I do not read this clause as being that. Clause 1(2) specifies that the guidelines about pre-sentence reports may not include provision framed by reference to different personal characteristics of an offender. The personal characteristics are defined in Clause 3 as including race, religion or belief, and cultural background. So, I would have thought that it is irrelevant to determining a sentence that someone is of a certain race, or adheres to a certain religion, or has a certain cultural background. What one wants to know is something about the upbringing of the individual, whether he or she was abused as a child, and whether there are other circumstances in his or her upbringing that would explain his or her behaviour. So I do not see the need for the amendments that simply reinforce the position that already exists.

Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th May 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the question. So I get the answer technically correct, I will write to him and other Members here.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I hope it is not inappropriate to speak; I have not tabled any amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, suggested a pause, since we are expecting the Gauke review imminently. The Sentencing Council has not so far commenced its guidelines, pending this Bill, but might it agree to continue that non-commencement until we know what the Government will do in response to the Gauke review, so that this Bill does not need to be progressed until we know exactly what the Gauke review legislation will look like? It may well overlap and possibly conflict with what is in this Bill. I just wondered whether the Sentencing Council could be persuaded to postpone its non-commencement, pausing this Bill until we know the Gauke outcome.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The Sentencing Council was very helpful in pausing its decisions. The noble Lord is right: there are a lot of moving parts at the moment, and we are waiting with bated breath for news of publication dates. But I am aware that we also want to pursue and get on with the fact that we do not want people to be treated unequally in front of a court.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

Clearly, I cannot give a time or date in answer to my noble friend’s question about when the review will conclude. It is a complex issue, as he knows as well as I do. One very important factor is that all people who come in front of courts should believe that they will be treated equally fairly. If they are aware of differential sentencing guidelines, that undermines that trust. That is the fundamental belief of the Lord Chancellor, and it is one that I share. It is a complex question. We acknowledge the fundamental mischief, but we want to find a better way of addressing the discrimination in the system without anyone who comes up in court believing that they are going to be treated differentially from anyone else.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, the Government’s Bill would exclude references in the sentencing guidelines to personal characteristics. It refers to race, belief and cultural background, but personal characteristics are then defined very broadly to include all personal characteristics. The guidelines, as has been pointed out, already contain references to other personal characteristics as well as race, belief and cultural background, some of which are protected characteristics under the Equality Act. Is it the Government’s intention by this Bill to require the Sentencing Council to remove all those existing references to other personal characteristics, even if they are protected characteristics, as indeed are race and belief, under the Equality Act?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question, and I recognise its complexity. That is why my right honourable friend wants to look at this question in the round, because the point he made is correct. I do not want to anticipate what the answer to his question will be, but nevertheless I acknowledge the complexity that he has pointed out.

Sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. Those in the community are already benefiting from the significant changes to the IPP licence period in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, which provides an avenue for an earlier end to the sentence after a successful period in the community. Resentencing those living in the community would halt the risk management and support provided to these individuals, some of whom will be at the critical moment of being recently released from custody. Although this is not a good example of someone who has been released, at every prison I go to I always ask to meet an IPP prisoner and sit in their cell or an office and talk to them and find out their situation. Recently, I met an IPP prisoner who is 11 years over tariff. He spent eight years at Rampton Hospital, and he has not engaged at all in his sentence. The action plan is not working for him. That is why it is really important that we give people hope, and for me the action plan is the way to do that.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, building on the previous question, there are many IPP prisoners who have been considered safe to be released by the Parole Board and have been released but have then been recalled to prison for reasons other than a further offence. Are the Government considering whether different considerations come into play for released and then recalled IPP prisoners—they were previously considered safe to be released—in terms of risk assessment and the possibility of future release?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, which I have mentioned, introduced a new power to enable the Secretary of State to release recalled IPP and DPP prisoners using a risk-assessed recall review where safe to do so, without the offender requiring a release decision from the Parole Board. We now consider every recalled IPP and DPP offender for RARR, as it is called. This has already been used to enable swifter release and, in some cases, we have seen recalled IPP prisoners released several months ahead of their parole hearing. The noble Lord will know that not everyone who is recalled to prison is an IPP prisoner, but 30% of IPP recalls are because of a further charge for an alleged offence.

Drones: High-security Prisons

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. I am afraid that, due to security reasons, I cannot go into any details on the measures that we have and that we will have. However, I can assure him that we will spend £520 million on maintenance over the next two years, because we have inherited prisons in such a bad state. A lot of that money will be spent on repairing nets, grilles and windows.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, drugs getting into prisons, whether by drones or otherwise, give rise to self-inflicted deaths. Coroners issued 12 prevention of future deaths reports to the Ministry of Justice in 2024, relating precisely to this issue of the link between drugs and self-inflicted deaths. Of course, the Government have a legal duty of care towards prisoners and a legal duty to respond to these prevention of future deaths reports, which I do not think has happened. Can the Minister assure us that this will be looked at and that the reports’ recommendations will be implemented?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that any death in custody is a death too many. One of the most difficult jobs I have, when I read my emails every morning, is when I get notified that we have had a death in custody. That is someone who was in our care, and I take that very seriously.

Prisons: Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, what a powerful debate this is turning into.

I shall focus on the part of the HMPPS report dealing with self-inflicted deaths, another symptom of this cruel sentence. The report shows that nine IPP prisoners took their lives while in custody in 2023. Action 8 of the action plan sets out some of the commendable steps being taken to support IPPs at risk of self-harm and suicide in custody. There is reference to prisoners being managed and supported under procedures with the rather convoluted title “assessment, care in custody and teamwork’’ or ACCT, yet of the 19 self-inflicted deaths in custody reviewed by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for his 2023 learning lessons bulletin, only five of the individuals were on ACCT monitoring at the time of their death. This indicates that much more needs to be done to recognise a prisoner’s IPP status as a potential risk factor and to identify the triggers for suicide and self-harm that are associated with this sentence.

This is particularly the case given the expert evidence, heard by the Justice Committee for its third report, that the psychological harm caused by this sentence leads to greatly increased risks of suicide and self-harm and can even prevent release because of the perceived risks of reoffending. Being refused release because of the harm caused by the sentence itself offends every sense of what is fair and therefore increases, in turn, the risk of suicide and self-harm. What a vicious circle that is.

It is not even just about the risks of suicide and self-harm arising for those who have never been released. Even in the case of prisoners who have been released, the effect of several recalls, or even the mere possibility of recall, creates its own risks. This is again clear from the ombudsman’s report where he recounts a case in which an IPP prisoner was recalled on numerous occasions, even though he had not committed an offence. He was traumatised and left without hope that he would ever see the end of his apparently endless sentence and was found hanged in his cell, even though he had again been directed for release by the Parole Board.

Earlier this year, during Committee on the Victims and Prisoners Bill, the truly tragic case of Matthew Price was mentioned. He took his own life last year while on licence from an IPP sentence because of the anxieties he felt about the ever-present potential for recall to prison. It is indeed shocking when one is told that he had been on licence for nearly 10 years. That is the invidious reach of this cruel sentence.

What this teaches us is that whatever an IPP prisoner’s circumstances, whether they have never been released, have been released and recalled, or have been released and are on licence, they are never free from the sentence’s psychological grip. I do not get the sense from the action plan that the psychological damage caused by the IPP sentence, whether it is being served in custody or in the community, is given sufficient weight. Indeed, the action plan deals with prisoners at risk of suicide and self-harm only while in custody. It does not expressly cover those in the community or therefore show an adequate appreciation of the need to view this sentence holistically. if one is ever to stand a chance of reducing these self-inflicted deaths. The action plan could be significantly improved by doing so.