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.

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

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as I am also a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust.

I welcome the progress that is being made by the Ministry of Justice in automatically terminating the IPP licences of around two-thirds of those on licence as of March 2024. But we are still talking about more than a thousand IPP prisoners who have never been released, and more than 1,500 who are in prison having been recalled, which I find deeply troubling. We are all familiar with the injustice at the heart of this, but it bears constantly repeating. The offence was abolished in 2012 because Ministers recognised and declared that it was unfair, yet, shockingly, no transitional provision was made for existing IPP prisoners serving this unfair sentence, so we are faced today with three startling facts.

First, there are some IPP prisoners who are many years past their tariff and have even served longer than the maximum determinate sentence for the offence of which they were convicted. We heard many examples of this during the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Act. Secondly, it follows that if they had been sentenced after the sentence was abolished, most would have received a determinate term from which they would long ago have been released, whatever the perceived assessment of risk. What a lottery that is, yet the administration of fair justice should never depend on mere chance of this sort. Thirdly, and particularly egregiously, the Justice Committee heard expert evidence, published in its third report, that the psychological harm caused by the IPP sentence leads to not only greatly increased risks of suicide and self-harm, but to a perceived risk of reoffending which prevents release, irrespective of whether any risk remains from the original offence. This must be a bitter pill to swallow for the prisoners affected.

Not only has the state failed to apply the repeal of this unfair sentence to existing IPPs, but the effects of that unfairness for many IPPs, through no fault of their own, are preventing them being released because of the psychological damage that an unfair sentence has caused them. Their original offending behaviour and the risks associated with it have long since become irrelevant. It is not surprising that many of them have given up hope and stopped engaging with progression opportunities. The question is how to break this deadlock.

This PMB revisits the idea of resentencing. I think a resentencing exercise would incentivise IPP prisoners to re-engage with progression programmes and break the current deadlock, even if it might not lead to their immediate release—it does not have to do so. But if the Government are not prepared to resentence them, it is heavily incumbent on Ministers, who I know are putting fresh impetus into this, to explain how the IPP action plan will provide the hope that IPPs need, and need quickly. We cannot just accept an indefinite continuation of the status quo.

Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. All prisoners who were released in error under the first tranche of releases are now back behind bars. I will write to her on her question but, broadly speaking, the criteria includes whether offences were sexual and violent or related to domestic abuse. I will write to her with the specific list; it is in my notes, but I am not sure that I can find it in proper time today.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I can see why increasing magistrates’ courts’ sentencing powers may be necessary as a short-term measure to deal with the backlog of about 17,000 remand prisoners. However, will it not result in a great increase in the number of short sentences? We know that the reoffending rate for short sentences is around 50%, or even a bit more. Although it may be necessary as a short-term measure, how long will this last? If it lasts for too long, surely it will have a reverse effect and we will end up with the revolving-door syndrome that we have seen for short sentences over many years.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I do not agree with the premise of the noble Lord’s question. It is not right that we will see an increase in the number of short sentences. Certainly, in my experience as a sentencing magistrate who gave short sentences, I gave them only to those who were already on community orders or suspended sentences. I cannot remember giving a short sentence to somebody who had a previous good character.

Prison Capacities

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

I will focus on one of the most vulnerable groups in our prisons, elderly prisoners, who all too often can be forgotten amid all the other problems in our prisons. The Prison Reform Trust, of which I am a trustee, reported last week that the number of prisoners aged over 50 in England and Wales has nearly tripled in 20 years, from 5,000 in 2003 to a projected 14,800 by next July—that is one in six prisoners.

The ever-rising length of prison sentences is obviously a contributory factor. It is hard enough coping with age-related infirmities outside prison. Dealing with illness, disability, dementia and other health problems in prison means coping with the significant challenge of accessing adequate healthcare. Diet, restricted physical space and sedentary lifestyles accelerate the onset of frailty and worsening health conditions. Some prisoners face the lonely prospect of dying in prison.

In 2020 the Ministry of Justice promised a national strategy for the care and management of older prisoners. I would be most grateful if the Minister could indicate when that will emerge. Such a strategy should ensure that older prisoners are placed in the prison estate so as to maximise accessible and personalised health provision. More resource needs to be committed to training our hugely dedicated prison staff in recognising and responding to the needs of older prisoners, including the necessity of restraints for prisoners who are frail and present less risk, as well as dealing with dementia and pain relief. As ever, it comes back to the invaluable front-line prison staff on whom the entire prisons edifice daily depends.

Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I agree with my noble friend. There is an absence of teaching civic rights in our schools, and we could do more on this. Given the new focus on and enthusiasm for human rights, the various non-governmental bodies to which she has referred can play a greater role in promoting human rights in our society.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, the Independent Human Rights Act review of 2021, led by Sir Peter Gross, recommended a programme of civic and constitutional education in our schools and universities. Does the Minister agree that this is essential to ensure that our human rights framework develops to meet the needs of society?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

Yes, I think I do agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carter. I spoke to Sir Peter Gross about this a number of years ago, and I will make essentially the same point that I have made in answering other questions from noble friends. There is a role for greater promotion within our schools, and that should be seriously looked at.