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

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Friday 4th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am conscious of the time. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has put her finger on a problem that the Government have not properly faced but which they will have to face soon: the commendable action plan they have been pursuing with vigour will not reach a large number of prisoners who have not been released before, because, for the action plan to work at the individual level, the individual has to engage successfully with the processes of the Parole Board. We know now that, of the 1,000 or so prisoners who have never been released, a significant number no longer have the mental capacity to do that. Those are the people to whom the noble Baroness draws attention.

I wish to add to that group a further, possibly overlapping, group of prisoners, who may have mental capacity but refuse to engage with the process because of understandable disillusionment arising from their experience of the process in the past. These people will not be addressed by an action plan that requires that successful engagement. The Government have to come up with something else, because at the moment they have nothing for them; the alternative is that they simply stay in prison until they die. If not today, because we are coming to a close, then on an occasion not too far in the future, I think the House would like to hear what the Government propose to do for these people.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I wanted to participate in this debate principally to congratulate my noble friend on his excellent introduction. Throughout the stages of the Bill, he has been clear and concise about the need for this legislation, and his contribution today was magnificent.

All the speeches have been clear about the total injustice of the situation in which we find ourselves. I have little doubt that the views are shared by the Members on the Front Bench. The two issues that I wanted to raise—first, the mental health aspects of the problem and, secondly, the fact that we can no longer rely on people to manoeuvre through this system under their own power—have been powerfully addressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, so I will not repeat them. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will address them in his reply.

I emphasise to my noble friend the Minister that he has, in effect, said—he will perhaps tell me if I am wrong—that we do not need resentencing, as set out in this Bill, because the action plan will deal with the problem. Because of his particular position, he was brought into this House and into the Government to address this issue with the prison system alongside the other issues that we have. I stress—not in a very friendly way, although he is my noble friend—that it is really on his shoulders to get this sorted out. By rejecting the resentencing approach, the approach pursued by the Government has to work. It is on my noble friend the Minister’s shoulders to get this sorted out and to address the problems of mental health and the fact that large proportions of those remaining in prison are incapable of manoeuvring through the system by themselves. The Government have to provide them with support, either through the department or by funding some external agency that will give those suffering from this injustice a way out of the maze.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, given the way the debate on these amendments has gone—and with no disrespect to the noble Lord, Lord Woodley—I propose to say only a few words about Amendment 7, which is, as I understand it, the only live amendment, so to speak. It is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, who, as is always the case, has given us a lot of food for thought.

There is no doubt that the mental health aspect of the IPP issue is very real, not least because, as I said at Second Reading, my concern is that there will be prisoners who have developed mental health problems while in prison and indeed because of the sentence itself. I think I said that that was a stain on the British state and, if so, I was right to do so.

My noble friend Lord Moylan is therefore right to highlight the issue of mental health. That said, it is not immediately clear to me, looking at the words of the amendment, that the conditions in (6B) and (6C) are necessarily the right conditions to be imposed in this context. Of course, I appreciate that this amendment was tabled to raise the issue rather than to focus on the particular words. I therefore look forward to what the Minister has to say about Amendment 7.