King’s Speech

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Timpson. Given the scale of the emergency facing our prisons, the Lord Chancellor has been forced to set out new measures, which we heard about earlier in a Statement from the Minister. When resources are so stretched, we must make sure that we are using them in the best possible way. In my view, the Government should legislate to make the Sentencing Council take account of the capacity of the prison system. This proposal is not new. It was made by the Carter report on the prison system in 2007, and it still makes sense.

At a time when all other areas of public services have to work within the reality of limited resources, there is no reason why courts should be exempt. Sentencing guidelines should scale down the number and length of prison sentences, except for the most serious crimes. This may be a short-term solution, but it is not a long-term remedy. The corresponding impact on other criminal justice agencies will remain great.

Let me take one such example. There is admission on the part of the Government that this change will not take effect until early September, giving the Probation Service time to prepare. This is overoptimistic. In many parts of the country, the Probation Service is overstretched and overworked. The annual report of prisons and probation has just been published. There were 4,575 complaints about the services, an increase of 2% compared to last year. These include complaints about Probation Services, immigration removal centres and secure training centres. The level of suicides and self-harm is an unacceptable feature of our custodial system. How are we dealing with mental health issues in our prisons?

I wish to draw the House’s attention once again to the issue of the overuse of imprisonment. Of the 41,000 people who were sent to prison in the 12 months to June 2021, 40% were sentenced to serve terms of six months or less. These short sentences do little to reduce crime, as they are too short for any serious rehabilitative work to take place, yet they can result in offenders losing jobs and accommodation, which increases, rather than reduces, their likelihood of reoffending. The previous Government projected an increase in the prison population to over 98,000 by 2026. Sentences have become significantly longer. Community sentences result in significantly lower reoffending, which has more than halved in the last decade.

Let me spell out my main concern. Numerous research studies have shown that offenders from minority-ethnic groups are disproportionately likely to receive custodial sentences. Previous estimates published by the Ministry of Justice indicated that black people were over 50% more likely to be sent to prison for an indictable offence at the Crown Courts, even when higher not guilty pleas were factored in. The Ministry of Justice publication estimated that, if the prison population reflected the ethnic composition of the general population, we would have 9,000 fewer people in prison, the equivalent of 12 average-sized prisons. The question we should ask is how we have produced this anomaly within our criminal justice system.

The primary aim is for the court to send to prison only those whose offending makes any other course unacceptable, and, secondly, those who are sent to prison should not stay there any longer than strictly necessary. We had an opportunity to look critically at our criminal justice system. In April 2020, we were promised a royal commission on the criminal justice system. We all know that it was kicked into the long grass; instead, we have had a piecemeal approach to legislation in this field. It is not too late to revisit this option.