Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. As for what kind of prisons we need, I think we need a good mix of prisons of all shapes and sizes and in all locations. On IPP sentence prisoners, I am sure the House knows me well enough to know how deeply troubled I am by the state of the lives of IPP sentence prisoners. It is not included in the sentencing review because I feel we are already making good progress, albeit early progress. The IPP action plan is solid and we need to push on fast with it.

I am looking at two things at the moment. One is that 30% of IPP sentence prisoners are in the wrong prison for helping them fulfil their needs to get out of prison. I am also heartened by a dashboard that we now have so we know where every IPP prisoner is and where they are up to with their sentence—it may not sound much, but it is a game-changer for how we can support people to work through their sentence. So I want to make rapid progress. I also reassure my noble friend that, when I was running the family business, I managed to work alongside 30 colleagues who were IPP prisoners and they were absolutely fantastic, and the second chance that they were given was paid back in buckets.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, with sentencing of female offenders, much is made of their vulnerability, their adverse childhood experiences and revictimisation as adults. Judges are increasingly mindful of their roles as primary carers. All this is humane and understandable. Is the sentencing review going to take a similar approach to men? While they must also take responsibility for breaking our laws, many are equally vulnerable and have had many adverse childhood experiences—I think 25% of the prison population has had the experience of being in care—but it is culturally normative to take a far more punitive approach to men.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the question. While the review will evaluate the sentencing framework and examine the experiences of all offenders, it will be guided by the evidence of what works to keep the public safe and to rehabilitate offenders. I am focused on the evidence of what works both here and abroad. Currently, judges and sentences already take into account the individual circumstances of each case to account for the culpability of the offender, male or female, and the harm they caused, or intended to cause and any aggravating or mitigating factors.

There are three facts that I am sue the noble Lord will know: female offenders make up only 4% of the prison population; over two-thirds of them are in prison for a non-violent offence; and 55% of women in prison have dependent children. What noble Lords may not know is that the average life expectancy for someone who is not in prison in this country is 82; if you are a man in prison, it is 56; if you are a woman in prison, it is 47. So, we clearly have a lot of work to do to support these very vulnerable and often ill people.

Prisoners: Early Release Scheme

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am afraid I would not want to put a date on when things are going to change, but I assure the noble Lord that the remand population of 17,000 is far too high. He is right that a number of prisoners who are on remand do not engage as well as they should in all the opportunities they have to turn their lives around—for example, education and purposeful activity. Changing magistrates’ sentencing powers to 12 months will free up Crown Court time to reduce the backlog, and this will reduce time spent on remand.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, what help is being offered to families who experience difficulties when a prisoner returns home earlier than expected? Is the Minister familiar with the prison-based family hub that Spurgeons is running in HMP Winchester? This connects families with a full range of support local to their homes and works with them in full respect and recognition that they are often the most effective front-line rehabilitation asset in released and serving prisoners’ lives.

Prison Capacities

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, successful rehabilitation reduces pressure on prison places. My two reviews for the Ministry of Justice, which it continues to implement with dedication and enthusiasm, emphasise that healthy relationships greatly reduce reoffending, as those who receive family visits are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who do not have them. HMPPS is very mindful of closeness to family when selecting which prisoners to send abroad. Some 28% of foreign national prisoners are Romanian, Polish or Albanian, and would be closer to home in Estonia than in British jails, which would give us some more space.

Many prisoners without family on the outside or friends to help them go straight benefit from well-supervised peer support in prison, and those relationships protect against repeat offending. Trained prisoners mentoring others derive much purpose from this. They take a huge load off officers and recipients more readily take their advice about going straight.

I recommended that prisons be extrovert and draw in local charities and other organisations to expose men to opportunities on the outside. Community days in prisons ensure that those who never see the visits hall can learn there about work and volunteering, including from former prisoners. One revolving-door prisoner attending his first community day was very doubtful but said, “For the first time I found myself thinking about what comes next. Now I never want to come back in again”. Does the Minister plan to roll out peer support and community days across the estate?

Finally, the Question refers to vulnerable prisoners. Much is said about diverting women who have experienced trauma and abuse away from custody. Male offenders with similar histories are treated far more harshly. Surely we should be moving towards equality of approach in this area.

Prisons: Foreign National Offenders

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is experienced on this subject. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Jackson on securing this important and relevant debate and on his many specific questions.

Many of our prisons are operating at full capacity and at great cost to the public purse. Rehabilitation, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and is a vital function of prisons—I will address mainly this subject in my contribution—is made considerably harder by overcrowding. Deporting foreign national offenders is key to the overall strategy to reduce the proportion held in our jails. However, we must also get better at reducing reoffending among foreign nationals so that those who cannot be deported do not come back in again.

Eligibility for deportation varies with sentence length and severity. There are many grounds for exception, although the ministerial Statement on 11 March laid out a far more stringent approach—particularly to short-sentenced FNOs. I make no judgment one way or another as to whether there are too many or not enough exceptions. I simply draw attention to the reasons why, according to that Statement in March, only 3,600 FNOs might be returned, leaving almost two-thirds of the 10,000 FNOs in place.

Given that many will be released back into the community, their rehabilitation is not an indulgence but an imperative. The “families and relationships” rehabilitation pathway is by far the most successful. In general, prisoners who receive family visits are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who do not. Hence, if the relationships are not criminogenic, there are significant benefits to prisoners of retaining close ties with people outside prison; for FNOs, this will often include families overseas.

When I did my two prison reviews, prison governors told me that only about half of the general prison population received family visits and that foreign national offenders’ families can be thousands of miles away. This is why I recommended giving any prisoner whose families would struggle to visit access to video-calling technology. The revolution to do this, fast-tracked by Covid, was game-changing. Is data still collected on the number of social video calls in prisons? In some prisons I have visited recently, this seems to have been deprioritised.

Encouragingly, as part of the reviews’ ongoing implementation, HMPPS now requires family services to include initiatives for prisoners who have no active family ties. However, if the mantra of my review, that the importance of relationships should be the golden thread running through all the processes of prison, is to be more than just a slogan, it requires a systemic shift in how prisons function. I see many signs that the Transforming Prisons directorate has fully taken this on board for the purposes of future training, so it is baked into planning for new builds and refurbished establishments. However, we also urgently need a more relational approach across the existing prison estate and among today’s prisoners and officers.

Just after Covid, I did an addendum to my two original reviews and emphasised the importance of peer-to-peer support programmes, especially in early days of custody. The plentiful resource of sentenced prisoners must be part of the solution. In the chaos of reception prisons, systems can be very confusing, especially for first-timers, yet understanding them is essential for settling in. Basic needs, including for family contact but also for such things as underwear, false teeth and reading glasses, often go unmet. The sense of helplessness and despair is greatly amplified for foreign prisoners, who face language and cultural barriers. One-third of all prison suicides occur within the first week in custody and the sense of isolation can play a decisive role. On my post-Covid visits, I have found that well-supervised peer support schemes greatly increase prisoners’ ability to take responsibility for their own lives and contribute to the well-being of others during this period. Setting the right trends at the reception stage can transform the whole of a prisoner’s journey.

In HMP Bullingdon, for example, “Hear to Help” prisoner mentors, wearing distinctive purple shirts, play a key support role in early days in custody, visiting everyone when they come on to the wing and doing what officers cannot. Officers are time-poor, mentors are time-rich, and they have often learned the hard way what works and what does not work in prison: they are people the men can connect with and relate to. One mentor said, “We have helped a lot of people and saved lives”. Indeed, a first-time prisoner told me he would not have survived the early days of his sentence without the help of his mentor. Many prisoners have a lack of trust for authority, are anti-uniform and have a fighter mentality. One mentor described prisoners’ violent behaviour as their “safety net”, their go-to response. It is where they feel safe, but it does not actually solve things.

Mentors provide a different safety net for prisoners’ frustrations and anger. They bring isolated people out of their cells, and their shells, encourage them to do things and “talk to them straight” about their cases and their trials. Without access to this peer support, it can take men several months to settle in, but with their help and presence, it is a lot quicker. These mentors are building community by being good role models and hubs around which positive behaviours coalesce.

You might think, where do you find the paragons of virtue who will take responsibility to look after other prisoners in a jail? For these “Hear to Help” mentors, the job itself gave them the turning point to pivot. Most were previously in trouble in prison, but the responsibility turned them around, and got them to work as a team and develop a whole new sense of purpose. They need to be well-supervised by dedicated senior prison officers who know how to build teams and are relationally brilliant. The scheme in Bullingdon is led by a woman who previously worked with struggling families in the community.

Foreign nationals serving very long sentences need a completely different type of peer support: less help to navigate the confusing prison system and more help to navigate their minds. They need to come to terms with what they have done and the fact of long-term incarceration. In HMP Dartmoor, there is more of an emphasis on training ordinary prisoners to deliver what are effectively low-level psychological interventions. Can my noble friend the Minister give the Committee an indication of the prevalence of peer support schemes that go way beyond the traditional orderly system and what plans they have to proliferate them? I also take the opportunity to ask about their plans to house prisoners overseas. What proportion would be FNOs? Can the Government confirm that family ties will be a key consideration in determining which prisoners are held overseas?

To reiterate, there are many foreign nationals we will not be able to deport and many will have very high-risk factors for reoffending. What happens in prison can heighten or mitigate those risks. As one senior governor who oversees several prisons told me:

“Some people have never learned how to be relational—how to turn themselves around and take advantage of the positive opportunities prison can provide. It’s not about being soft or hard on crime, it’s about what works”.

Parents: Separation

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Farmer]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support parents considering separation, and to promote early resolution of private family law arrangements.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords contributing to what I consider an important debate this evening. I will not soft-pedal why we are discussing these issues: parental separation is an enormous and egregious problem, the scale and ramifications of which few seem ready to acknowledge. Parental separation is a recognised adverse childhood experience; by the time British children turn 14 years old, 46% no longer live with both their natural parents. Family breakdown is a major risk factor for children and young people’s poor mental health. Children who experience it are significantly more prone to anxiety and depression. Research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience also found greater susceptibility to severe mental illness such as schizophrenia. The IFS’s Deaton review on inequality reported that between 1971 and 2019 the percentage of births outside marriage ballooned from 8% to 48%: half of all births take place in inherently less stable, cohabitating couple families, or to parents living apart from the outset. Professor Matthew Goodwin drily comments:

“Britain is now … giving Europe a masterclass in … ‘non-partnered motherhood’—namely, women who give birth with no partner at all”.


In the rest of Europe, 5% or fewer of mothers are in this position, but in Britain and the United States that figure is 15%, so a growing number of children have never experienced life with both their parents. Many then endure multiple transitions, where step-parent figures come and go, further compounding their sense that relationships are fundamentally unreliable or worse. Children living with father substitutes are eight times more likely to be on the at-risk register and 50 times more likely to die of an inflicted injury than those living with two biological parents. Centre for Social Justice research found that they are also twice as likely to get involved in crime. Some 75% of young offenders did not grow up with both parents, and 40% experienced abuse or neglect.

Adults are also deeply and detrimentally affected by family breakdown: it is often a gateway to poverty, loneliness, mental ill-health problems and domestic violence from informal partners. Kiernan and Estaugh’s research found that women are more likely to be physically abused, assaulted during pregnancy and seriously injured by live-in boyfriends than by husbands.

Professor Jan Walker’s research found that many wished they had been warned of the harsh realities of post-separation life. There is no information about sources of support on the online divorce system, and emails from it mention neither mediation nor options for help in agreeing child arrangements. Could the online divorce process signpost people to such support? Moreover, in this age of graduated smoking bans and online regulation to reduce well-evidenced harms, should we not point people to research-based information about how divorce is rarely the end of a painful process but the beginning of a new one, especially for their children?

Family instability is the social trend of the last half century. It gets almost no airtime in government yet is a major contributor to our housing and loneliness crises, among others—massive societal harms exacting huge costs on the taxpayer. Matthew Goodwin again calls out the hypocrisy of elites who are, he says,

“by far … the most likely to get married, have children in marriage, and then stay married”.

Yet they

“downplay the importance of stable families, encourage others to lead ‘fluid’, ‘individual’, and ‘diverse’ lives, and deride anybody who points to the importance of marriage and family as right-wing reactionaries who want to return to the 1950s”.

Their “Do as I say but not as I do” is a classic “luxury belief”, an idea aggressively promoted to bolster their own standing, despite the harms and costs entailed, but which they do not personally pursue.

Sadly, our own Government have undermined the value of commitment in hard times by introducing no-fault divorce to reduce conflict over what was on the divorce petition. However, the reality is that this source of conflict pales alongside that over money and children, and everything else that has to be negotiated when one household becomes two. The interminable wrangling over such issues fuels the immense backlog of well over 100,000 family court cases and the average 45-week wait for private family law cases involving children, despite the Government’s target of 26 weeks. Allegedly, in some areas it is over 60 weeks. All the time conflict, unhappiness and eye-watering costs grow: last year Cafcass alone cost almost £150 million. May I ask the Minister the total costs for that year for family courts and the family justice system? They do not seem to be published.

Our family courts are vital but should be the place of last resort. Before then, every proper assistance should be given to couples, as the Lord Chancellor said during the passage of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act. His commitment was that

“as a Government, we will work harder … to bring together the strands of policy that sit with various Departments and to ensure that we have a family policy that is fit for the 2020s”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/20; col. 902.]

The vehicle for doing that now is the growing number of family hubs in around 100 of 150 local authorities. I declare my interest as a guarantor of FHN Holding, the not-for-profit owner of the Family Hubs Network Ltd. Family hub networks include and build on Sure Start’s vital early years work. They bring together all the family support in an area for parents with older children and those with special needs.

The independent review of children’s social care and the Children’s Commissioner emphasise the need for integrated, community-based family support in family hubs. Moreover, historically, Michael Young, Labour architect of the welfare state, knew that struggling parents needed support. The Second World War had a long tail of effect on families, particularly the emotional cost of high levels of divorce and separation from parents—trends that have of course continued, as I have already outlined. Family centres were legislated for in the Children Act 1989; Sure Start children’s centres were the first step, and family hubs are the next iteration. However, much remains to do, extending way beyond the next election, for hubs to fulfil their transformational potential.

Since 2006, Australian family relationship centres have successfully signposted families away from the courts by providing mediation and focused guidance. A key message from the academic evaluation was that their work would be greatly enhanced by collocating or integrating help with housing, debt and other support that families need at times of transition. In other words, they would be greatly improved by being part of a family hub network—and our family hubs would be greatly improved if they included an offer akin to that of the Australian family relationship centres.

The March Budget promised £55 million for family courts, including money to support families through non-court dispute resolution. Ministry of Justice documents on earlier resolution of private family law arrangements prominently feature family hubs. Minimum expectations for all government-funded family hubs by March 2025 require support for reducing parental conflict and information for separating or separated parents.

Pioneering local authorities, such as Rochdale, already include evidence-based programmes for parenting when separated, and the Family Solutions Group has a pilot-ready model to further enhance such provision. Even in cases that must go before a judge, much could be achieved during pauses between stages by drawing on services in family hubs that help address entrenched relational difficulties, such as post-separation parenting programmes and support for their children. I ask the Minister again: will the Government fund such pilots and encourage family courts to work closely with hubs?

In conclusion, I have highlighted that family breakdown is the elephant in the room of many social policy problems. Family hubs are well-positioned to prevent and mitigate its considerable harms through early intervention and support. We must now build on the good foundations that the Government have laid in their family hubs programme, and maximise their potential in this vital area.

Non-custodial Sentences: Public Confidence

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the actual message is, in essence, for the Sentencing Council to transmit. The Government and Parliament set the framework, the Sentencing Council sets the guidelines, and our independent judges impose the sentences. The Sentencing Council’s present guidelines emphasise that community orders can be highly positive, last longer than short custodial sentences and involve important restrictions on day-to-day liberty; and that breaching them can result in significant adverse consequences. We must entirely combat the idea that community sentences are a soft option, and that is the Government’s position.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, the need to weigh public confidence against improving rehabilitation, reducing costs and the need for prison places seems to be ignored when sentencing for serious and violent crime. The trend here is for ever longer custodial sentences. People convicted of murder now spend 60% longer in prison, on average, than in 2001. No balancing act is being attempted, and no rehabilitation. Justice cannot be driven by vengeance, so why are the Government arguing for ever longer sentences?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I am not aware that the Government are arguing for ever longer sentences. On the contrary, the sentencing Bill that your Lordships will shortly consider has a presumption to avoid prison sentences in certain circumstances—particularly short sentences. As far as murder is concerned, the statutory sentence is life imprisonment. That is not a matter for the Government. The time one serves as a sentence for murder is a matter for the Sentencing Council guidelines. I think I would accept—as the Justice Committee accepted—that it is true that public opinion in recent years seems to have moved towards heavier sentences for serious crime. But I do not accept that, as my noble friend suggests, that overrides rehabilitation in all circumstances.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, my interest in the Bill lies in how families and children affected by crime are supported. I will also highlight that victims and prisoners are often overlapping categories.

The duty to collaborate, in Clause 12, reinforces recommendations I made in my 2019 Ministry of Justice review on female offenders. Early intervention in the community requires addressing women’s vulnerabilities that can lead to offending. These include them being victims of crime—for example, as we heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, 57% of women in prison have themselves endured domestic abuse.

Joining up services, peer support and voluntary sector activity is vital for addressing the multiple drivers of women’s offending. I recommended establishing local accountabilities to make sure this join-up happens, so I welcome this duty. I also emphasised the need to include family and relationship work in diversion and out of court disposal programmes for women, and outlined the importance of family hubs. These are now official government policy and being rolled out in 87 local authority areas. I declare my unremunerated interest as a director and guarantor of the not-for-profit consultancy The Family Hubs Network Ltd.

Many family hubs provide domestic abuse services but want to do far more and are very well placed to help children who have experienced or witnessed domestic abuse. Can the Minister confirm that the duty to collaborate will require the police and others to work with family hubs? They need to be cemented into local support infrastructure wherever possible.

Further, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner highlighted at Commons Committee stage that many bereaved families have a poor experience of the Parole Board in terms of being kept informed, and their feelings considered, ahead of the release of offenders. Ideally, the Bill would drive improvements in family liaison.

I am interested in how the Government would have treated Harriet Harman’s new Clause 36, which was selected for consideration on Report but not debated. It called for annual data collection to establish

“how many prisoners are the primary carers of a child … how many children have a primary carer who is a prisoner, and … the ages of those children”.

This was recommended in her Joint Committee on Human Rights report The Right to Family Life: Children Whose Mothers are in Prison. The Government responded positively to this recommendation, provided an accurate method can be found that protects the rights of vulnerable individuals.

Cambridge criminologists Murray and Farrington referred to children of prisoners as “forgotten victims” of crime and “the Cinderella of penology”. This new clause could fit well into a Bill to make provision about victims of, and others affected by, criminal conduct. Accurate numbers and knowing exactly who is affected are both important to mitigate the deleterious effects of parental imprisonment on children, including the greater likelihood that they will themselves become offenders. Studies by Farrington et al and Dallaire found that over 60% of children of incarcerated parents offend themselves.

Mothers are more likely to be primary carers. However, today’s family complexities make this “primary carer” tag less clearcut. Men increasingly fill this role and many have “shared care” of children after parental separation. So, while I support this data collection, it should not further downplay the importance of fathers in children’s lives. That the Joint Committee felt justified in looking at the right to family life only for children whose mothers are in prison exposes an assumption that needs to be challenged. Can the Minister impart any early insights about the Government’s appetite to make such data collection a statutory requirement?

Where prisoners are concerned, public perceptions of men are very different from those of women. Important male/female differences affect the way each sex experiences incarceration, but there is far less societal acceptance that many convicted men are also victims. Yet for both sexes there is a deep connection between being a victim and ending up in prison—a quarter of prisoners were in local authority care. In The Honest Politician’s Guide to Prisons and Probation, the former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, describes how

“‘a vast range of people in our prisons are inadequate in one way or another’, including many young people who suffered ‘horrific social deprivation’ … ‘Youths who stab people; they don’t control their emotions and so they do something horrific. But there is no point locking them up for … 20 years for a two-minute loss of temper’”.

By young people he means young men: less than 1.5% of the child and youth estate is female—the rest are male—and only 4.5% of the adult prison estate is female.

Without in any way excusing their crimes, I say that many young men have been through a range of adverse childhood experiences but often lack the developed emotional intelligence to articulate how they have been affected by them. It is a skill shaped through early nurturing relationships—precisely what many have not had when fathers have been absent. The ensuing vulnerability often comes out in anger, gang involvement and, ultimately, self-destructive acts, which can also devastate others’ lives. Victims of such crimes matter enormously, but courts exist to prevent vigilantism, vengeance and private justice.

Some are concerned—I mention here my noble friend Lady Newlove—that this is no longer just a victims’ Bill. But we must learn from those who speak for female offenders and extend to men and boys the recognition that we cannot neatly divide the world into victims and perpetrators. This is not to excuse—I disagree that women should not be in prison, even if they are parents, let alone men—but to build public understanding that funding for effective rehabilitation is money well spent. So, in ending, I ask the Minister to consider that victim/offender is an overlapping category that could be usefully established in law through this Bill, given its somewhat unique title.

King’s Speech

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I too am saddened to hear of the death of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I did not know him well but I heard his considered wisdom in many of our debates. Indeed, it enriched them. I was also privileged to hear the maiden speeches of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Malden, and my noble friends Lord Houchen of High Leven and Lord Bailey of Paddington, all of which I thought excellent and very diverse. I am sure their presence will enrich our House.

Growth, security and taking long-term decisions to build a better future are the right priorities when inflation still stalks the land, wars are raging, and the cost of living is cutting deeply. However, the Government have also promised to strengthen the social fabric. Among the most important long-term decisions are those which help prevent families breaking down and strengthen them for the challenges ahead, and not just by increasing their reliance on the state through cash transfers.

In declaring my interest as a guarantor of FHN Holding, the not-for-profit owner of Family Hubs Network Ltd, I say that we need a forward plan for increasing the role of family hubs in local communities. They should become the delivery point for all family support services, including those which help parents and children to manage the conflict that often escalates around the point of separation and divorce.

The Government should do more to enable parents who want to look after their own children and are willing to take the massive salary hit to do so. Front-loading child benefit would recognise the considerable value that conscientious and hard-working at-home mothers and fathers add to society and the economy. Any concerns responsible professionals such as health visitors have about parents’ ability and capacity to do this most skilled and difficult of jobs, for which few of us, if any, get formal training, should be met by freely available support in local family hubs.

We must stop ignoring the widely divergent outcomes for many boys and young men, especially those from poor white communities, in our state schools and relative to their female counterparts. We need a long-term approach to address their disadvantages so that they fulfil their potential. This is no more than we want for girls and young women.

Turning to what will be in the forthcoming legislative programme, when the carried-over Victims and Prisoners Bill resumes, I look forward to the Government’s amendments to address indeterminate IPPs—imprisonment for public protection—which the Lord Chancellor recently referred to as

“a stain on our justice system”. [Official Report, Commons, 16/10/23; col. 61.]

One long-standing prison governor told me that IPPs completely removed his officers’ ability to give any hope to a prisoner, something that is already in very short supply. Former Home Secretary Jack Straw said that the state removes the liberty of those convicted of crime as punishment, not for punishment. Plunging imprisoned people into hopelessness is disproportionately punitive in all circumstances. The Lord Chancellor has already signalled his intent to curtail the licence period following Parole Board decisions to release, but obviously this will affect only a subsection of those currently serving IPPs.

Incidentally, I have recently seen peer-to-peer support programmes which impart hope, even to those serving very long sentences, for those offering the support, not just for those receiving it. Well-trained lifers, one of whom was serving a minimum of 33 years, in HMP Dartmoor found a whole new sense of purpose during their sentences by mentoring other prisoners and helping them deal with anger issues, take responsibility for their sentences and handle family relationship problems. The result is a more settled regime, as men respond differently to the rigours of prison.

However long men serve—and it is mainly men who are affected by longer sentences—the vast majority are eventually still released. Rehabilitation cannot be an afterthought, even in this pre-election year, when the three decades-long arms race, which we heard mentioned today, between political parties around who can be the toughest on crime will likely intensify. Strenuously deploying effective ways of reducing reoffending is being tough on crime.

This requires addressing criminogenic needs: the characteristics or issues in someone’s life that directly relate to their likelihood of reoffending. Relationships are the most prevalent criminogenic need for women, and the level of lack is similarly high for men. Prisoners who receive family visits are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who do not, while education and employment decrease reoffending by only 9%. Even addressing addiction cuts the likelihood of reoffending only by 19%. Therefore, measures to improve relationships—whether between prisoners who have no family, between officers and prisoners, or with families on the outside who motivate them to go straight—are not soft on crime if their rehabilitative effect means less crime, fewer victims, more motivation to earn and pay taxes, and fewer children following their parents into prison. They are indispensable policy complements to the sentencing legislation proposed.

Finally, the arms race which penal populism generates in necessarily vote-hungry politicians is, like its historical nuclear equivalent, increasingly unaffordable, both in the squandering of human potential and the ballooning costs of criminal justice. With the greatest of respect for all those championing victims, increasing the confidence of victims may sound unarguable but it costs the taxpayer £47,000 per prisoner per year.

To sum up, longer-term decisions need to be focused on mending our badly frayed social fabric and cognisant of the vast costs of ever-longer incarceration. Politicians need to take the electorate with them on these difficult but profoundly necessary journeys.

Joint Enterprise: Young Black Men

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I have visited several high-security prisons since starting my reviews in 2016. On one such visit I met young black men who were secondary parties in a gang-related incident—I use that phrase advisedly—where tragically someone was murdered. Joint enterprise case law then, pre-R v Jogee, meant they were convicted as principals and facing very long sentences. As we are talking about young black men, and it is difficult to surmount the difficulties in securing justice, I ask my noble and learned friend: what are the Government doing to help young black individuals and other secondary parties to surmount those difficulties in securing justice?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

Prisoners in the position that my noble friend refers to would have been able to consider the Jogee case and appeal if that was the right course or refer their case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The Law Commission is looking into the appeal process, but those legal avenues are open to them.

Prison Capacity

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

The Government very much welcome the contribution that local agencies and other organisations make towards rehabilitation and will continue to take advantage of all the opportunities that arise. If I may trouble your Lordships anecdotally for a moment, I met a man the other day who had been a remand prisoner in Winchester prison. He had been acquitted, so he was free. I asked, “What was your experience in Winchester prison?” He said, “I did very well, actually, because I was able to take the IT course that they offered. I can now do an Excel spreadsheet and a Word document, and I regard it as having been a positive experience”. So it is not all doom and gloom.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement, which avoids the trap of penal populism and combines proportionality with pragmatism. However, its three crime prevention strategies are all downriver. Can the Minister explain what the Government are doing to prevent crime before people offend in the first place, especially in the area of strengthening families—a quarter of our prison population were in local authority care—and reducing father absence, since 70% of young offenders grew up in lone-parent families? Lastly, how are the Government ensuring that families of prisoners get the help they need in the community in order to reduce intergenerational crime? Some 60% of children of convicted parents go on to offend themselves.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, as always, my noble friend makes a powerful point about the importance of families, both in avoiding crime in the first place and in supporting criminals who later return to the community. The Government’s general approach to supporting families is very much at the centre of our wider view of this particular landscape, particularly through the DfE’s Supporting Families programme, the family hubs, family courts and particularly the FDACs. The noble Lord’s points are well taken and will certainly be borne in mind as we continue.