Prisons: Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord German Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Burt for this short debate and all who have spoken in it so far. We should remind ourselves, as she did, that the work we are doing here is subsequent to the abolition of IPP in 2012. We are dealing with the cases of people who were sentenced between 2005 and 2012. As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, has just outlined, tremendous hurt has been done to those people. There are now some 240 IPP prisoners in mental health institutions, and the hopelessness of this regime has led to 86 prisoners taking their own lives. We, the state, are responsible for this inhumane treatment. In many cases, it is psychological torture. Basically, this is an unjust system; that is now agreed across all parts of this House, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, but the solutions to the problem are proving more difficult to grasp.

Action plans in the past were criticised because they did not have clear strategic priority, ownership, detail, timeframes and performance measures. The scheme as we see it now, refreshed, has led to reductions in the numbers serving sentences but the new plan will not mean an end to these sentences altogether, and the timeframe for the reduction in numbers is still slow. That is, in great part, as a result of resource implications and issues.

As my noble friend Lady Burt has said, there is limited scope for proper preparation for reintegration into society more generally. A member of the Parole Board who has served on it for 12 years said that he had

“seen the difficulties that hopelessness and the lack of opportunity to reform brings to people—some people have got worse in prison because of that”.

Lack of hope due to a limited light at the end of the tunnel is causing these problems.

It is very difficult for IPP offenders to engage in rehabilitation opportunities. This is made worse by the capacity issues in prisons, as my noble friend Lady Burt pointed out. On recall, both my noble friend and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, pointed to the dramatic increase in the recall procedure to show that it is not getting better quickly.

Members have raised numerous questions on the current action plan, as has the Prison Reform Trust. I can sum up those questions in two that encompass what the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan said. What do the Government believe will be the measure of success with the current action plan? What will the numbers and expectations of successful outcomes look like? We need an answer to those questions. We need to find the resource for progression panels inside the institutions, so that we can work properly to give people a route out.

I know that I have only a few minutes to touch on resentencing. In that time, I will refer to the letter the Government received from the Justice Committee which points out that they never committed to introducing measures that would lead to people being released who were dangerous to the community. It lists in some detail what the proposals were. Will the Government commit in this Parliament to looking afresh at this matter, in light of the view of the Justice Committee and that letter? Will they, as a minimum, seek advice from an expert group as recommended in the committee’s letter?

We in this Parliament are useful in developing legislation. The Government may be concerned about bringing forward further legislation but, if there is a genuine concern, I assure the Minister that we on these Benches will support him to deal with this matter. Any resulting legislation would bring this miserable problem to a satisfactory end.