Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement of the Justice Secretary. It is comforting to note that the Whitehall tradition of dusting down old policies for new Ministers is still with us. Of course, there are many matters addressed in the Statement with which I entirely agree. The proposal for a review is certainly to be welcomed, and there are many policy initiatives touched upon that deserve further consideration and ultimately, I hope, some form of introduction, but does the Minister agree with me that one major issue to be addressed at the outset is the practicality and cost of the measures being proposed?

Take a simple example: extending home detention and the use of tagging. The Minister mentioned tags and sensors, but that is a tiny part of that overall programme. When we have, let us say, thousands of offenders tagged, we require more than just the tag and sensor, however sophisticated it may be. Does the Minister agree with me that, for the programme to work, we require real-time monitoring, real-time reporting 24 hours a day and a real-time response—again, 24 hours a day? There is no point in noticing that someone has left home under curfew if we do not check on them for another week. That makes considerable demands on police resources, for example. What will be done to address that issue in the context of these reforms?

If, however, we are going to use some other service, such as the Probation Service, does the Minister anticipate a significant and, indeed, material increase in the provision of that service? I also ask him: is it proposed to use home detention and tagging as a potential alternative to remand, since it is at the end of remand that we find the greatest pressure upon the current prison system? Furthermore, if we are to have a much-extended home detention system, what steps will be taken to monitor and deal with the impact on families of having an offender in their midst for up to 16 hours a day? We know from the experience of the pandemic lockdown of the stress and mental difficulty that can be caused by that sort of situation. We will need more than just experts in the criminal justice system to address that sort of proposal, so I hope that the appointment of the review panel will go further than indicated in the Justice Secretary’s Statement.

We should also consider the victims of crime and the public perception of crime and punishment. If your home has been burgled half a dozen times in the previous year by the same individual, it is somewhat galling to see him walking down the street in front of your house wearing a tag. We have to be able to inform the public as to the effectiveness of the proposals that are being made. We are going to have to educate the public with regard to their effectiveness. There is the further issue of public confidence in the penal system. At present, it is conceivable that a person given a three-year sentence can be released on licence after three months. How does the Minister consider that the public perceive that when it occurs? A further area of education may be required, if I might be permitted to mention it: the education of the magistrates and judges to persuade them that community sentences can have a much more major part to play in our sentencing policy. Will that too be addressed in the context of the present review?

Then there is a question of how the Government will deal with the opposition. I am referring not to His Majesty’s loyal Opposition but to the Treasury—the place where all penal reform proposals go to die. Before we start out on this ambitious project, will the Minister be able to assure us that he has, in principle, the support of the Treasury for the considerable sums that will be required to implement these policy proposals?

There is an acknowledgement in the Statement that we need more prisons. Will the Minister disclose to us the programme for those new prisons? Will he also address the difficult issue of planning, where proposals for prisons seem to be notoriously subject to blocking and delay? Are there steps that the Minister will be able to advise us of to try to circumvent that problem?

We then come to the matter of foreign nationals, who make up about 12% of the present prison population. The Justice Secretary said in the Statement that it was

“my personal view that deportation is as good a punishment as imprisonment, if not better ”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/10/24; col. 200.]

Does the Minister agree with me that this is a completely mad proposition? Foreign criminals, gangsters and drug dealers from safe countries—remember that we can deport foreign nationals only to safe countries—will come here to rob, burgle and create mayhem. Then when caught, according to the Justice Secretary’s policy, they will simply be sent home again, no doubt at our expense. We will become a magnet for foreign criminals. Why would you not come here if that was the policy being implemented? Get caught and go home but get a free ticket to go home—wonderful. Can the Minister advise me who dreamed up this particular policy and how they intend to implement it?

It is clear that penal reform has been overdue in this country for many years. I welcome the idea of the review and the appointment of the former Conservative Justice Secretary to head that review. I hope we can see such a review being carried forward in the very near future. I thank the Minister again for repeating the Statement.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement in your Lordships’ House. Overcrowding in our prisons has been in the headlines for as long as I can remember. Different Ministers have offered various solutions to this problem. No one seems to have looked at overall solutions that could resolve the problem. We are now offered a review by a former Minister and a prison capacity package to solve the present crisis.

We have long called for a review of criminal sentencing. We have asked for reoffending to be cut by taking a holistic approach to rehabilitation and community supervision, including a full range of rehabilitative services. We also believe in implementing a presumption against short sentences of 12 months or fewer to facilitate rehabilitation in the community.

The present proposals offer short-term solutions but do not alleviate the problems or provide the long-term solutions we badly need. The previous Administration had a golden opportunity to set up a royal commission on the criminal justice system, but this was kicked into the long grass. Instead, we have a piecemeal approach to legislation in this field. We need to look at the overuse of imprisonment. This has put us on top in Europe as the worst country in the way we sentence offenders. It is astonishing that we imprison nearly twice as many people as Germany.

There are a number of questions for the Minister. I welcome the proposals to reduce the prison population. We should seriously examine the work of the Sentencing Council. Surely a Minister should put a legislative obligation to take note of the prison population before a sentence is passed. How will the review plan to address concerns about disproportionate sentencing of minority groups and marginalised communities? Would the Minister agree that ploughing more resources into expanding the prison system to hold an ever-growing number of prisoners is far from the most sensible way to tackle crime?

Marriage and Religious Weddings

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The major obstacle is the fundamental difference between the law of marriage in Scotland and that in England. The law of marriage in England and Wales, as determined since Lord Hardwicke’s Act, depends upon the place of celebration as well as the celebrant. That is not the position in Scotland, where it is not necessary to identify the location for the marriage ceremony.

[Lord Dholakia (LD) [V]]

My Lords, is there any evidence of girls being married before reaching the legal age at which marriage is permissible, particularly during the Covid emergency of recent times, and is the situation regularly monitored here and abroad to ensure that this does not happen to girls settled in the United Kingdom?

Prison Sentences

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. Of adults sentenced to six months custody or less, about 84% have previously received a community order, and, indeed, a very large proportion of those have received repeated community orders before finally the court has imposed a custodial sentence. I also acknowledge the noble Lord’s point regarding community sentences. That is one of the things our imminent White Paper is going to do, and we will seek to make community sentences tougher, for example through longer curfews and more hours of unpaid work. We are also, of course, developing the whole area of GPS monitoring with regard to community sentences.

[Lord Dholakia (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the pandemic has once again focused attention on short-term sentences or their abolition in favour of community-based penalties. As of 29 May 2020, according to the Library Note, only 95 prisoners have been released under the End of Custody Temporary Release scheme, commonly referred to as ECTR. To what does the Minister attribute the higher sentencing tariff in our courts, and could the Sentencing Council be asked look again at the way judges are using the sentencing tariffs?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

We consider that the independent judiciary should be in a position to impose the sentence they consider appropriate in an individual case. Releases under the early release scheme have of course been done on an individual basis and in addition, female prisoners have been released under the scheme—pregnant prisoners and those in mother and baby units. According to my figures, as of 22 June a total of 23 women had been released under that scheme.

Royal Commission on Criminal Justice

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The senior judiciary has been looking at the ability to carry on criminal trials and work in the criminal justice system remotely, and implementing measures to that effect. We hope that these will be developed in the immediate future.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of the Police Foundation, which has undertaken a strategic review of policing under the chairmanship of Sir Michael Barber. It is expected that a major report dealing with the current and future challenges facing policing will be published in July. Will the Minister advise the royal commission to seek an early meeting with this review body so that the duplication of work can be avoided and an early report on policing produced?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

It is clearly intended that prosecution should be part of the royal commission’s mandate, and clearly the commission, once established, will invite contributions from all interested parties, so I am confident that the police will have ample opportunity to address the commission on the issues referred to.

Feltham Young Offender Institution

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord’s observations. We have developed a clear process to respond to urgent notification letters. Senior officials, led by the executive director of the Youth Custody Service, will be directly involved in the work to ensure that immediate action is taken, along with a more in-depth plan to ensure that we see sustained improvement to the establishment in the long term. Of course, as part of the process, the department will publicly respond to the chief executive within 28 days.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I listened very carefully to the Minister. He said that steps were being taken to curtail new entrants to Feltham A. Is he aware that many of the people in Feltham A have family in the community who are seriously concerned about what is happening to those individuals? What method is being used to inform the near-enough families of the people in Feltham about what is going on? Has the Minister any plans to disclose for a proper way of establishing control and discipline, so that a proper programme of rehabilitation, education and training can take place?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, education, training and rehabilitation are all critical elements of youth custody. To succeed, they require motivation. When motivation is lacking, it becomes extremely difficult to implement what is required.

We seek to improve the situation at Feltham A, in particular. The staff to prisoner ratio in Feltham A, and across all the youth capacity, is normally one to 12, based on full occupancy. The decision to reduce the operational capacity at Feltham A has meant that that ratio has been improved to one to eight.

As regards communications, families are able to keep in regular contact with inmates in the youth custody regime, and I do not understand that there have been any particular difficulties reported on that front at present.

Serco

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Thursday 4th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, the noble Lord refers to an infatuation of this Government. I remind him that the contracts with which we are concerned go back to 2004, at a time when, at least as I recollect, there was a Government of a different complexion. It was that Government who let these contracts to Serco in 2004 and for many years thereafter.

The resolution of the matter between the Ministry of Justice and Serco took place in 2013-14, when there was a financial settlement of £68.5 million. As to why it took six years for the criminal matter to be concluded by DPA, that is of course a matter for the SFO, to which we lent all our assistance during the course of this very complex inquiry.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, could the Minister confirm that this is not the first time that allegations of this nature have been made against Serco and G4S? Is he aware that it is alleged that they were charging the Government for electronically tagging and monitoring people who were either dead, in jail or had left the country? Could he confirm whether any further contracts are being offered to Serco and whether it is a fit and proper organisation to undertake these tasks? Why have no criminal charges so far been brought against this organisation?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I will not comment upon suggested other allegations. There has been a thorough investigation by the Serious Fraud Office with regard to events between 2004 and 2014, and that has resulted in the deferred prosecution agreement, as indicated earlier. We are content that Serco, having carried out a thorough and extensive exercise in cleaning out those involved in this matter, is in a position to accept further contracts from the Government going forward, subject to the same rules and regulations that apply to other third parties. Therefore, it will continue to do so. I make no comment on G4S. It may be the subject of continuing inquiries, and it is not appropriate for me to say any more.

Probation: Voluntary Sector

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, commissioning of interventions for each area will be driven by a regional probation director, who will have a special responsibility to make use of locally available services and to adapt provision to match local need. In addition, we intend to remove some of the barriers that have been in place for smaller voluntary organisations, such as the requirement to provide parent company guarantees, which these voluntary organisations could not meet.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, the National Probation Service has more than a quarter of a million people under supervision at any given time. A lack of resources and Chris Grayling’s reforms have not helped, as was clearly demonstrated by the National Audit Office. We welcomed the setting up of the National Probation Service, but we now have another problem about the extent of its workload. Is it not time to set up a thematic review to examine whether present resources are adequate to meet the implementation objectives of both the Prison Service and the National Probation Service? How do we involve the voluntary organisations in this critical exercise?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, there is a determination to ensure that the voluntary sector is fully engaged in the future delivery of probation services. Indeed, although there are only 94 voluntary community or social enterprises delivering services in the current CRC supply chain, we know that there are many hundreds of such organisations that are either signposted by the present system or are available to be used, and we intend to go to them in so far as we can. As regards the future organisation of those services, we are in the process of gathering data on all staff across the probation system to inform our workforce planning for this new model.

Probation Reform

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Thursday 16th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. All of us think that it has been a long time coming and it is right that we should broadly welcome the thrust of the Government’s intention to reorganise this service.

I take our share of the blame as part of the coalition Government, during which we supported some of the reforms of the National Probation Service in 2014. Some of the principles of these reforms were very sound when they were introduced. It was right that supervision was available for at least the first year when inmates leave prison. It was important to provide through-the-gate services, so that people can have a place to live as well as continuity of training and treatment between prison and the community. To do all this, it was vital that voluntary organisations working in the criminal justice field were fully involved.

Mr Grayling has bungled and underfunded contracts so badly that his reforms failed to achieve these objectives. No wonder it is estimated that these botched reforms have cost the taxpayer more than £500 million, according to the National Audit Office. He is the most unfortunate Minister whose record is dismal, and it is a surprise that he has lasted so long, even at the Department for Transport at this stage.

We need some guarantees to ensure that the probation service is not let down again. Who is examining the existing case load of probation officers? What further resources are available to make them more effective? Is there any way of tying probation resources to the rise in the number of prisoners in our establishments? Is there some way of ensuring that more incarceration of prisoners will effectively mean more work for the probation service? A good many well-trained but disillusioned probation officers have left the service in the last few years. What is being done to bring them back into probation work?

The Minister has just announced a new targeted innovation fund. What share will voluntary organisations have in such funds in order to make the probation service more effective? The new targeted innovation fund ought to make sure that such organisations are not locked out. Of course reforms are necessary, but we should never lose sight of the fact that when the state incarcerates prisoners, it takes full responsibility for each individual. We would do well, in very difficult times, to say to ourselves that if we lose that responsibility we will lose control of our criminal justice system.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords for their contributions. I do not accept the characterisation of these matters advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. Indeed, as I have often observed in the past, the gross overstatement of an argument simply diminishes it in the ears of hearers.

The position is that we have learned lessons over the past few years from the way in which probation was set up and carried through, as between the National Probation Service and the CRCs. Indeed, one of the difficulties that emerged arose not out of money being used to prop up CRCs, or money being taken from the taxpayer for the benefit of CRCs, but because the Government were actually too successful in negotiating the commercial terms of the CRC contracts, with the result that the CRCs made persistent losses on these contracts of such magnitude that they began to withdraw from the quality of service they should have provided in the first place. That created very real difficulties, and we accept that. We actually had to go to the CRCs and try to renegotiate in order to keep them on a reasonable path of provision.

One consequence of that has been that, for example, CRCs have paid out more than £9 million in respect of what are called service credits—which are, for them, service debits; they are credits to the taxpayer but debits to the shareholders of these companies—because of their failure to reach performance targets. So we responded to the very real difficulties that emerged in that context.

We are now developing a system whereby we will have the probation service on a regional basis. These regions will be coterminous with the PCCs, in the hope that, going forward, there will be greater linkage between the PCCs and the probation service. We will have a director-general of probation, which I think accords with a recommendation that has just been made in the interim report issued today by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who was commissioned by the noble Baroness’s honourable friend, who I believe continues to be the shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Richard Burgon MP, who asked the noble Lord to look at this.

On the question of U-turning on nationalisation, I will quote from the interim report of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. He says:

“There is no doubt that the private sector has brought rigour to the oversight of probation. The best of them explained how they had introduced a forward-looking culture of delivering more with less, which must have relevance for the future, plus a better understanding of the relationship between cost and delivery”.


We are seeking to build on those benefits, appreciating that there were also deficits in the way in which CRCs delivered at the end of the day.

To take up the particular point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, we are concerned to ensure that the voluntary sector has access to these contracts going forward. Indeed, one of the difficulties that emerged with CRCs was that, as they fell into greater financial difficulty, they drew back from their engagement with the voluntary sector and we therefore lost the immense benefit of that sector’s involvement in the probation service.

Taking this forward, we hope to re-establish clear, unambiguous faith in—for example—non-custodial sentences so that the courts can have more confidence in putting those forward and thereby, touching again on a point made by the noble Lord, relieve pressure on the prison system itself by virtue of an improved probation service.

Prisons: Careers Guidance

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, the contract for the in-custody National Careers Service element could have been extended by a further period of six months maximum from 31 March 2018. A decision was made not to extend it because an internal review of the service being provided indicated that custody contract performance showed significant inconsistencies of service between institutions. As regards its replacement going forward, I note, for example, that community rehabilitation companies already work with every prisoner 12 weeks prior to release to ensure a personalised plan with respect to employment, and Department for Work and Pensions prison work coaches also work in this field. Indeed, it has been noted, particularly in 2016 by Dame Sally Coates in her review of prison education, that there is overlap and duplication within the current arrangements for supporting prisoners.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as in the register. A number of organisations provide services which assist in the rehabilitation of offenders. Does the Minister agree that to remove the National Careers Service will add to the overcrowding problem, thus increasing reoffending rates, which are now at as much as 70% in young offender institutions?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, we do not consider that this will contribute to reoffending rates. One of the issues we wish to address with regard to future education contracts is the development of greater autonomy and governor empowerment, which will lead to local commissioning of these services and which we believe will lead to an improvement in them.

CPS: Disclosure of Evidence

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I am not familiar with the term “sales targets” in this context. Clearly, a balancing exercise has to be carried out to ensure that, particularly in cases of this kind, complainants are able to come forward uninhibitedly and, equally, that anyone complained against is given a full and fair opportunity to put forward their defence. However, I reiterate that I am not familiar with the term “sales targets” in this context.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, will the review take into account past cases in which injustice may have been done because of the failure to disclose information to the defence solicitors?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, the terms of any review are yet to be determined, but it will be an internal review into the particulars of this case.

Assisted Dying: Legislation

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Monday 16th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I entirely understand the noble Baroness’s observations in this context. The whole question of risk associated with such legislation was addressed by the Supreme Court when it opined in 2014 in the case of Nicklinson and Lamb. The President of the Supreme Court and Lord Sumption both observed that the data on risk were plainly way short of establishing that there was no risk in such legislation. Lord Sumption went on to observe that there were further societies engaged in this area which had clear reservations about the development of any legislation on this matter.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the CPS updated its policy in cases of assisted suicide in February 2010 and in October 2014. Whereas I well understand the reluctance to change any particular legislation, will the Minister consider in consultation with his colleagues and the CPS what further reforms are necessary in relation to the CPS policy on assisted dying?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, the matter of CPS policy must be left to the CPS to determine independently of Parliament. It is not for government to dictate what that policy, which is regularly reviewed, should be. For example, in the period from 2009 to 2016 the very large majority of cases referred to the CPS were not proceeded with in the context of prosecution.

Young Asylum Seekers: Deportation

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Dholakia

Monday 9th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am not entirely clear what the noble Baroness refers to by way of the criteria, but I will consider what she has said and I will undertake to write if we are in a position to do so.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, what account is taken of in-country reports, particularly those produced by Amnesty International and Save the Children, before a person is deported to their country?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am very sorry, but I did not hear the question from the noble Lord. I apologise—it is my fault.

[Lord Dholakia]

I will repeat the question. What account is taken of in-country reports, particularly those produced by Amnesty International and Save the Children, before an individual is deported to their country of origin?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The Home Office has regard to all in-country reports that are available to it before arriving at a conclusion with regard to individual countries.