Hillsborough Law

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wills, who raises many salient points. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for tabling the debate and for his, as ever, eloquent and very moving introduction to it.

In terms of the development of the Hillsborough law, it is clearly well advanced, and we have the introduction of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which is good news. The duty of candour and the proposed new offences are a good step forward, and I think we all hope that they will bring about the change in culture that is so desperately needed. As has been mentioned, campaigners have fought long and hard for this Bill, and that means that expectations around it are riding extremely high.

If you are from Hillsborough or Grenfell, if you are one of those infected or affected by infected blood, or if you are one of the sub-postmasters, you understand only too well the barriers, frustrations and failures along the way. When you have faced, at best, a never-ending barrage of obfuscation, the duty of candour is a very appealing thing, even if it is the least you should expect from those in a position of responsibility.

However, I do think we need to sound a note of caution. The duty of candour does provide part of the answer, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, highlighted, it is not a cure-all and, if we place too much emphasis on what it can realistically achieve, we risk creating further disappointments for people who have already endured enough setbacks to last a lifetime.

As we all know, a duty of candour has existed in the NHS for over a decade, but we have not seen the desired culture change there. The new Bill provides a more robust framework: the reach is wider and there is a requirement for codes of ethical conduct. But, if we are to truly transform the response to those who have been failed by the state in all its various forms, there are other things that we should pay equal attention to. I think the Minister might see some themes emerging from this, because I would also like to talk about the Independent Public Advocate. This was created in the last Government’s Victims and Prisoners Act, and that was in no small part due to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, the right honourable Maria Eagle and my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead.

One of the most appalling features of all the scandals that we have mentioned and continue to mention in this House is the way in which those affected butt up against a system that seems to work against them, thereby inflicting further harm. The Independent Public Advocate is the only part of this intimidating wall of bureaucracy that people face that speaks solely for the victims and survivors, and that they know will be entirely on their side.

The new Bill has provision for parity of arms in terms of legal aid, but this is about more than legal representation; it is about the relationship between the public and the state. It is about building trust when trust in the system has been smashed to pieces. I just do not think the value of this can be overestimated, so I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wills: I think many of us would have preferred to see a much stronger role for the IPA than that which we ended up with.

As it was originally conceived, the IPA would have had the power to compel evidence, which could potentially solve problems earlier down the line and could also, in some instances, avoid the need for costly public inquiries. As it stands, the IPA has not been given the remit or resources to do this. The last Government agreed to a review once we have seen how the role is evolving. Will the Minister’s Government champion the first IPA, Cindy Butts, giving her the necessary support to develop the role and allow it to reach its full potential?

An example that I mentioned previously was that of the sub-postmasters. When they asked whether anyone else was experiencing problems with Horizon, they were told that no, they were the only ones. Had we had a duty of candour back then, you would hope that maybe it might have prevented that—but then, had that group of sub-postmasters also had the backing and, importantly, the clout of the IPA, the situation might have been very different. Those lives might not have been ruined, and we might not have ended up with another costly public inquiry.

If we can get the duty of candour and the IPA working in tandem and to full effect, it is just possible that, in future, when an inquiry is necessary, it may not need to be statutory. In the current climate, the calls from victims and campaigners for an inquiry to be statutory are absolutely unavoidable, because only a statutory inquiry can compel evidence. The moment that happens under the terms of the Inquiries Act 2005, it is inevitable that the process will be long and expensive. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, has mentioned, there are other options, such as independent panels, which can be more agile and sometimes more effective, depending on the circumstances. The recent Select Committee established to look into the Inquiries Act, which I was on, also recommended that other models of inquiry be considered if possible.

We need to look at ways in which to achieve this because, as the number of statutory inquiries has proliferated, we now have this enormous backlog of recommendations, all of which tend to be accepted by the Government of the day—any Government—and many of which are not then delivered. I work with many of the groups involved in a number of recent public inquiries and they are all, without exception, deeply frustrated. They have all asked what the point is, if the recommendations are not going to be delivered. Inquiries are there partly to rebuild trust and, in that sense, I am afraid that they are no longer doing their job.

In fact, as I speak, the group Act on IICSA is holding an event right now to highlight the fact that so many of the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse have not been implemented. Just to demonstrate how ridiculous it has all become, we are now heading into another related inquiry on grooming gangs, on the back of a report by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, which repeated many of the recommendations made by Professor Alexis Jay in her original IICSA report. This is the situation in which we increasingly find ourselves, not helped by the fact that there is no formal monitoring for inquiries or inquests.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

I am going just as long as everybody else did, and I have one more paragraph and one important question.

Can the Minister say whether the Government are actively looking at this issue? Does she agree that the Hillsborough law needs to sit in a wider suite of initiatives if we are going to deliver that long-lasting change?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not wish to be insensitive or difficult, but this is a time-limited debate, and the time limit for speeches is seven minutes. The effect of going over that time will be to curtail the time available to the Minister.

Financial Provision on Divorce

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for this debate. I feel humbled to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I have spoken on many occasions in your Lordships’ House about the urgent need for reform in relation to ancillary relief in divorce. Rather than go over very familiar territory, which just gets lost, I will focus—as previously flagged to the Minister—on the law in prenuptial contracts, in the hope that something will actually get done. It is simply not acceptable that the legislators will not deal with this issue as a stand-alone one to be fixed. This came before your Lordships’ House on 28 February, and I am still waiting for a response from the noble Lord, Lord Timpson. I do not make any criticism there, because when we were in government it was no better.

To say that this depends on sorting out the entire matrimonial financial remedies situation, including cohabitation rights, is an absurd excuse for dealing with an issue that is not even mentioned in the 1973 legislation as amended, and on which the Supreme Court in Granatino, now 15 years ago, invited Parliament to legislate. I declare my interest both as a divorce lawyer and as a member of the Marriage Foundation. As one can imagine, 15 years since the ruling in Granatino upholding the validity of prenuptial contracts in certain circumstances, there has been a seismic shift in the acceptability of such contracts. As a consequence of them being entered into, and those marriages breaking down now, the occurrence of cases appearing before the family courts has increased.

According to a recent survey, 46% to 47% of people under 50 regard such contracts as a good idea, whereas 37% of the over-65s are in favour of them. The best statistics that I could glean in relation to prenuptial contracts coming before the courts are as follows. In 2010-15, there were 310; in 2015-20, there were 359; and in 2020-25, there were 542. Prenups are no longer the preserve of the rich—or exclusively of the rich—and sufficient time has passed since Radmacher for prenups to trickle down into public consciousness. Not only are prenuptial agreements more common, but they are also entered into by parties who have modest assets but wish to retain their financial autonomy—maybe one is a homeowner, or maybe there are two professionals —or by people entering a second marriage.

The point made by my noble friend Lord Patten on children is good and valid. Wearing my hat as a Marriage Foundation member, I note that statistics show that, when children are born of unmarried couples, they fare less well and that that relationship is more likely to flounder. People do not get married when the uncertainty of getting divorced is so obvious and they cannot protect themselves.

There is absolutely no consistency in how these contracts are applied, the two-step test in Radmacher being that the contract has to be entered into freely between the parties but will not be upheld if a court determines that it is unfair to do so. What is fair depends on the judge, who from Parliament is given no legal direction. The application of the law is now at odds with the facts in this case, where there was no disclosure and the husband, although advised to get legal advice, did not get any. Had he done so, he would have found that the law in England, where the parties were living, was that these agreements were only evidential and unenforceable.

The issue of fairness, which influences whether the court will uphold such a contract, usually revolves around the applicant’s needs, although needs is a very elastic and discretionary term applied by the tribunal. It is not even clear with the whether the existence of a PNC limits or curtails needs. For the avoidance of doubt, it is impossible to contract out of children’s maintenance, which is always open for the court to adjudicate on. The absence of any legislation in this regard leaves such contracts open to challenge; at a time when the rest of the law is so very uncertain, their reliability is even more important. The idea that alternative dispute resolutions or mediators are able to sort out the problem in relation to the treatment of a PNA is fanciful, when two respectable lawyers can differ in their interpretation of the law and therefore frustrate any mediated situation. From October this year to May of next, the president has announced—

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt, but I am conscious of the advisory time limit and giving the Minister enough time to wind up.

[Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia (Con)]

Can I just finish quickly then? The president has announced that financial remedies are being taken out of the list, because there is no time to deal with them. The courts are being blocked by litigants in person and rich people and, in a situation where the law were clearer, the courts would have more space to deal with people who really need them.

Prisons: Early Release

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The crisis we inherited in the justice system meant that, had we not acted, we would have run out of prison places, on the basis that the previous Government built only 500 prison places when the population of prisons increases by 3,000 a year. That is why, by the time of the next election, there will be more people in prison than ever before. On recall, it is important that our probation professionals use their judgment based on risk. When people leave prison, we need to give them all the tools possible so that when they get out, they stay out. I do not want them having a return ticket back to prison; I want them to have a one-way ticket. That is why accommodation and all the support services we put around people will ensure that there are fewer recalls.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the real route to public confidence in the prison system is, first, not to have overflowing prisons and lengthy court delays before trial, bequeathed by the last Government to this Government, and secondly, not just to lock people up for longer and longer but to ensure that the Probation Service is effective at reducing risk and protecting the public, as well as rehabilitation?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that probation is where the heavy lifting in the justice system needs to be done. I would like to let your Lordships’ House know that last week I was in a women’s prison, where the average length of stay of a woman was 46 days. There was also one very ill woman who, on average, tries to take her life over 20 times a month. We are dealing with people who are both very ill and very complex, and often the best way to reduce reoffending of these people and deal with their offending behaviour is to punish them in the community and support them in the community.

Prisons: Mothers and Babies

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lemos]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how many mothers are in prison with their babies, and what consideration they are giving to making alternative arrangements for them to serve their sentences or for their children to be cared for.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

At the end of March 2024, there were 38 mothers and 36 babies in mother and baby units. There are currently six mother and baby units across the women’s prison estate in England, providing specialist accommodation and support services. These enable mothers, where appropriate, to have their babies with them in prison. Sentencing is a matter for the independent judiciary, but this Government have a clear goal of reducing the number of women in prison.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer. As well as the 38 mothers with babies he refers to, there are more than 200 pregnant women in prison. Typically, babies are parted from their mothers in prison at 18 months. If these mothers are no risk to their babies, are they really a risk to anyone else? Should they be in prison at all? Does my noble friend the Minister think there are better arrangements that we could make for mothers with babies serving custodial sentences—for example, secure mother and baby homes in the community?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

To answer my noble friend’s question head-on, whether these women should be in prison is a matter for sentencers to decide in each individual case. However, we have embarked on major changes to the sentencing framework, including to short sentences, to which 75% of women are sentenced. This will help to reduce the number of women, including pregnant women, in prison. On his question about arrangements for women and their babies, just last week I was in the mother and baby unit at HMP/YOI Eastwood Park, speaking to the mums there. In my view, the facilities and support offered were exceptional, and I am grateful both to the staff and to the third sector organisations, such as Action for Children, for providing that support. We need to maintain those standards of care in custody, but the real answer to this question lies in tackling the structural problems that lead these women into the criminal justice system in the first place. That is what the Women’s Justice Board, which I proudly chair, seeks to address—early intervention, diversion from prison and community solutions—so that we have fewer women in prison, including their babies too.

Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Suitability for Fixed Term Recall) Order 2025

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for outlining this SI. Both the Prison Service and the Probation Service are in a mess. There is no point in wasting time apportioning blame. My family motto, ar bwy mae’r bai—who can we blame? —is used far too much in modern situations.

The criminal justice system is out of kilter. There are not enough judges. There is no money to fund the number of sitting days for which the Lord Chief Justice has called. There are not enough prosecutors to man the courts that do sit and it is no longer profitable for barristers to appear for the defence. The simple consequence is that there are 17,000 remand prisoners sitting idly in cells awaiting trial. That is nearly 20% of the prison population. Compare that to the 1,300 new prison places that this measure envisages.

The next problem is the length of sentences. There is no God-given standard for the amount of time a person should spend in prison for an offence. An eye for an eye is about as far as the Bible ever took us, along with a lot about forgiveness and redemption. Henry VIII made himself head of the Church, but 72,000 people were executed in his time, 75% of them for theft. In Elizabethan times, the death penalty was imposed for theft of more than a shilling. There were no problems of an excessive prison population at that time, but neither did it solve the crime problem.

When I was in mid-flow in my practice in the 1980s, sentences were probably a half to two-thirds of what they are currently, but political competition created a demand for longer sentences. Which party could be tougher on crime? They were fully aided by the media in this, and public pressure to increase sentences was the result. I discussed this with the late Lord Judge, when he was Lord Chief Justice. The gist of his reply was that you must expect the judiciary to react to and follow what the public want. The recent battle between the Lord Chancellor and the Sentencing Council was deeply depressing; they should really be on the same side.

Fuelling the demand for longer sentences is a perception that the country is going to pot, and that crime is more and more rampant. But, if you look at the statistics, you get a different picture. In 1982, there were 620 homicides. It grows to just over 1,000 at the beginning of this millennium, after which there was a decline. In the year ending last December, the number reduced to 535 homicides, as recorded by the police.

By way of comparison, I have some knowledge of Trinidad where I visited death row. In the early 2000s, it held about 150 inmates as part of the royal prison. In the most recent comparable year, 2024, there were 624 homicides in Trinidad—more than the UK, but in a population of 1.5 million as opposed to the 70 million in this country. Crime is not rampant.

The next problem is the recruitment and retention of prison and probation staff. I have spoken many times about the problems at Berwyn prison near my home in Wrexham—the largest prison in Britain. In May this year, His Majesty’s Inspectorate found that a new governor had indeed injected some energy into dealing with its problems, but it reported that

“too many prisoners … did not have enough to occupy their time, with 25% unemployed and 27%”—

only 27%—

“in part-time work or education”.

I am sure that these figures will not impress the Minister.

There has always been a severe shortage of experienced prison officers at this prison. It was explained to me by an experienced and senior prison officer from Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight that prison officers look to their fellows to protect their backs, and they will not apply for positions in new prisons with rookie prison officers. In the last statistics that I saw, something like 80% at Berwyn prison had not served three years in the job.

This SI asks a lot of the Probation Service to prop up all these failures elsewhere in the criminal justice system. The Probation Service has very similar problems of retention and recruitment. The Minister referred to being one on one with a probation officer. I was told of one incident where one probation officer was looking after a group of a dozen or so, whose day’s task was painting a wall. One youth complained of vertigo after climbing a ladder and demanded that he be taken home. The sole probation officer, who drove the van, had no option but to pile all his charges into the back of the van to take the unfortunate individual to his place of abode. When they returned to the painting job later, someone had nicked all the paint tins. The system is broken.

So what is the lesson from all this? This SI will not solve a single part of the structural problems that I outlined. It is a stopgap, a thumb in the hole of the dam. If the Minister leaves this Room with his officials thinking that they have solved the problem and skinned this instrument through—despite the excellent report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, whose criticisms I entirely support—they will fail the people of this country. It is more than a battle for funds with the Treasury. It is more than for the Ministry of Justice to become a protected department. I hope that this Minister will have the vision and energy to drive wholesale reform through. He will earn his place in history if he does.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest: I was the lead non-executive director of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service from 2018 to 2025. I support the proposal that the Minister has put before us. I note the noble Lord’s family motto, but am nevertheless compelled to observe that many of these short-term fixes that are being put in place to deal with the capacity crisis could have been addressed by the last Government much sooner.

I think I am right to say that the recall population is growing faster than the overall prison population as a whole—no doubt, if that is not correct, the Minister’s officials will correct me. Nevertheless, we should have addressed the growing recall population long before we were forced to by the capacity crisis. Too many offenders are recalled with little benefit and much disruption. This reform, small though its impact is—the noble Lord is quite correct about that—will put a brake on the length of recalls but not reduce substantially the number of offenders recalled. As the Minister said, we will have to wait until the implementation of the sentencing reforms proposed by David Gauke to make long-term reform to the numbers of people being recalled. I hope we will address that problem robustly. As I say, I support this reform, but we really need to put an end to these short-term fixes and get a grip on the whole sentencing issue. We will have the chance to do that before long.

I have two caveats of concern in this proposal. First, I quite understand the concerns that people have about the public protection safeguards, particularly for offenders who have committed offences involving domestic violence. The Minister referred to those and I know from my experience in HMPPS that the safeguards are robust and I hope that they will protect those victims appropriately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions this afternoon. I will write if I miss any answers to specific questions, but I will try to answer them all here.

The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, made some important and interesting points around the Prison and Probation Service being in a mess and blame. I am not in the blame game—I am in the “fix it” game—but we all recognise the complex problems that we have across the whole justice system. It needs a thoughtful, long-term vision.

On the issues in the courts, the Leveson review will be published shortly. The Government are going through this important process to address the problems that the noble Lord raised, but, in the meantime, a record number of sitting days have now been funded in the Crown Court. That is still not enough, though; we need a sustainable system.

The Gauke review has been published and will, I hope, soon lead to legislation. We talk about sentence length. The progression model described in this review is very interesting. It is aligned with the Texas model: if you behave well, you have a certain release point, but, if you behave badly, you stay in prison for longer. I am interested in how incentives work in prison because the model is well proven in other jurisdictions.

It is not just about the Leveson review and the Gauke review; it is also about the spending review. The Treasury has given us a substantial amount of money to build new prison places, so that by the end of this Parliament we will have more people in prison than ever before. There is also investment in probation, with an extra £700 million for more staff, accommodation, tags and technology. We need these three reviews, but we also need long-term culture change and a sustainable plan.

I am glad the noble Lord talks about HMP Berwyn— I can also see it from my house. I know quite a lot about what is going on there, because a foster child who used to live with our family is a prison officer there and tells us regularly about what is going on. The noble Lord is correct that there are still recruitment gaps at HMP Berwyn; the retention rates and the average length of service of a prison officer there, and in other prisons as well, are too low. That is why I am implementing the prison officer training review, which I carried out before I came into Government, to make sure that we recruit great officers who learn the skills quickly, alongside the more complex skills required, and who stay. One of the things that we have lost over the years is the long- term skills base that the service had for many years.

I think I am one of the few Ministers who has visited HMP Parkhurst recently. It has a full complement of officers, with a very different employment set up—it makes a big difference when you have enough staff; that is very clear. When a prison has enough staff, we can get enough prisoners into activities, education and so on.

The ask of probation is significant, and noble Lords and noble and learned Lords are 100% correct that this is where the heavy lifting needs to be done. It is about investing in recruitment, training and technology. If we do not get this right, we will keep having problems in our prisons as well. I agree that we need long-term reform to solve this problem. In the short term, it is important that we do not run out of space. We need a sustainable justice system. I am sure the noble Lord will be pleased to know that I certainly have the vision and energy to get this done. The satisfaction is not for me but for the officers and probation staff, so that they can be enabled to do the job they came into the service to do.

My noble friend Lord Lemos raises some very important points around short-term measures. They just prove that the system is unsustainable, and this has been going on and on. We need to make sure that the staff who work in the Prison and Probation Service have far more consistent leadership and policy-making from us so they know what they need to do, rather than it changing all the time. We need to make sure that capacity is sustainable, and that we have enough probation and prison staff to do the job.

The organisation needs a strong vision, but within that vision, victims need to come first. That is why the role of victim liaison officers and the victim contact scheme is really important, but we need the resources. The noble Lord is quite right that we need to invest in probation. That is why the 45% increase in funding to £700 million is really important.

What is happening with technology? This morning, I was a dragon: we had our first technology “Dragon’s Den”, where I sat in on seven presentations from some of the most developed technology companies in the world. We had someone from New Zealand and someone from America, as well as UK-based technology companies, presenting their solutions to some of our problems. Some of those were about what we can do to improve what happens in a prison, but most of them were about probation, and that is exactly where we need to invest in our technology.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, raised very important points around the concerns about the 28-day recall and what happens when someone is released after that. It is better than the emergency releases, which were less controlled, and 28 or 14 days give us time, hopefully, to find accommodation and the medical support that people need. However, we do not want to have as many recalls as we have now; he is completely right about that. Public safety has to be our priority, but we also need to ensure that probation staff are focused on those at highest risk, because they are probably more likely to be recalled. I agree that we need rational thinking, but we need space in our prisons to ensure that the reforms coming down the track can take effect, so we cannot run out of space before then.

Recalls have doubled since 2018. The noble and learned Lord is completely right that the number is far too high, but I believe we have high levels because too many people are leaving our prison system addicted, homeless, mentally unwell and unemployed. Having been on the employment side of this work for more than 20 years, I know that it is incredibly difficult to employ someone who may be very talented but is ill and homeless. It is about having a sustainable system and reducing the number of recalls over time, but we will do that most appropriately by setting people up when they leave prison to succeed rather than to fail.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I do not want to be difficult, but why should we not pursue the suggestion, even in advance of the Gauke review, of not recalling? Is it completely impossible not to recall people for minor breaches of a sentence for a minor offence? Why can we not get on with that?

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Lord’s point. As I pointed out, I ordered these reports hundreds of times in my previous role, and I invariably did it so that the sentencing bench could make a better-informed decision. The only times I did not do it were when I could see no alternative to custody. Of course, the same situation applies now as before: any judge can order a pre-sentence report at any time. The mischief and the problem that my right honourable friend had was the perception that if particular racial groups were more likely to get a pre-sentence report, there could be a political attack—indeed, there was a political attack—that this meant that they would be less likely to be sent to prison. She saw the perception of that as the mischief, and it was the reason she brought forward her Bill. She wants to find a different way of addressing the fundamental problem, which is the disproportionality within sentencing outcomes.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My Lords, I should declare my interest, as I was the lead non-executive director of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service from 2018 to 2025. Will my noble friend reassure the House that resources will be made available for the Probation Service, which, as he rightly said, suffered terribly under the previous Government and has been reunified into a national Probation Service only in the last few years? Will he reassure the House that resources will be found not only to improve the quantity and quality of pre-sentence reports as necessary but to increase the use of community sentences, which he referred to and which we hope will be the case following the review of sentencing by David Gauke? Lastly, will he reassure the House that this row, if I may call it that, does not influence too much the way that David Gauke’s recommendations are considered?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

Yes, I can give my noble friend all the reassurances that he seeks. I share the objectives that he alluded to. Clearly, we want a greater quantity and quality of pre-sentence reports. The review being undertaken by David Gauke will be far more wide-ranging. We wait to see the specific details that it will bring forward but I very much hope that this specific issue, which is dealt with in the Bill currently before the House of Commons, will have a minimal impact, if any, on the recommendations of the Gauke review.

Crown Court Criminal Case Backlog

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My Lords, I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Longfield on her maiden speech. I greatly welcome the arrival in your Lordships’ House of such a powerful advocate for children. I declare my own interest: I have been lead non-executive director of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service since 2018. I welcome the Government’s efforts to reduce the court backlog, and a timely court system is fundamental to public confidence in justice. However, this is only one of the steps needed for a sustainable criminal justice system.

Prisons are at bursting point; very soon, offenders will once more be held in police cells, under Operation Safeguard. The Ministry of Justice has introduced various early-release measures, otherwise offenders would have no prison to go to. The logistical challenges and public protection risks involved in deciding who to release, and when, are obviously tremendously complex. Prison building will not resolve this crisis, and certainly not soon, as I think the Lord Chancellor has recognised. Normally, prisons would operate at about 90% occupancy, not 99%-plus. Even these lower levels often mean serious crowding in Victorian prisons, such as HMP Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs. The normal regimes of education and work are often restricted, particularly when there are staff shortages. The consequences are starting to appear in boredom, disorder and violence.

The truth is that the whole system of courts, prisons and probation is operating way beyond capacity, and increasing activity in one part of the chain simply increases demand pressure elsewhere. We need much more than temporary fixes. Locking up more and more people for longer and longer has led to the current crisis, but it has done little to reassure the public that they are adequately protected. I eagerly anticipate the reviews by Sir Brian Leveson into court backlog and David Gauke into sentencing.

The way to square the vicious circle is through the greater use of non-custodial punishment. I use the word “punishment” deliberately, to convey the seriousness of the intent. Currently, fewer than 10% of offenders are tagged and fewer than 2% are on home-detention curfews. In my view, we will need a new branch of the probation service to supervise considerably increased numbers of offenders in the community. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the criminal justice system can be brought back into a long-term sustainable balance only by a fundamentally reconceived and radically improved probation service, which will need considerable investment?