Imprisonment for Public Protection Scheme

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lady Burt and Lady Hamwee for securing this debate and pay warm tribute to Sir Bob Neill and his committee. Sir Bob has been a constant supporter of prison reform and that is reflected in this report. I also send my good wishes to the new Prisons Minister, Rob Butler MP, who was an assiduous and thoughtful member of the Youth Justice Board during my tenure between 2014 and 2017.

My locus in this debate is that I was the Minister who took the LASPO Bill through the Lords and abolished IPPs—as we thought. I made it clear that good existing IPPs would be dealt with by various means, including prisoners being able to earn their release through various training schemes and rehabilitation programmes, to which the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, just referred. The truth was that that idea was foiled by the various Catch-22s to which the noble Lord referred, including a lack of resources.

No one has claimed that LASPO denied judges the opportunity to hand down strict sentences—I was pleased to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, refer to this—and the LASPO regime has stood the list of time. What remains is a hangover, which both the Minister who introduced IPPs, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the Minister who thought he had abolished IPPs, have said does not work as we thought it would and remains a stain on our justice system.

Let me put one shade of doubt into our debate. Throughout my time in the Ministry of Justice, attempts at prison reform were knocked back by 10 Downing Street with the simple message “not politically deliverable”. Throughout this time, we have had to face the problem that both Front Benches have been keen to avoid being outflanked on the right by being seen to be soft on prison reform. I fear that this is still the problem and it will need a great deal of courage to overcome it. This is not a plan to set free dangerous criminals but what a civilised country would do. I hope the Minister has come with a brief accepting the report and committing the Government to legislative action to right this wrong.

As I came into the Chamber, I received an email from the British Psychological Society, from which I shall read only one sentence:

“A resentencing exercise would restore a sense of certainty, hope and fairness: three vital ingredients to behavioural change, engagement with psychological support and compliance with the law.”


This has been an overwhelming message to Ministers. I hope they are listening.