Crime, Reoffending and Rehabilitation

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Farmer for initiating this debate. If noble Lords will indulge me, I propose to spend all of my few minutes talking about the continuing scandal of IPP prisoners.

The noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, have already given some background facts on that, but to summarise very briefly: between 2005 and 2012, when this form of sentence was no longer given, nearly 9,000 people were sentenced to it. Of those, over 1,500 are still in jail, never having been released. As an instance of the egregiousness of that, nearly 200 of those had a tariff of two years when they were sentenced and are still in jail having served 10 years over that tariff.

The figure of 1,500 still in jail does not represent the full tally because in addition, as of March this year, there were 1,400 who were back in jail, having been recalled. Nor is the problem going to get any better: in a Written Answer given by my right honourable friend Kit Malthouse to the Member of Parliament for West Ham in another place in December last year, the Ministry of Justice said that it estimated that the number of people to be released over the next four years, from the IPP prison sentence, was of the order—it is a round number; it is an estimate, I accept that—of 600 prisoners. Asked, at the same time, to estimate how many it expected to be recalled over the same four years, it amounted to 2,600 people currently out on licence. So, to the 3,000 currently in jail, we may confidently look forward to a further 2,000 being added over the next four years.

The situation is moving more quickly, in policy terms, than noble Lords might be aware. The Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor announced in a press statement a few weeks ago that he was arrogating to himself the decision of when prisoners were to be moved from closed to open prisons—not to be released into the community, but when they might be moved from closed to open prisons. The move, of course, is an indispensable step for them ever to be released. The decision is no longer to be taken by the Prison Service, but by the Secretary of State or his delegate. The test for whether they are to be transferred from closed to open prisons has moved from being a balanced assessment of the risks and benefits to being three separate tests, all of them harder and all of them set out for me, very kindly, in a letter in response to a question I asked, by my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook, a copy of which is in the Library of the House.

So, things are not moving forward, they are moving backwards, when it comes to addressing this injustice. I would like to take just a few seconds to remind noble Lords—I know they are aware of it—that nearly all these people have families. The families suffer as well from simply not knowing when, if ever, these sentences will be discharged and when they will be able to have their family member back as a normal member of society. Other members of those families suffer from the simple fact that they have seen their relatives successfully commit suicide—not merely attempt it—while serving these sentences, in simple despair at the very thought that they might be able to escape the system.

If it is hard for Ministers, especially in the other place, to do anything for prisoners who are clearly there because they have committed crimes of violence—that was a condition of why they were there in the first place, I fully accept that—let me at least make two propositions that they might take on board to support those who are out on licence and living in the community.

First, as we discussed in debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, they have to be out for 10 years—that is the qualifying period set in statute—before they can discharge the sentence finally. That 10-year period could be cut to five years with no risk to public safety, because they are out already and because if they have been out for five years, the likelihood that they will offend and be recalled in the second five years is minimal.

The second thing that Ministers could do relates to the current IPP action plan that they have said they will revise in the light of the report of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee, which we are all avidly looking forward to. That plan says a great deal, properly, about the Prison Service and the Parole Board, but very little about the probation service. The plan needs greatly strengthening in terms of the probation service and the support that is offered to these poor people as they try to rebuild their lives in the community. If my noble and learned friend the Minister could give assurances to the House that action will be taken on those two things at least, he would allow me not only to welcome him to his place but to give him hearty congratulations in advance on his maiden speech.