Prison Capacities

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)]

My Lords, the crisis in prison capacity results from the fact that the prison population of England and Wales has more than doubled over the last 30 years, and this trend is expected to continue. Why? A large part of the answer is that the length of prison sentences has been steadily growing over the same period. Indeed, the sentences imposed today are about twice as long as they were when I started out at the Bar; they are far longer than those imposed in the rest of Europe and, indeed, in Northern Ireland.

Sentencing laws have long provided that a prison sentence should be for the shortest term commensurate with the seriousness of the offence, but successive Governments have not been content to leave it to the judges to apply this test. They have introduced legislation requiring judges to impose higher sentences for offences considered to be of particular concern to the public. These have not been necessary for the purposes of deterrence, rehabilitation or protection of the public. They have usually been imposed to cater for a perceived public demand for greater punishment, but this has come with a cost: over £50,000 a year for each man in custody.

It makes no sense to spend such sums on increasing punishment when they would be better spent on rehabilitation and other measures to prevent reoffending. Doubling sentences has brought no benefit to the criminal justice system; it has led to the crisis that confronts the Prison Service today. Will the Minister seek to persuade the Government to consider the merits of reversing the trend rather than building more prisons?