Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Stewart of Dirleton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, my first interest in criminal justice came about 20 years ago, before I became a magistrate, when I was a trustee of the Wandsworth Prison visitors’ centre. Like all those centres, it was set up on the recommendation of Judge Stephen Tumim, and we dealt with the needs of the families of prisoners. It was then that I first came across this problem—it is not new—and the fact that it is very much the management of small issues that is of central importance for the prisoners and their families.

We owe a debt of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. He has indeed gone into the detail of this problem and come up with a highly practical way of resolving it—tonight, potentially. This House should take advantage of that opportunity. In one sense, I will be intrigued to hear what reasons the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General for Scotland might give for not pursuing this, but this really is an opportunity. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has addressed the three original points made in Committee in his new amendment, and I really encourage the noble and learned Lord to take advantage of this opportunity.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Stewart of Dirleton) (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to reduce releases on a Friday, or on days before bank holidays, including releases of persons whose release falls on a non-working day, by creating a power for the Minister to establish a pilot scheme via secondary legislation that would grant prison governors the discretion to release earlier in the week, where that would be helpful for the prisoner’s reintegration into society.

I thank all noble Lords who have participated, particularly my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for their constructive and entirely commendable approach to this. As my noble friend put it, rather than simply rehearsing the arguments made at an earlier stage, they have gone away, considered the matter and sought to refine them in answer to the points made by my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar.

The question posed ultimately by the noble Lord, Lord German, rehearsing the one posed by my noble friend, was: what is not to like? Regrettably, I cannot answer that with “Nothing”, which I suspect was the answer being fished for. I will endeavour to explain why.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, highlighted the existence of a discretionary scheme in Scotland, in terms of the Prisoners (Control of Release) (Scotland) Act 2015. We have engaged with the Scottish Government and looked at research carried out by the Scottish Prison Service, and we have seen that the uptake of this discretionary scheme since 2015 is extremely low: only 20 prisoners in that period have been granted early release. I submit that that gives us some indication of the complexities attendant upon the point. It is not as though we have in the neighbouring jurisdiction a solution to this matter which could be taken from the shelf and applied in England and Wales. We plan further engagement with the Scottish Government to look at the matter in more detail, and we will share the results of that engagement with the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt, but the Minister seems to be using this as an argument for not accepting the amendment. I have two points. First, there is no reason why the pilot should follow the example of the Scottish procedures, which, to me, seemed very bureaucratic when I read the helpful letter sent by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson. Surely the whole point of pilots is to think about other ways of doing something before the Government actually legislate.

Secondly, yes, a very small number has been helped. We do not know why that is. Certainly, the letter I was sent tells us the what but not the why. But even a small number being helped is better than no one being helped in the period until such legislation can be passed.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, if the Scottish experience shows that it is no good, why on earth was it put in the White Paper?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

The point is not simply to equiparate the example of Scotland; the point is to emphasise the complexities which underlie the matter. I will expand upon that in the rest of my answer.

We recognise that a high number of releases take place on a Friday. We accept that this can create challenges in some cases when it comes to prisoners accessing services, support in the community and finding accommodation, especially if they have multiple complex needs or a long way to travel to their home address.

I echo the observations from my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. As the House now appreciates, our recently published Prisons Strategy White Paper is allowing us to consult on the issue of Friday release from prison. In the course of that consultation, we will invite views on allowing prisoners who are at risk of reoffending to be discharged one or two days earlier, at the discretion of the governor of the relevant institution, where a Friday release can be demonstrated to be detrimental to an individual’s resettlement.

However, it is important that we allow time to understand the views of stakeholders, including operational colleagues, prison staff and the third sector. We submit that it would be premature to provide in statute for the pilot of a new release scheme, regardless of whether a sunset clause is attached—as the promulgators of the amendment have proposed—because, as mentioned, we are in the process of consulting on whether a legislative approach is necessary and, if so, what form such a scheme should take and how it should operate. We want to see the outcome of this consultation before we bring forward proposals. We will issue a response to the White Paper consultation in April 2022, and we will set out our plans on Friday releases moving forward from there.

I would call into question the appropriateness of using a sunset clause in relation to a pilot scheme. Sunset clauses are used only for temporary situations where the provision is needed only for a specific period of time and is not designed to remain on the statute books—for example, in the recent coronavirus legislation. This, I submit, is not appropriate for a pilot, as its purpose is to test out a policy with a view to fully enacting that policy if the pilot is found to work. A sunset clause would not allow this, so that, if we decided the right approach was to pilot and it was effective, we would still be required to wait for the next legislative opportunity to be able to rule it out fully. Therefore, tying our hands to a pilot scheme would likely extend the timescales required to enact full rollout of a new release scheme, if that was decided to be the most appropriate approach.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

Is the noble and learned Lord in effect saying it will be at least two years until there can be legislation, because this only runs for two years?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

More than once, even today, this House has emphasised the importance of moving forward on the basis of evidence. The Government’s view is that it is appropriate to complete the consultation proceedings, interrogate them and decide how best to move forward.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My suggestion was to wait until the end of the consultation, which we are told will be next April, review the evidence, which surely should not take that long, and then run the pilot on the basis of what is found out in the consultation.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

Surely the Minister could introduce at Third Reading an order-making power that would last indefinitely.

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, notwithstanding the fact that we are in the season of Advent, approaching Christmas, I am not prepared to argue on the basis of what is naughty and what is nice, or what is nasty and what is nice.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am sorry, but I do not understand what the Minister means.

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

What I mean simply is that the noble Baroness, doubtless with the best possible intention, is using simplistic language to categorise the Government’s legislative approach, which language I do not accept.

On the subject of the holistic approach—if I may put it like that—which was urged upon us by the noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, it is indeed important that we acknowledge the funding the Government are making available to provide just such an approach. Our December Prisons Strategy White Paper set out plans to reduce reoffending and protect the public. We will spend £200 million a year by 2024-25 to improve prison leavers’ access to accommodation, employment support and substance misuse treatment, and for further measures for early intervention to tackle youth offending. We will make permanent the additional £155 million per year provided in the years 2019-20 for a new unified probation service to support rehabilitation and improve public protection, which will be a 15% increase on 2019-20 funding. This expands upon our Beating Crime Plan, which was published in July, setting out how we will cut crime and seek to bring criminals more swiftly to justice, reduce reoffending and protect the public. That included new commitments to recruit 1,000 prison leavers into the Civil Service by 2023, to expand our use of electronic monitoring and to trial the use of alcohol tags on prison leavers.

In addition, in January, a £50 million investment was made by the Ministry of Justice to enhance the department’s approved premises to provide temporary basic accommodation for prison leavers to keep them off the streets, and to test innovative new approaches to improve resettlement outcomes for prisoners before and after they were released. Then there is £20 million for a prison leavers’ project to test new ways to prepare offenders for life on the outside and ensure that they do not resume criminal lifestyles, and £80 million for the Department of Health and Social Care to expand drug treatment services in England to support prison leavers with substance misuse issues, divert offenders, make effective community sentences and reduce drug-related crime and deaths.

For the reasons I have outlined, including the overwhelming notion that these questions are not simplistic and we cannot simply move forward without the necessary evidence, as well as the assertion that an appropriate consultation is under way, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, we have had an interesting debate. I thank all those who contributed to it. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, is always sharp on these matters; she has been well up to her reputation tonight. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said, this is a small fix. As the noble Lord, Lord German, pointed out, it is not an expensive fix either; in fact, it may result in a net gain to the Government because, if we can stop some people reoffending, we will save more money than any cost—there is probably no cost here, or at least very little—and we could be better off as a result. I am grateful to those noble Lords and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Hamwee. My noble friend Lord Attlee asked who is against the idea. I have not yet heard much about people who oppose it. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for his remarks and the fact that we are better than we were last night.

On my noble and learned friend the Minister’s comments, I do not think that the House buys the Scottish experiment as an example here. It is just not relevant. Nor do I buy the argument about the sunset clause being inappropriate; I think that is just the officials reaching for some reason to try to rubbish this amendment. I accept my noble friend’s point that we need time to understand and his commitment to a consultation finishing by April 2022. Most interesting is the possibility that legislation might not be needed and there might be other ways of achieving what we all wish.

So we have a sort of balance here. On the one hand, an immediate opportunity is being missed and progress seems glacial, to put it no more roughly than that; on the other, we have an encouraging set of statements in paragraph 139 of the White Paper. My judgment as to whether to divide the House on this amendment and possibly damage the concept is that we would really be dividing the House on whether we want to try to create a bridge and find a way to start some work on this project immediately. On balance, the Government have offered us half a loaf. I think we should probably take that half a loaf tonight; I therefore seek leave to withdraw the amendment.