Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 26th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I speak briefly to Amendment 46 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. As I read it, the amendment seeks to treat domestic abuse as an aggravating factor when determining all sentencing. Of course domestic abuse is a serious pervasive crime and it clearly has profound long-term impacts on its victims. This amendment appears to promote some degree of clarity and consistency, and, indeed, fairness in sentencing. It would ensure that the courts can take full account of both the nature and the impact of domestic abuse when deciding on an appropriate sentence. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views on it.

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

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for drawing attention to this important topic. They, along with their colleagues in the other place, have campaigned tirelessly on this issue.

I want to reassure the noble Baroness that we believe that this will improve the quality of data. The amendment we are debating today would require sentencing guidelines to provide that domestic abuse is an aggravating factor in sentencing. I fully appreciate the intent behind the amendment, and the Government wholeheartedly agree that judges should consider domestic abuse when sentencing, but I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that this is already the position and explain why the Government do not consider a further amendment necessary.

Domestic abuse is already treated as an aggravating factor through the Sentencing Council’s guidelines. Courts are required by law to follow this, unless it would not be in the interests of justice to do so. The Sentencing Council has looked carefully at this issue and has issued an overarching guideline on domestic abuse. That guideline makes it clear that the presence of domestic abuse can make an offence more serious. In addition, a wide range of offence-specific guidelines include

“an offence committed within a domestic abuse context”

as a specific aggregating factor.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for raising this matter. I pay tribute to Helen Grant MP and her constituent, Paula Hudgell. They have campaigned tirelessly and movingly on this important issue. Earlier this week, the Deputy Prime Minister had the great honour of meeting Paula and Helen to hear the Hudgells’ story and learn more about their campaign. This Government are taking decisive action to protect our children from those who would commit abhorrent crimes against them.

Currently, under Sarah’s law, the police can and do proactively disclose information regarding offenders to members of the public when they believe that a child is at risk of serious harm. For example, if the police become aware of an adult who has ever had a conviction, caution or charge for child abuse having unsupervised access to a child, the police can and will disclose this to the person best able to protect that child—usually their parent, carer or guardian. Sarah’s law also enables members of the public to make an application to the police for this information if they are worried about child protection.

In the Crime and Policing Bill, this Government are going further. We are strengthening Sarah’s law by placing it on a statutory footing. The clauses in that Bill will mean that chief police officers will have a statutory duty to follow the Secretary of State’s guidance on Sarah’s law. In practice, this will reinforce the police’s responsibility to make disclosures whenever that is necessary to protect children. We have also committed over £2 billion to support the roll out of the families first partnership programme to improve the early identification of risks to children and to take appropriate action.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will establish multi-agency child protection teams in every area. Additionally, we are placing a new duty on safeguarding partners to include education and childcare settings in their multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. We want to ensure that every opportunity is taken to keep our children safe. We are not standing still on this issue. We are exploring the best way to close the gap that Paula has rightly identified. This is why I and Ministers in the Home Office have instructed our officials to explore options for tracking offenders and offences involving child cruelty. I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I thank the Minister. In the light of his undertaking that the Government are pursuing this matter—vigorously, I take it—and intending to produce something, whether they term it a register or otherwise, so that the police can not only disclose information but access information, which is a more critical element here, at this point I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, has raised an interesting and very debatable question, which is what the role of the judiciary should be in allotting rehabilitation time and activity and what the role of the probation officer can reasonably be. In theory, I should be with him, because I am always anxious to protect the independence and autonomy of the judiciary, but I look at our court system, and what is feasible, and I look at the detailed work that would be necessary, which probation officers are trained and equipped for—not necessarily resources-equipped but equipped in terms of their training—and I am unconvinced that it would be a good idea to move away from what Clause 11 and 12 do towards a larger role for the judiciary.

I say that having gone, decades ago, to look at the court system in Texas, as the Minister himself has done more recently, and having seen proactive courts, with the judge handing out details of rehabilitation requirements and looking at people as individuals, and the applause ringing around the court when the judge commended the offender who had fulfilled the requirement, and the sight of one offender who had not fulfilled the requirement being taken away by the state marshal.

The whole set-up was very interesting, but very difficult to graft into our system without enlarging the judiciary substantially, giving it time to do this kind of thing. We are probably better to build on the foundation of the Probation Service, despite the fact that it went through such a terrible time with the privatisation process and is still well below the level it needs to be in terms of numbers and training. The Bill provides a more reliable route, even though my instinct is to be on the side of protecting the autonomy of the judiciary. This is a job that probation officers are probably in a better position to do than our hard-pressed judiciary.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I have considered the amendments and thoughtful debate from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, on this topic. Change is needed. The process evaluation of the rehabilitative activity requirement, or, as I prefer to call it, RAR days, published in May 2025, shows that the RAR is not working effectively. Offenders often do not understand what is expected of them, and magistrates sometimes sentence it as a catch-all.

Further to this published evidence, probation practitioners from Manchester to the Isle of Wight have told me personally that the way RAR is structured restricts their ability to rehabilitate offenders. From my experience of leading organisations, the people who are on the front line often give you the wisest advice. We value and trust our probation staff enormously. Their work is often unseen, but I deeply appreciate it. This change places professional judgment back at the heart of probation. We are enabling probation practitioners to utilise their professional expertise to ensure that rehabilitation is tailored to what works.

I reassure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, that this change does not remove the court’s sentencing powers. It is and will remain for the court to determine whether to include this requirement when making an order. But the removal of court-specified maximum days will ensure that probation resources are directed to where they will have the most impact. It brings our approach to rehabilitation activity in line with how supervision is determined. Both are led by a thorough assessment of risk and need after sentencing. This does not change the fact that offenders are required to comply with the instructions of their probation officer. If they do not comply, they could face a return to court and receive tougher penalties.

I turn to the noble and learned Lord’s Amendments 125 and 126. The community sentences incentive scheme, set out in Clauses 36 and 37, already requires offenders to complete all court-ordered requirements before the community order—or, in the case of a suspended sentence order, the supervision period—can come to an end. This will include completing all the required activities under the new probation requirement. These clauses bring a principle of progression and incentivisation into community sentences to encourage good behaviour and motivate offenders to change.

This scheme was inspired by the model in Texas, which used incentives to reduce the prison population. It will mean that the Probation Service can encourage offenders to engage early, comply with their sentence requirements and complete rehabilitation work. This will free up staff time to focus on more serious and complex offenders in order to better protect the public and reduce reoffending. Probation practitioners will be responsible for determining the amount of rehabilitation activity that must be completed under the probation requirement. The measure requires them to complete it all before the community order or supervision period can be eligible for early termination.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 26th November 2025 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, it is a great honour to have the opportunity to speak for the Government in Committee on the Sentencing Bill. As noble Lords know, I have devoted much of my life and career to criminal justice reform, in particular the question of how to reduce reoffending. Therefore, I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the amendments on short sentences, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. While I am grateful to noble Lords for their constructive and thoughtful input on this Bill, inside and outside the Chamber, I remain convinced that the position of the Bill is the right one. I appreciate the words from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Beith, along those lines.

Let me be clear at the outset: we are not abolishing short sentences. Judges will still have discretion to send offenders to prison where there is a significant risk of physical or psychological harm to an individual, where they have breached a court order or in exceptional circumstances. However, the evidence shows that those given a community order or suspended sentence reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. That is a key driver behind the presumption to suspend short sentences and why it must continue to apply to sentences of 12 months or less.

We are following the evidence to reduce crime, leading to fewer victims and safer communities, and we are also following the lead of the previous Conservative Government who originally introduced this measure during the last Parliament, without the additional amendments we are debating today.

Given the clear evidence on short sentences, the Government do not agree with introducing further exemptions. To do so could increase reoffending and so create more victims. I came into this job to build a criminal justice system that leads to fewer victims, not more.

I will now turn to the specific points that noble Lords have raised in this debate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, have both raised important points on early guilty pleas through Amendments 2 and 13. I can assure noble Lords that I have reflected on these amendments and considered them at length and with great care, but it has long been the practice of the courts to give a reduction in sentence where a defendant pleads guilty. This avoids the need for a trial, enables cases to be dealt with quickly, and shortens the gap between charge and sentence. Moreover, it can save victims and witnesses from the concern about having to give evidence. This is particularly important in traumatic cases.

Furthermore, the amendments proposed would create inconsistencies. The presumption would not apply where an early guilty plea mitigation brought the sentence down to 12 months or less, whereas it could still apply where the court applied any other mitigation that had the same effect. For these reasons, the Government do not support these amendments.

Through Amendments 3 and 14, noble Lords have also proposed requiring courts to impose suspended sentence orders with a maximum operational period of two years. This would not be appropriate for every suspended sentence order without consideration of the particular facts of the case, and would place additional burden on the Probation Service. The evidence shows that those given a community order or suspended sentence reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. We are following the evidence to reduce crime, leading to fewer victims and safer communities.

It is absolutely clear that the last Government left our Probation Service under immense pressure. Fourteen years of austerity came alongside a botched privatisation. The scars are still there, and we are fixing it. Sentencing must always be proportionate to the offence committed, taking into account all the circumstances of each case. It is right for the judiciary to retain discretion to consider this and make the sentencing decision. This amendment would remove that discretion.

I thank the noble Lords again for their amendments and the opportunity to debate them. I hope I have sufficiently explained why our approach of following the evidence is the right one to take. With that in mind, I ask them not to press their amendments.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this part of the Committee debate, and I thank the Minister for explaining the position of the Government with regard to these proposed amendments.

On early guilty pleas, it appears to me, respectfully, that if the Government are going to maintain the position that has been set out, they should be explicit in the Bill that they are not dealing with suspension in respect of sentences of 12 months; they are dealing with suspension in respect of sentences of up to and including 18 months. That is far from clear in the Bill. Whether or not the Government accept our amendment, it is a point that has to be made clear so that public confidence can be maintained in the nature of the sentencing system that is going to be introduced.

With regard to the matter of suspension and the maximum suspension period of two years, we maintain that if these moves are going to be taken, it is only appropriate that the suspension should be for a period long enough to enable some form of rehabilitation to take place, because otherwise it is simply pointless. Again, I ask the Government to reconsider their position, but at this stage I will withdraw this amendment.

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[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, let us remember that we passed a Bill here about the Sentencing Council, when there was a disagreement between the Ministry of Justice and the Sentencing Council, and we know how we resolved that, so we cannot put too much faith without that legislation, which went through here not long ago.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lords, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Jackson, for the further amendments they have tabled to Clause 1, which has allowed for another engaging debate on the presumption to suspend short sentences. I begin by reiterating that we are following the evidence to reduce crime, leading to fewer victims and safer communities. We are implementing the Gauke review, for which I welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson. Texas, which the noble Lord referred to, saw crime fall by 30% and 16 prisons were closed. I would also like to reiterate how much missed Lady Newlove is.

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[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

Perhaps I might ask the Minister about the way he ran his business. One of the important roles of a legislature is to get things technically right. There is no disagreement, as I can see, on the view that that the policy is right, but can we not do things more simply? Throughout the Bill, I have asked the Minister: can we look at producing a piece of workable, simple legislation that can be adapted if what is set out is not right? I believe that this is something a legislature ought to address, where policy is not at issue.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The principle that the noble and learned Lord raises is the right one. I do not believe that we can change things in this Bill now, but the message that I can relay will be very helpful. There is another point around complexity: how this is then communicated to the hard-working staff on the front line, who will need to interpret and put into action what we are proposing here.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

I will respond to the Minister. First, it is always our duty to put legislation right, otherwise we might as well all go home. Secondly, the Sentencing Council is there to give practical guidance; it is not our job as a legislature to tinker with the detail. I urge the Minister to go back and see whether we can produce, instead of the complexities inherent in this clause, something that just expresses the presumption and leaves the Sentencing Council to do its job. It will do it far more competently, I am sure, than the Ministry of Justice.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

We will come back to that later in Committee, when we talk about the Sentencing Council. But I reassure the noble and learned Lord that I will take back to colleagues his point about clarity and simplicity.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I do not think that simple legislation will ever catch on, because it would put a lot of lawyers out of business—I say rather irreverently. The Minister in his remarks did not specifically address my Amendment 7. The piece of legislation put forward by his honourable friend Sir Chris Bryant, the emergency workers offences Act, had significant support across both the other place and here. Given the impact of these proposals, I wonder whether the Minister would revisit the specific ramifications for emergency service workers, because there is significant concern about that. I take the point that we should not specify in too much detail in primary legislation, but that Act did receive significant support.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for raising the point about emergency workers: they deserve all our attention and we are very proud of what they do in often very difficult circumstances. I will take away his challenge on that.

I have met a number of people—especially women—in prison who are there for assaulting an emergency worker. While those assaults should not happen at all, often those people were in a very traumatic situation and, when the emergency services came to their aid, they reacted in the wrong way. That is something we need to bear in mind as well.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I am obliged for all the contributions from across the Committee and for the response from the Minister. Everybody appreciates that Clause 1 is not prohibiting anything. Nevertheless, a number of noble Lords, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, talked eloquently and correctly about the discretion of our judges and the trust that we should place in our judges. But that is not what Clause 1 is doing. Clause 1 is saying they must apply a presumption. They are not being trusted with it; they are being told they must apply it. That is one of the issues that we need to address.

A number of specific exceptions were tabled in the amendments, but I take on board the point made by my noble friend Lord Hailsham about it being far more straightforward to produce some generic description in this regard. Indeed, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, pointed out, it may even be something that should be left to the Sentencing Council at the end of the day. But that is another issue. I read this quotation:

“Even when criminals are found guilty, the sentences they receive often do not make sense either to victims or the wider public”.


That is from the Labour manifesto. My fear is that Clause 1 is simply going to reinforce that perception, and that is one of the concerns that we have with it.

I appreciate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about the potential for a suspended sentence to lead to support and rehabilitation. The problem is that those facilities are simply not available at the present time and, in any event, we do not know what period of suspension might or might not be imposed by the courts. It may well be one or two years, but, as the Bill is framed, it may be much less and leave no sensible opportunity for either support or rehabilitation.

There is also the matter of statistics. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, alluded to some well-known statistics about the fact that those who are in custody for short sentences are much more likely to repeat offences when they come out of prison than those who have been given a suspended sentence. But one must bear in mind that those who have been given a suspended sentence have generally committed a far less serious offence than those who have been given a custodial sentence, and that those who are given custodial sentences for relatively minor offences are given those custodial sentences because they are repeat offenders. One must bear in mind Disraeli’s observation that there are lies, there are damned lies and there are statistics and, therefore, we have to approach them with a degree of care. I understand and appreciate that there is more generic evidence to suggest that suspended sentences, when properly applied, controlled and maintained, can have beneficial effects—nobody doubts that for a moment—but there is a very real need here to address, among other things, the whole scourge of repeat offenders.

This arises particularly in the context of Amendment 8 from my noble friend Lord Jackson, which highlights burglary as a particular offence. Burglary is an intensely intrusive crime that leaves victims traumatised, and it is inclined to attract repeat offenders. Its social damage is considerable. There are particular crimes of that nature, given their impact on society as a whole, that should attract something more than a suspended sentence, given the fear is that somebody will simply repeat them. Similar observations can be made on knife crime as well.

I fully understand that there is a need to revisit Clause 1 and its implications. We have sought to do so by identifying particular or specific exceptions to it. There is, as I indicated, and as outlined by my noble friend Lord Hailsham, potentially a better route to that conclusion. Indeed, to echo the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, there is hopefully a simpler route to that conclusion. For present purposes, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to these amendments, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

Amendment 15, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, seeks to insert an explicit reference to Section 77 of the Sentencing Act 2020 to make it plain that courts may mitigate a sentence to a community order where appropriate. This amendment is not necessary. The Bill does not alter the courts’ ability to consider the full range of mitigating factors, nor does it disturb their discretion to impose a community sentence where that is the just and proportionate outcome. What it does is imposes an obligation to suspend a prison sentence where otherwise a prison sentence might be imposed. Those powers remain firmly in place. To single out Section 77 of the Sentencing Act for restatement in the Bill might imply that the legislation would otherwise curtail judicial discretion to impose a community sentence. That is not the case. For this reason, we do not consider the amendment to be needed or helpful.

Amendment 29A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would place a statutory duty on courts to consider a community order before imposing a suspended sentence order. Although we understand and appreciate the intention behind the proposal, we do not support it. The courts are already required to work upwards through a full hierarchy of sentencing options, including setting community sentences, before custody is reached. That is the well-established principle in law and practice. Sentencing judges are highly experienced in applying those principles.

To introduce a further procedural step will not add substance but create additional bureaucracy in an already very complex framework. It risks increasing administrative burdens on the probation services and court staff, and generating uncertainty about what additional assessments or reports might be required to satisfy the new duty. We should not legislate for processes that the system is not resourced or structured to deliver. Above all, a suspended sentence of imprisonment is, by definition, imposed only when the custody threshold has already been crossed. To require courts to revisit considerations that are already inherent in the sentencing exercise risks weakening clarity and undermining judicial confidence in the tools at their disposal.

For all these reasons, although we respect the intentions behind both amendments, we do not believe that they would strengthen the sentencing framework. We cannot support them.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for tabling these amendments. I was pleased to hear mention of two organisations: one which I used to chair, the Prison Reform Trust, and one which I now chair, the Women’s Justice Board. I am grateful for the opportunity to clarify the Government’s position on this issue. In doing so, I hope I will address the noble Baronesses’ questions, and reflections raised by other noble Lords at Second Reading.

I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that there are too many women in prison, and that is why we set up the Women’s Justice Board to come up with a plan to fix that.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I do not want to say more about lists other than to note that these amendments contain a lot of lists. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, will not think this is in any way an aggressive point, but I think I picked up that he would expect to see some fleshing out of the term “serious”, as well as the detail of “specified offences”, through a mechanism that follows today’s debate. If he is looking for encouragement for further work subject to some of the comments that were made earlier, then he has it.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Sandhurst, for sharing their views and tabling these amendments, which aim to prevent sentences for certain categories of offences from being suspended. I would be interested to hear more about the Marie Collins Foundation; I have never heard of that organisation before. If it would be helpful, I would be interested in having a meeting with the noble Lord and the foundation to learn more and see what I can gain from that.

I must be clear that it is at the discretion of the independent judiciary whether to impose a suspended sentence, taking into account all the circumstances of the offence and following the appropriate guidance set by the Sentencing Council. For example, sentencing guidelines are clear: it may not be appropriate to suspend a sentence if the offender presents a risk to any person or if appropriate punishment can be achieved only by immediate custody. If the offender breaches the order by failing to comply with any of the requirements or committing a new offence, they can be returned to court. If the breach is proven, the courts are required to activate the custodial sentence unless it would be unjust to do so. Of course, criminals serving suspended sentences also face the prospect of being sent to prison if they fail to comply with the terms of these orders. So, under this Bill, someone could receive a two-and-a-half-year sentence, suspended for three years, and with an electronically monitored curfew lasting for two years. In this scenario, if they breach their curfew or commit a further offence, they face the prospect of being sent to prison.

I would like to reassure noble Lords that there is already provision within this Bill to prohibit the use of suspended sentence orders under any circumstances in relation to sentences for offenders of particular concern and extended determinate sentences. These sentences can be imposed in relation to the specific offences listed in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Russell, where the court is of the opinion that the offender is dangerous. Currently, if an extended determinate sentence is imposed for two years or less, it is imposed alongside a standard determinate sentence, and both can be suspended. However, the Bill will change that position so that where an extended sentence is imposed, it cannot be suspended under any circumstances, including when it is imposed alongside a standard determinate sentence.

I turn to terrorism sentences. Where a life sentence is not imposed, unless there are exceptional circumstances, a serious terrorism sentence is required if a court is of the opinion that there is a significant risk of harm to members of the public and the offence was likely to cause multiple deaths. The minimum sentence of imprisonment will then be 14 years and therefore a suspended sentence order would not be available. The noble Lords have also proposed to exempt offences with mandatory minimum sentences and those eligible for referral under the unduly lenient scheme. If the offence being sentenced has a mandatory minimum sentence and is capable of being suspended, judges still retain the discretion to impose an immediate custodial sentence when there is the appropriate outcome.

To be clear, we are not abolishing short sentences. Offences falling under the unduly lenient sentence scheme are rightly treated very seriously. I reassure noble Lords that Clause 2 does not interfere with existing mechanisms that allow for the review of sentences in these cases. We believe that these safeguards protect the public while preserving judicial discretion. Sentencing in individual cases is rightly a matter for the courts, considering the full circumstances of the case.

I turn to the amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, which would prevent the court from suspending a sentence where an offender has not complied with previous court orders and to exempt offenders convicted of multiple previous offences from being suspended. I can reassure noble Lords that the sentencing guidelines are clear. Where an offender has not complied with previous court orders and the court thinks that they are unlikely to comply in the future, that may be a reason not to suspend the sentence.

Additionally, when an offender is in custody—for example, when they have breached their licence conditions by committing a further offence and have been recalled into custody as a result—the court will not suspend the sentence. Sentences are generally served concurrently when the offences arise out of the same incident, or where there is a series of offences of the same or a similar kind, especially when committed against the same person. The key point is that the court should ensure that the overall sentence imposed on the offender is just and proportionate. Noble Lords will know that this Government take prolific offending extremely seriously, and previous offending is already a statutory aggravating factor.

I must also be clear that a suspended sentence is not a soft option. The courts can impose a range of requirements on an offender, ranging from curfews to exclusion zones. This Bill includes tough new restriction zones, which will restrict offenders to a specific geographic area. These will be electronically monitored in most cases and are intended to serve as not just a punishment but an important tool to protect and reassure victims.

Reoffending is unacceptably high for victims and the public, and we must drive it down. That is why we are ramping up intensive supervision courts, targeting the prolific offenders whose criminal behaviour is often driven by addiction or other needs. The international evidence is clear: these courts cut crime, with a 33% decrease in the rate of arrest compared to offenders who receive standard sentences. That is just one way in which this Government are putting the necessary structures in place to build a sustainable justice system going forward.

Suspended sentence orders in appropriate cases give offenders a chance to stay in work, keep stable housing and access support in the community. All of this goes towards reducing repeat offending and supporting rehabilitation, and it is right that that remains the case. By targeting the causes of offending in the community, we can lower reoffending rates and in turn reduce the number of victims. I hope noble Lords are now assured of the Government’s position on this, and I therefore ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I thank the Minister and other noble Lords for their contributions. These amendments are designed to ensure that dangerous or repeat offenders cannot avoid custody due to a general presumption of suspension.

I hear what the Minister said about the discretion of the independent judiciary, but it seems to me that he is attempting to go in two different directions at the same time—we have only just looked at Clause 1, where he is imposing upon the discretion of the independent judiciary a presumption that has to apply. There is no discretion there; they must abide by the presumption. So, in a sense, we go from one extreme to the other with regard to the justification for these provisions in the Bill, and it is very difficult to understand any underlying logic or principle that is being applied here. I do hope that the Government will give further consideration to Clause 2 and the proposed amendments to it, but, for present purposes, I will withdraw this amendment.

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[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. We cannot ask for mandatory work or process unless we are sure that we have the facilities and people on the ground. If we do not, from the word go, we are setting up a scheme that is going to fail.

As noble Lords all know, in 1966 an organisation called Nacro, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, was established. I was a member of it, and we tried our best, with the Howard League. Our success at rehabilitating criminals in our prisons was very small, and the evidence about short sentences, which we have been talking about, is another great failure.

It therefore seems that history and experience tell us that we as a nation have failed to rehabilitate the people we put behind bars. We take away their freedom in the hope that they will be rehabilitated and come out as good citizens. Some do, but there is still great failure. If that is so with people in our prisons, how much more will it be for those who have suspended sentences, for whom we make engagement with rehabilitation services mandatory? The noble Lord has not identified where these centres are going to be; nor has he found who is going to carry out these services—schooling and education. I worked as a chaplain in a young offender institution. Some of the classes were no good and did not help, but there was a lot of success in some.

Our history of incarcerating people does not work. A previous Minister talked about payment by results, but even that did not do it. I want us to do a health check on ourselves, because these are suspended sentences that we would be creating a mandatory process for, through which people might go. If a judge is going to impose the proposed orders, he will want to know who will deliver these services and how certain we are that they will be delivered, because if an offender does not turn up, that may be a way of revoking this.

This mixes up two things that should not be mixed. A suspended sentence is a suspended sentence. If people do not fulfil what that suspended sentence is about, they know that the sentence in prison will begin from the day they break the order. However, with this proposal for mandatory rehabilitation and attendance at drug centres, we are saying that the suspended sentence is not a suspended sentence because somebody is going to watch over you. If it is very clear that they are going to be tagged, things offenders cannot do would be abandoned by this rehabilitation.

I have been with Nacro for so many years. I want to say that we did our best, but we never cared much or rehabilitated many people. We talked about it, and we provided money, books and all sorts of things, and these people were in our prisons. What about those who are roaming our streets—we think this is going to work? I am a realist, and I do not think that we would like this part of the Bill, particularly the way it is crafted. I am with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord for raising the very important issue of offender rehabilitation. As noble Lords know, this is an issue that is extremely close to my heart. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for his generous words about my work rehabilitating offenders.

I clarify that Clause 2 does not create a presumption to suspend sentences; it simply gives judges the power to suspend sentences of up to three years. This amendment would require a court, when passing a suspended sentence, to oblige an offender to engage in at least one of the following: a treatment programme, education, training and employment support, or an approved behaviour change programme.

As noble Lords are aware, sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the independent judiciary. It must take into account all the circumstances of the offence and the offender, as well as the purposes of sentencing. The courts already have a range of requirements that can be included as part of a suspended sentence to rehabilitate offenders. These include treatment requirements, which require offenders to take part in accredited programmes, as well as unpaid work, which can include education, training and employment. As noble Lords identify, interventions such as these can be incredibly valuable in supporting rehabilitation, and it is right that they are available and used in those cases where they are needed.

The noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Jackson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Porter, all raise the important issue of probation and the future of probation. Whether it is pre-sentence reports, rehabilitative activity requirements or all the various support options that probation has, they need to be funded; we need strong leadership, we need to train and retain our staff and we need to have the technology available to support them to do their jobs. We have pledged a 45% increase in funding for probation—that is £700 million. In the coming weeks, I would be delighted to do a presentation for noble Lords on my plan for probation and how funding for that links to that plan being landed successfully.

I am also very keen to hear more from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, about the Santiago prison system, which I have never heard of before. I have been to a number of prisons abroad, but that is one I have never been to. If we ever have time to hear the noble Lord’s wider reflections on rehabilitation, that would be appreciated.

However, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, clearly explained, the decision on which requirements to include in an order is a matter for the judge sentencing the case. This is to ensure that the most appropriate requirements are included in a sentence and that the Probation Service is not overburdened with requirements that may not be necessary in the circumstances of the individual offender.

Additionally, evidence has shown that, for low-risk individuals, the effects of accredited programme participation are usually found to be either negligible or, in some cases, even negative. There will be cases where an offender does not have any of the needs listed by the noble Lord and the court determines that it needs simply to impose a punishment. This amendment would fetter that discretion. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, and many of them have supported the sentiment underlying this amendment. It has clearly shown our shared recognition that, if suspended sentences are to become more prevalent, as the Government intend, they must be made fit for that purpose. We on these Benches continue to oppose the presumption that custodial terms of 12 months or under should routinely be suspended. The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, helpfully has supported the thrust of this amendment, while also highlighting the issues with resources facing the Probation Service.

Our duty today is also a practical one. The Government are introducing a major shift in sentencing practice. If they are to do so, they must build into the legislation the safeguards necessary to preserve public confidence and deliver genuine rehabilitation. My noble friend Lady Porter of Fulwood, in a powerful speech, has explained the difficulties in delivering support for offenders in the community and has explained why support is necessary for offenders. So too, my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough, after his excursion to Chile, made an important point: if we propose to go down this line, we must give practical help to recidivists, or they will simply come back and reoffend.

That leads me to say this: if we do not deal with this, and if offenders who have been given a suspended sentence—even if it is only suspended for 12 months—reoffend within that period, they will have to be brought back to court. This is an important point. It is not simply that they may end up in prison, but having been brought back to court, they will occupy court time. That will not help the backlog in the courts. I speak with the experience of someone who, until some 10 or 12 years ago, sat as a recorder for 20-odd years in the courts, so I have some practical experience of this.

People breach suspended sentences. That is why judges in the past have often been cautious about imposing suspended sentences, particularly on people who offend time and time again. If there are too many of them, this will be impractical. What will happen is that, in about two years’ time, we will have the courts overwhelmed with people coming back for resentencing and then having to be put into prison because, otherwise, as the courts will say, it will show that a suspended sentence is not a suspended sentence in any meaningful sense. I put that before the Government in a spirit of constructive criticism, not to try to make difficulties. That is what lies down the road if we are not very careful indeed.

If suspended sentences are to be used more widely, they cannot be hollow or simply be deferrals of punishment; they must require offenders to confront the issues that led them to offend in the first place, and they must offer the public some hope that these offenders will cease offending. I hope the Minister and those behind him, so to speak, will carefully consider this proposal, but for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, Clause 3 is of course a novel sentencing tool, and it is entirely correct that the Committee should probe its design with some care. Many of the amendments before us seek reassurance that the scheme will be fair and proportionate, and indeed that it will be workable in practice. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, with her amendment, draws attention to the basic question of impact. An income reduction order must not be set at a level that undermines an offender’s ability to work, train or maintain stable housing. If these orders are to be effective, they must support rehabilitation, not jeopardise the very stability on which it depends. The noble Baroness’s amendments highlight that there is a risk here that requires very clear scrutiny.

The amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst raise a series of questions about the architecture of the scheme. As drafted, the Bill establishes broad powers to reduce an offender’s income, yet it leaves almost all the crucial detail to regulations that we have not yet seen and that may in due course prove insufficiently robust.

Amendments 37 to 44 ask the Government to place in the Bill the essential elements that will govern how these orders operate in the real world. They begin by posing the most basic question of all: what do the Government mean by “monthly income”? Are we assessing gross or net income? How are fluctuating earnings to be treated? What of the self-employed or those on irregular or zero-hours contracts? It is very difficult to see how a fair and consistent system can be construed without clear statutory guidance on these points. If Parliament is to authorise a mechanism allowing the state to deduct a portion of a person’s income month after month, it is surely right that we also understand with precision how that income is to be defined, what thresholds will apply, how caps are to be set and which factors the court must take into account before imposing an order.

Amendment 44 goes to the heart of our concern that the Bill as currently drafted lacks the necessary clarity about the conditions under which an income reduction order may be imposed. Leaving this almost entirely to secondary legislation again risks undermining both transparency and fairness—surely qualities that are fundamental to the integrity of such a system.

These amendments illuminate the substantial gaps in the present drafting and ensure that Parliament does not sign off on a broad new power without understanding how it will work in practice and what safeguards will accompany it. I look to the Minister to provide the clarity that has so far been somewhat lacking. For our part, we do not oppose the principle of creating a more flexible and enforceable means-based penalty. But, before we take such a significant step, we must be satisfied that the framework is sound, that the protections are clear and that the consequences, particularly for those on the margins, have been fully thought through. I hope the Minister will address these concerns.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the three guiding principles of the David Gauke Independent Sentencing Review was to expand and make greater use of punishment outside prison. We are determined to make sure that crime does not pay, which is why we introduced Clause 3, giving courts the power to impose income reduction orders on offenders who receive suspended sentence orders. From the debate we have just had and from my prior conversations, I know that noble Lords have a keen interest in how these will work in practice, and I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this at greater length today. I have been employing prisoners for over 20 years. Many are on day release and, in some cases, a proportion of their earnings goes back to victims. Income reduction orders are inspired by that principle: offenders must pay back to society for the harm they have caused.

I first turn to Amendments 37, 41, 42 and 44, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. They seek to specify what must be contained in the regulations detailing this scheme. I assure noble Lords that we are working cross-government to develop a process for delivering income reduction orders in a way that works cohesively with the rest of the powers that sentencers have at their disposal. We have intentionally kept the legislation flexible to ensure that we can deliver this measure in that way. For example, we do not agree that it would be appropriate for income reduction orders to be mandatory in certain circumstances. This would unnecessarily curtail judicial discretion to decide whether an order should be imposed based on the full facts of an individual case.

The Sentencing Council is actively considering what updates to its guidelines are needed to account for the Bill’s reforms, including these orders. My officials are working closely with the council. I reassure noble Lords that regulations will be subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure, so noble Lords will have the opportunity to debate and discuss these details prior to implementation.

I turn to Amendments 38 and 40 and am happy to explain the rationale behind the drafting of this Bill. Let me be clear: this measure is a penalty for high-income individuals. It will ensure that criminals who break the law, and who benefit from keeping their jobs and continue to earn a significant salary, pay back to society. I doubt that anyone in the Committee would disagree with that. The intention is to set an income threshold that would apply at an appropriately high level. But the Bill sets a baseline that the threshold for an income reduction order can never be below. The aim is to ensure that those with incomes in line with the minimum wage cannot ever receive this penalty. The minimum wage is set at an hourly rate, and 170 times that is a reasonable approximation of the hours likely to be worked over a month.

Noble Lords have also questioned why there is an upper limit. A core tenet of our criminal justice system is fairness and proportionality. So, setting a maximum percentage of an offender’s excess monthly income that can be collected protects individuals from receiving an excessively harsh penalty. We need to ensure that the punishment fits the crime. If the court determines that a higher penalty is appropriate and the offence is serious enough to carry an unlimited fine, the court will still be able to impose that, either instead of or as well as an income reduction order.

But income reduction orders must not be a disincentive to employment or amplify existing hardship. As someone who has championed the employment of ex-offenders for years, this is the last thing I would want to happen. Therefore, they will be applicable only to offenders who earn or are deemed likely to earn a significant income. We will set the minimum income threshold through secondary legislation at an appropriate level. This will ensure that low-income households are not in the scope of this measure.

As with any other financial penalty, judges will consider an offender’s means and circumstances when choosing whether to apply an income reduction order at sentencing. This can include, but is not restricted to, income, housing costs and child maintenance. Additionally, the provisions in the Bill allow the Secretary of State to set out in regulations the deductions that must be made when calculating an offender’s monthly income for the purposes of assessing whether an income reduction order can be applied.

Amendment 79, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, proposes to create a power for a sentencing court to require an offender to make periodic payments or other contributions towards the maintenance and welfare of their dependants. I must inform the noble Lord that there are existing mechanisms to deal with payments to dependants. For example, the family courts are able to make spousal maintenance payments on divorce.

This proposed new clause would require the court to inquire whether an offender has responsibility for children or other dependants. Although this is well intentioned, it risks creating practical difficulties. Inquiring whether a person holds parental responsibility, has dependent children or other dependants—and subsequently inquiring about the circumstances and reasonable needs of those dependants—may require interpretation of family court orders, birth records or informal care-giving arrangements for the purposes of verification. Imposing such a duty risks delaying sentencing.

This Government have committed to identifying and providing support for children affected by parental imprisonment. As such, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Education are working to determine the best way to do this to ensure that children get the support they need. This builds on a range of services offered by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service to help families and significant others, where appropriate, to build positive relationships with people in the criminal justice system. This includes social visits, letter writing, video calls, family days and prison voicemail. I hope this addresses the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Beith. I ask the noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I got my calculator out because I was reminding myself, so far as I could, what the amount might be, in cash terms, that an offender could be left with. I am not sure that I believe what I am finding, multiplying the national minimum wage by 170 and so on. I realise that we are talking about the future, but is the Minister able to share now what the cash amount would be?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My intention is that this concerns people who are earning significant amounts of money and might otherwise have a custodial sentence. Let me give the example of long-distance lorry drivers. They regularly earn over £70,000 a year. These are the people who I believe this income reduction order is appropriate for, not people who do not have means beyond that which they need just to look after their children and so on. It is very much, as I reiterated in my comments, for high-income earners. That level is the minimum wage level, and that is where we see the minimum. We obviously need to have further conversations internally on this, but my intention is that this covers people who earn significantly more than that.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

That is helpful, because what is a high income to one person is not necessarily a high income in the eyes of another. I am grateful to the Minister for his response to the amendments and for dealing with them in that way. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 36.

Separation Centres: Terrorist Offenders

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, we are told that the independent review into separation centres’ operation, following the attack at His Majesty’s Prison Frankland, has been completed but remains unpublished. Given that the continued non-disclosure of its findings undermines transparency and accountability, will the Minister tell us why the review has not been published and when it will be published? Could he also explain what interim changes have already been made to the regime to ensure that vulnerable staff and other prisoners are not exposed to unacceptable risks in the meantime?

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

The Government are carefully considering the findings of Jonathan Hall KC’s independent review into the operation of separation centres, which was commissioned following the dreadful attack at HMP Frankland in April. We will publish Mr Hall’s report and our response in due course—I would add imminently. On the regimes in our separation centres, Members of your Lordships’ House will be pleased to know that I have been to see the centre at HMP Frankland to meet a number of the staff, who are incredibly brave and professional public servants. We are making a number of operational improvements to improve their safety as well.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, a finding by the High Court that any prisoner in England, whoever they may may be, has been subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment shames us all. We all understand the need for separation centres for high-risk terrorist offenders, but can the noble Lord say what steps the Government will now take, in the light of the Abu judgment, to ensure that prisoners in separation centres are not so cut off from human contact as to endanger their mental health, and that all such prisoners have access to adequate psychiatric care, as Abu did not?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Separation centres protect the public from the most serious offenders. A small number of prisoners are held in these centres. The regime is purposeful activity, limited association and rehabilitation; the noble Lord will know that rehabilitation is really important to me. Having met the staff who work in separation centres, it is very clear that they are not all classically trained prison officers. A number are psychiatrists, psychologists, experts in security and so on. There is a team effort to make sure we run good regimes that have a real focus on rehabilitation. I look forward to getting into more of the detail on Jonathan Hall’s report when it and its recommendations are published because it will be very helpful to us as we look to the future of how we run these very specialist areas of the justice system.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Does my noble friend agree that there is no inconsistency between having adequate separation of terrorism offenders and complying with our most basic and fundamental human rights obligations? In the light of the question from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and, crucially, the decision of Mr Justice Sheldon last week, all we need to do is to ensure that appropriate mental health provision is made for any offender, particularly those who are isolated for long periods in the day. I know my noble friend is an expert in these matters.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. We are carefully considering the High Court ruling on the Abu case, including considering appealing the decision. Our decisions are based on risk, and the proportionality of our response to that risk is how we make our decisions. Someone’s mental health throughout the justice system is a very important factor in how we manage everyone’s risk, whether they are on the first night of their first time in prison or they have been in the system for a very long time.

I am proud of so many of my colleagues who spend so much of their time in our prisons, and of our probation staff, who go out of their way to support people with their mental health requirements. The support we give our NHS and health providers in our prisons is clearly important too. We need to enable them to have the right space and time to work with people who are often very vulnerable.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, there is a gaslighting quality about the High Court judgment that the public sector equality duty was breached because no consideration had been given to decisions that meant a cohort of prisoners, all Muslim, were treated in a particular way. The judge said that this could have been perceived as a form of collective punishment against Muslims. All the inmates in the separation centre are Muslims. Some 75% of MI5’s counterterrorist caseload is Islamist extremists, and 63% of prisoners for terrorism-related offences are Muslims. When I visited HMP Frankland in 2022, a prison officer in the separation unit told me that they were perpetually—and, I thought, dangerously—constrained by the PSED and human rights legislation. Will the Government appeal this judgment and strenuously reassure prison governors that they can and must continue to use separation units to keep officers, prisoners and the public safe?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

As I said to my noble friend, we are considering appealing the decision. It is also important that the staff who work in our separation centres have the skills they need to care for the people there. The system is robust, but we always need to look for improvements. That is why we commissioned Mr Hall to look at all our separation centres and the policies we have to make sure they are right for the future.

[Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister think that we are doing enough to keep our prison staff safe? With increasingly violent prisoners challenging authority, what else is being done?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to raise this question. One of the things that surprises me going round prisons now compared with 25 years ago is how much more violence there is on our wings. That is probably due to a combination of the amount of drugs in our prisons and the number of people with severe mental health issues, but also people serving very long sentences.

We are investing in protecting our staff. As my noble friend said, our staff do an amazing job, often in very difficult and dangerous situations. That is why we have invested £15 million in 10,000 personal body armour jackets and suits. We are also training 500 staff in how to use Tasers. Every other week, I speak to prison leaders. Last week, I spoke to the governors of the long-term high-security estate, who told me how much reassurance the staff have had from the fact they are now getting investment in this extra protection.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Does the Prison Service have sufficient resources for the mental health issues it has to deal with?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am not an expert in healthcare, but I am an expert in prisons. I see prisoners getting incredible levels of support, often in regimes that are running hot. My personal assessment is that prisoners are getting very good care within a system that is struggling, so we need to make sure that we have a much more stable prison environment. That is why it is very difficult to run everything, to get people out of their cells and to give people the support that they need when we literally have no space left.

It is also important to have the right facilities. The medical facilities in some of the new prisons we have built that I have seen are excellent and appropriate. We are dealing with people who are often very ill. The life expectancy of someone in a prison is much lower on average than someone who has not been to prison. We need to do all we can to support people with their mental health and other health issues.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister spoke about increasing violence in prisons. Is that as true of women’s prisons as it is of men’s prisons?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I do not know the exact facts. I will write to the noble Baroness on the exact details on violence in women’s prisons, but there are two facts that are very worrying: the rate of self-harm in a women’s prison is eight times higher than in a men’s prison, and 60% of women in prison have brain damage as a result of being hit. We are dealing with some people with severe illnesses and we need to support them.

Prisoner Releases in Error

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, the release in error of Kaddour-Cherif from Wandsworth and all other such accidental releases, which have been far too numerous, are symptomatic of a system woefully prone to error. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, has seriously criticised the answer given by the Deputy Prime Minister to the House of Commons on 5 November. It may be that the Deputy Prime Minister made the wrong call in withholding more detail because he felt he did not have the full picture, and it may also be that there were errors in the detail of his response, but if he made a wrong call on that decision to give less detail, I accept that it was a difficult call and a call made in good faith. Of itself, it has had no consequences. The more important question is how and in what timescale we improve the system now.

We on these Benches applaud the appointment of Dame Lynne Owens to conduct a full review. Accidental releases and the systems for avoiding them are very important, not just of themselves but for the confidence of the public in our systems. The Statement says that Dame Lynne’s report will come at the end of February, three months from now. I have to say that we think that is a long time. Is there scope for an interim report? Within days of Mr Kebatu’s release, the MoJ took some urgent steps, set out in the Statement, to tighten up the system and introduce, for one measure, a more robust checklist. May we ask for a further action plan, pending Dame Lynne’s final report, from her and her team if possible?

We expect, as I think the Minister does, that much of the improvement required will involve the introduction of more robust digital procedures—initially, no doubt, alongside strengthened paper procedures. Will he give an undertaking that the implementation of those of Dame Lynne’s recommendations that the Government accept will be treated with the greatest urgency? Only in that way and with that urgency can the serious loss of public confidence in our prison security that flows from these accidental releases be recovered.

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

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for the points they have made on this important issue. On Tuesday at 3.30 pm, the Deputy Prime Minister set out in the other place that we were aware of three releases in error from prison. We were also investigating a further case of a potential release in error on 3 November of a person who may have still been at large.

I can now tell your Lordships’ House that the potential case to which the Deputy Prime Minister referred was indeed a release in error. I can also confirm that this individual was swiftly returned to police custody on the same day and returned to prison the following morning. I thank Leicestershire Police for its diligent work.

Finally, the foreign national offender, who was one of the three the Deputy Prime Minister referred to, was today classified as a lawful release, following additional checks that took place. What I have just set out means that the current total of releases in error from prison stands at two, as of 9 am today. These are all operational matters and, as I am sure noble Lords appreciate, things can change quickly. The Deputy Prime Minister and I get regular updates on the situation.

Releases in error are symptomatic of a system stretched to its limits. Prisons are full, almost to breaking point, which makes them an even more challenging environment. I pay tribute to the prison staff working under incredibly difficult circumstances.

What we are talking about here is a paper-based system, with individual prisoners’ sentences worked out every time they arrive to a new prison. Prison staff must consider the type of offence committed and each individual piece of legislation it comes under. This process has become increasingly complex in recent years, owing to the previous Government’s early release programme and the scheme this Government were forced to put in place upon coming into office to prevent the collapse of our prisons. A 2021 review found more than 500 pages of sentence management guidance. Of course, prison staff go through full and proper training before they start their jobs, but the reality is that prisons suffered staffing cuts of around a quarter between 2010 and 2017. That is around 6,000 fewer people. The knock-on effect is that, today, over half of front-line prison staff have less than five years’ experience. That makes mistakes more likely.

The previous Government had 14 years to sort this problem out. The reason they did not is not because they did not try; it is because it is a complex and difficult task. I have taken on this challenge and what we are putting together is a sensible and achievable plan. I can tell noble Lords that, of the 57,000 or so routine prison releases in the year to March 2025, there were 262 releases in error. That is clearly too many. Typically, prisoners are flagged for release based on sentence length and statutory release points, usually at 40% or 50% of the sentence for standard determinate sentences and two-thirds for serious offences. Life and indeterminate sentences require Parole Board approval before release. Eligibility checks, identity verification, outstanding legal orders and exclusion criteria, such as sexual offences and terrorism, are all reviewed before release.

I accept that there has been uncertainty around the precise number of releases in error. This is down to the data challenges this Government inherited. It is why, on Tuesday, we published new data showing 91 releases in error from prisons from April to October. Further data on the breakdown of offences are official statistics that need to be combed through in detail before being put in the public domain. Publication was not due this week, but we recognised the public interest in being transparent about the overall number. I can tell noble Lords that further breakdowns will be published in the normal way through our regular statistics, and Dame Lynne Owens will be looking at data and transparency as part of her independent review. As the Lord, Lord Marks, inferred, it is important that we learn from her review.

As noble Lords will recall, following the release in error of Hadush Kebatu in October, the Deputy Prime Minister announced stronger release checks. There is now more senior accountability, including a new checklist to be completed by duty governors the night before a release. In the case of Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, the error leading to his release—a warrant for his remand being incorrectly forwarded by email from HMP Pentonville to HMP Wandsworth—took place before the new checks were put into place. Human error will, of course, always happen. It would be impossible to eradicate it completely, and no Government should pretend otherwise. I believe our staff turn up every day to do their best.

What we must do now is modernise the release process with digital systems that reduce the scope for error. Over the next six months, we will provide up to £10 million to deliver AI and technology-based solutions to support prison staff to detect mistakes and calculate sentences correctly and to ensure that they have accurate data available to them.

Public safety is, of course, this Government’s top priority. The Deputy Prime Minister has already given an unequivocal apology to all those who have faced fear, distress or worse as a result of the accidental release of prisoners, and I echo that apology. On those released in error who are still at large, victims eligible to receive services provided under the victim contact scheme will be notified by their victim liaison officer when the offender is apprehended and returned to prison custody.

Releases in error are the consequence of a system pushed beyond its limits. It is a legacy this Government are determined to fix, and we are already doing so. This Government have gripped this issue where others have failed to act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that we have an opportunity to simplify and make more accurate decisions in the justice system. We have to grasp this, and we have to grasp it quickly. AI is one of the most important factors that we need to embrace. My noble friend is right that we need to ensure that we do the procurement process correctly and that we do not take so much time that we miss the opportunity. I have been fortunate to work with a number of colleagues within the Ministry of Justice who are AI experts. In fact, in meetings I have, people ask for the AI team on probably a far too regular basis thinking it is going to solve lots of problems. Essentially, when you have multiple bits of paperwork and staff in the offender management unit are literally dealing with boxes and boxes of paperwork, it is unfair to expect them to get it accurate 100% of the time. I would like to walk into an offender management unit and see computer screens rather than boxes of paperwork. One of the things that I have been interested in, coming from a business environment into government, is the opportunities across government for embracing AI—I think we will end up delivering much better public services as a result.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lord, we heard that, in the seven months April to October this year, there have been 91 mistaken releases, which is 13 a month. How many of those 91 had been convicted of sexual or domestic abuse offences and whose victims would have been unaware that they were now loose?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I will not be giving a running commentary on the numbers, but we will be publishing the breakdown of all that detail in the normal way in July next year. It is important to recognise that 91 released in error is too many. We need to learn from what Dame Lynne Owen’s review finds out and act upon it, but we also need to get going now. That is what we have done. We have had the first board meeting of the justice performance board. We have set up the urgent warrant query unit, which is going to be helpful because we recognise that is where a number of the issues occur. The digital rapid response unit has gone into Wandsworth and—this is where the AI element comes in—it has already recognised that there are four common points of failure that it thinks AI will significantly help, although it will not help all those issues. We have an awful lot to do, and it is a challenge I am looking forward to embracing.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a considerable sympathy for the Minister. I am certain that under previous Secretaries of State for Justice and Home Secretaries, including me, there have been frequent inadvertent releases of prisoners. My noble friend is right that the past 14 years and the cuts of thousands of prison officers cannot have helped this situation, so I wish him well. My question to him concerns the victims, because I am sure all noble Lords can imagine, perhaps even understand, the fear and distress that victims and their families suffer when they learn of such mistaken releases. Can the Minister assure us that everything has been done to inform victims and their families promptly and fully if an offender is mistakenly released? Will he say something about the measures that have been taken to ensure that that is the case?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question, especially referring to victims. Victims always have to come first. I appreciate what a difficult time it must have been for victims and their families knowing that prisoners who they thought were in prison were actually out in the community. Where a victim has a victim liaison officer and is part of the victim contact scheme, they will be engaged in that process. It is important to me that that happens. I refer to my noble friend’s initial comment around the fact that this has been a problem for some time. That is one of the reasons why in my speech I specifically said that I know that the previous Government were trying to improve this. Across government, politicians and civil servants have been trying to improve accuracy and systems. This is something that we need to embrace, but as part of the process, we need to understand that victims come first, and the damage this does to victims is significant.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, as has been said, prisoners have been released in error for decades. I know because I used to advise on sentence calculation in the 1990s in the Home Office legal advisers branch and I was the Prison Service legal adviser. It was difficult then; it is now fiendishly difficult because of all the changes to the statute book that have happened since then, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, knows well, because she was with me at the Home Office.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

I was indeed. The statute book is a total mess as far as trying to calculate when a release date applies for a particular prisoner. Prisoners are all in a different position. Some have additional days; some have served a different remand time. All these factors need to be taken into account. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, a digital answer has to be the way forward. As the noble Baroness said, it will obviously work here because you can punch in the details of the sentence to work out exactly when the release date is. It will have to be updated, of course, as additional days are added to the sentence and so on. We must go to a digital solution, but how long will it take for that to be up and running? There needs to be a procurement process. These things take ages, and we do not have ages. We have identified a crisis taking place. Is there any estimate of when this will be up and running and functioning to stop these releases?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The digital team that has gone into Wandsworth is confident that it can do some quick fixes. I do not have an exact timeline, but we have given it up to £10 million to do those quick fixes. The nature of digital technology is such that we will be able to roll that out across the prison estate very quickly. One relevant point some noble Lords were discussing with me in your Lordships’ House last night is the Sentencing Bill, which we hope will make things simpler. I also want to touch on the point the noble Lord mentioned about how complicated it is. It is unfair on our hard-working staff to expect them to get this right all the time, especially those who have just started. We need to support them not just with digital solutions but with a lot of training because, even though we are going to simplify things, it will still be a complex process. I hope that the Sentencing Bill will simplify things for everybody involved in the justice system.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I genuinely welcome the quick action by the Government and the measures that have been proposed—in particular, as just discussed, the use of AI. The Minister refers to the hard-working staff, but the truth is that although we have more and more prisoners, we have fewer and fewer prison officers. They are leaving at an alarming rate, so we need to address some of the staffing issues. The Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee and the Chief Inspector of Prisons have been highly critical of the recruitment procedure for prison officers, which is done via Zoom with no face-to-face interviews; of the in-service training of those officers; and, in particular, of the assessment of the in-service performance of those officers—often, no records are kept of any discussions with them. Does the Minister accept that all those issues relating to staff in our prisons also need to be addressed to ensure that we have a higher calibre of staff who are less likely to make mistakes, including mistaken releases?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that we are 100% dependent on the good will and ability of our staff. Our staff in the Prison and Probation Service have been heroic over the past few years, dealing with Covid, early releases and so on. We expect a lot of them and we need to improve their training. That is why we have the Enable project, which I worked on before I came into government. We also need to up our game on retention, because we do not want to lose experienced prison officers. One of the challenges I have set myself is that, before I was in government, I ran a company that was generally known as a good company to work for. I am determined to try to instil that sense of direction in the Prison and Probation Service.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his characteristic frankness in the way that he is responding to these questions, for his commitment to make sure that the Prison Service works better than it has hitherto, and in particular for his positive remarks about prison staff. My question is about the checklist, which I welcomed when we asked questions about this last week. I assume that this is currently a paper checklist. Since we are rightly putting a reasonable amount of faith in this checklist, could we fast-track ensuring that it is in the right place in terms of digitisation? Everything else needs doing but the checklist could potentially be a game-changer.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that the checklist is important. It may sound like a basic process but it is vital. At the moment, it is a combination of paperwork and computers. It is about inputting data, but one of the problems is that there are lots of opportunities to input the wrong data. For example, a number of prisoners arrive to us with different aliases. How do we manage that? It is a process of simplifying everything, simplifying the checklist, digitising as much as we can, using AI and other technology wherever possible, but also listening to the staff on the front line who are doing this job. This should not be a change driven by head office; it needs to be after careful thought and discussion with those who do the job day in, day out.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, in my PNQ on Monday, I asked the Minister, for whom I have enormous respect, two questions. He was then reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, that he had not answered one of the two questions. Much of this discussion has related to moving away from a paper-driven system to something with more technology. The Minister answered the noble Lord, Lord Young, by saying that he would write to him and to me, giving details of the timing when officials were first notified of the accidental release. I suggest he moves away from the paper-driven solution he suggested at the time of writing to me by asking his officials to send me an email or by picking up a phone, because as yet I have not received any response.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for speaking to me after the debate a couple of days ago. He quite rightly asked me to phone him. I will phone him as soon as I have that correct information. I am very aware of the need—I get told this regularly by officials—to make sure that I get it 100% right.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had a great deal of expertise demonstrated in the questions we have heard today, from the MoJ and from people dealing with offenders. I want to pass on my own experience as a sentencing magistrate. When I started 20 years ago as a sentencing magistrate, when I sent someone to jail I said that they would be released at the halfway stage. That was something I was unable to say as the complexity of the various sentences that were available grew. Instead, towards the end of my period as a magistrate, I said that they would be released when the governor said they could be released after the calculations had been made. Does my noble friend agree that it is a reasonable aspiration, with all this technology and trying to review the system, that at the point of sentencing, the sentencing judge or magistrate should be able to say what the release date is?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend, and former room buddy, for that question. One conversation that we have a lot in the Ministry of Justice is the tie-up between the courts and prisons. I am hoping that the Sentencing Bill will make the whole process much simpler, because it is important not just for offenders to know when they are going to be released but for victims and their families. The clearer we can be, and the more quickly that information can get to magistrates, judges, offenders, victims and their legal teams, the better.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister made comments earlier this week about Wetherby Young Offender Institution serving the community. I visited a number of years ago and was appalled to see that respect for prison officers was taken away from them as they were being asked to wear tracksuits, which did not distinguish them from the young offenders they were trying to hold to account. Does the Minister agree that when there have been issues such as that which harm the morale of prison officers, that needs to be addressed on an ongoing basis?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I have been to a number of young offender institutions over the years, and they are quite challenging—I would describe them even as harrowing places sometimes—but also places of hope. Sadly, a few of the foster children who I lived with when I was growing up ended up in young offender institutions and then came back to us; in fact, one of them still works in the Timpson business and is doing very well. It is important to understand what was said in the Rademaker review, which was a look into some of the behaviours and actions that happen in HMPPS. Some of them we are not proud of regarding the way that individual staff treat each other. We should have a culture of care because we are trying to rehabilitate people so that when they leave, they do not come back.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The Minister referred to the importance of having experienced prison officers, yet prison officer unions point out that 2,600 prison staff face deportation because the Home Office has raised the salary threshold to £41,700. Is the Minister talking to the Home Office about this situation and seeking a solution?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that these staff are doing fantastic work and we are lucky to have them, but it is also important that net migration comes down. We are supporting those colleagues and having ongoing conversations.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am conscious that release in error is but one of many complex challenges that managing our prison estate throws up. In that context, does my noble friend the Minister have a plan to tackle the scourge of drones coming into our prisons to deliver drugs, phones and weapons, and in so doing making our prisons less safe? He should know that the UK military is actively developing and implementing counter-drone capabilities, and that recently it has been granted authority to bring down unauthorised drones, a number of which have been identified over sensitive military sites. If he is not already doing this, I suggest that he has a conversation with our noble friend Lord Coaker and that they form an alliance to find a way of dealing with this drone scourge using the capabilities that are being developed.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to bring up drones. Not a day goes by in my office without that subject coming up. Yesterday I had a meeting with a number of governors of our high-security prisons, and drones are a real concern for the governors, the staff and actually a lot of prisoners too. The physical things that drones bring in are drugs, phones and weapons but what they actually bring in is violence because, whenever you have drugs in a prison, you end up with violence. We are taking a proactive approach. Some of the things we are doing are to do with national security so I cannot mention them, but the links we have with military colleagues are vital. As the technology changes so quickly, we need to make sure that we run very safe prisons. There are a number of things we are doing that are starting to make a difference, but this issue is very much on our list of concerns.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

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

My Lords, it is my pleasure to bring this Bill for its Second Reading. I start by thanking the former Lord Chancellor, David Gauke, and his team for his independent sentencing review; this has informed many measures in the Bill. I thank another former Lord Chancellor, too, the now Home Secretary, for her work in getting us to this point. I also want to thank the many noble Lords who have engaged with me on the Bill. The input I have received has been of great value and generally very positive as we take this legislation forward. Of course, I want to pay tribute to our incredible prison and probation staff, who have worked, often unseen and under-appreciated, through an incredibly difficult time. I see and appreciate what they do every day, and I am proud to call every one of them a colleague.

I also want to pay tribute to Baroness Newlove, whose sad passing I learned of today. As both Victims’ Commissioner and Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, Baroness Newlove brought unparalleled experience and dedication to her roles. She championed the rights of victims and witnesses and held agencies to account. Her leadership shaped the victims’ code, strengthened victims’ voices in the criminal justice system, and ensured that the Victims and Prisoners Bill progressed with victims’ interests at its heart. She was an extraordinary public servant whom I was fortunate to know well and admired immensely, and whose life’s work and legacy are defined by courage, compassion and an unwavering commitment to justice.

Before I turn to specific measures in the Bill, it is important to understand the context of why it is needed. When the new Government came to power in July last year, we inherited a crisis in our prisons and probation service. We were days away from running out of places entirely; days away from the police having to prioritise which criminals to arrest, the courts having to make impossible decisions, and the criminal justice system buckling under insurmountable pressure; days away from our criminal justice system failing to deliver the one thing it was for—delivering justice.

We took urgent steps to prevent that catastrophe, and we have embarked on the biggest prison building programme since the Victorian era, delivering 14,000 new places by 2031. However, if we do not take further action, it is only a matter of time before we will be back here again. In a few months, we will again be facing prisons on the brink, having to take emergency measures and, again, asking, “How did we get here?” That is why this Bill is vital. It does not kick the can further down the road, and it does not shy away from making tough decisions to keep the public safe. Instead, it will end the cycle of crisis once and for all. It will build a justice system that victims can have confidence in, and it will bring stability and sustainability to our prisons and our justice system. More than that, it will restore purpose to sentencing. It will deliver punishment that works by following the evidence of what works; that works for victims, delivering them the justice they deserve; that works for society—we want better citizens, not better criminals; and that works for the public, delivering safer streets and protection from crime.

Of course, that means that we must always be able to lock up the most dangerous offenders. Prisoners serving extended determinate sentences—those the court has deemed to be dangerous—will not be affected by anything in this Bill. They will still need the approval of the independent Parole Board if they are to be released at the two-thirds point of their custodial term. The IPP sentence is also not included in the new progression model. The Parole Board will continue to review IPP cases at least every two years, and in many cases more regularly. Noble Lords will know that this is an area of incredible importance to me. I am determined to support those in prison to progress towards a safe and sustainable release, but not in a way that undermines public protection. For completeness, nothing in this Bill affects those who receive life sentences, having been convicted of the most horrendous crimes.

But we need to be smarter: we need to follow the evidence. For many offenders sentenced to less than a year, prison sets up a revolving door of repeat offending. Over 60% of those with prison sentences of less than 12 months reoffend within a year. Offenders have limited time to engage in rehabilitation. Instead, they are exposed to hardened criminals and shown a path that can lead to more crime. When they get out, they may have lost their home, their job, their relationships and everything that anchors them to society. They are being asked to make a U-turn on a one-way street. But evidence shows that community orders and suspended sentences can be more effective at reducing reoffending.

Clause 1 of the Bill therefore introduces a presumption to suspend short sentences. We are not abolishing short sentences; judges will still have the power to impose them in particular circumstances. If there is significant risk of harm to an individual, such as a victim of domestic abuse, or if a prolific offender fails to comply with the requirements of a suspended sentence or reoffends, prison will still be available. We will break the cycle of reoffending. That means fewer victims, and more offenders getting their lives back on track. As many noble Lords know, I believe in second chances. Clause 2 widens the scope of suspended sentences, increasing the limit from two years to three.

Of course, for many offenders prison is the right answer, but if we want them to turn their lives around, we must make sure that serving time is not just what they do in between crimes. This Bill introduces a new progression model for standard determinate sentences. Inspired by the Texas reforms that helped to end its capacity crisis, we will ensure that prisoners who do not behave in prison can be kept in for longer; release at the earlier point will be theirs to lose. In Texas, following a settling-in period, crime fell by 30% and it has closed 16 prisons.

Clauses 20 and 21 amend the release points: those serving regular standard determinate sentences must serve at least one-third of their time; for more serious crimes given a standard determinate sentence, offenders must serve at least half. But those are minimums: prisoners who misbehave, are violent, or are caught with illicit mobile phones can stay inside for longer. We will also double the maximum additional days for a single incident from 42 to 84, so that the worst behaved will serve longer in custody. It is the same as in our communities: if you break our rules, you can pay the price with your liberty. Punishment does not end when a spell inside does, nor does release mean an end to rehabilitation. Offenders will therefore enter a period of intensive supervision by the Probation Service. They will still face consequences for their actions.

Clauses 24 and 25 introduce a strengthened licence period. Offenders will be subject to strict conditions tailored to risk and offence. These clauses mean that probation can set new restrictive licence conditions—for example, stopping them going to the pub, banning them from football matches, or preventing them driving. This mirrors the new community requirement set out in Clauses 13 to 15.

We will incentivise better behaviour from offenders. Clauses 36 and 37 allow community orders and the supervision period of suspended sentence orders to be terminated once an offender has completed their sentence plan, including all court-ordered requirements. The Probation Service will be able to incentivise compliance and encourage early engagement and completion of rehabilitative activities, but anyone who does not do this will serve their sentence in full and could face further penalties. We will also expand community payback.

Clause 3 will introduce income reduction orders, so offenders with high incomes are penalised more effectively when serving their suspended sentence in a community setting. We will make sure that crime does not pay. Alongside the changes in the Bill, we will address the root causes of crime by expanding the use of intensive supervision courts, to break the cycles that lead to ever more reoffending. These courts are inspired by their success in Texas, which has seen a 33% fall in arrests compared to those serving prison sentences. They target offenders, often highly prolific offenders, who suffer from addiction or poor mental health, and they impose tough requirements to tackle those drivers. Over three-quarters of offenders meet the conditions the courts set. And we will tag many more offenders, to ensure compliance and restrict their freedom outside prison.

What is more, all offenders released into the community will remain on licence for the duration of their sentence. This goes further than the approach the review recommended. Those at the highest risk will continue to be supervised by probation to the very end. All offenders will be expected to comply with their licence conditions and remain liable for recall to prison at any time. Any further offence, even something that would not normally attract a custodial sentence, will potentially lead to a recall. Offenders will know that any backsliding or regression could land them right back in a cell. They will obey our laws, and there will be punishments if they do not. That is why Clauses 26 to 30 will introduce a standard 56-day recall, replacing the existing 14-day and 28-day terms: these are real consequences for returning to crime and punishment that works.

More punishment in the community, more intensive supervision, more monitoring and restrictions: these will all put more pressure on our already stretched Probation Service. That is why the recent spending review announced up to £700 million extra for probation. That is a 45% uplift by the final year, the largest in history, because we are investing in what makes a difference; investing in what cuts crime and rehabilitates offenders; and investing to support the staff.

We are also making sure that our justice system operates on the principles of putting victims first, fairness and accountability. Clause 4 amends the statutory purposes of sentencing to reference protecting victims as part of public protection. The Bill will also go further than ever before to restrict offenders’ movements to protect victims. Victims of the most serious sexual or violent offenders should not have to worry about who they will run into when they go somewhere new. That is why Clause 24 allows probation to impose new restriction zones on the most serious offenders on licence. Clause 16 will allow courts to impose these new zones on offenders serving community or suspended sentence orders. They will be required to stay in a specific area, so that their victims can move freely elsewhere. The victim should have the freedom, not the perpetrator.

Clause 6 also introduces a new judicial finding of domestic abuse in sentencing. Probation will be able to identify abusers more easily, track patterns of behaviour, and put safeguards in place. This will improve risk management and further protect victims, and it is welcomed by victims’ groups.

These principles are also why we are progressing reforms to the Sentencing Council through the Bill. The council has undertaken valuable work and helped to bring greater consistency and transparency to the sentencing process. It also plays an important constitutional role, balancing interests across Parliament, government and the judiciary in sentencing policy and practice.

We are keen to support the council with its work. Following events in recent months, we are introducing a pair of measures that aim to maintain public confidence in its guidelines. Clause 18 introduces a requirement on the council to obtain the Lord Chancellor’s approval of its annual business plan before it can be published, and Clause 19 requires it to obtain approval from the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice for all sentencing guidelines. My officials will be working closely with their counterparts at the council to agree underpinning detail on the practicalities of both approval processes.

I took this role to help reform a system that I have been passionate about for most of my life. My colleagues and I have looked across the world for what works; these learnings are contained in the Bill. Brought together, these measures will bring stability and sustainability to our justice system. In that regard, there is no alternative. However, they do more than that. The Bill will make sure that we have prisons that work; a probation service that reforms offenders; and fewer victims. It will put our justice system on a footing fit for the future, one that prioritises victims, fairness and accountability and one that prioritises punishment that works. I urge noble Lords to support the Bill and the principles behind it. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, it is my pleasure to close the Second Reading debate on this vital Bill. I thank noble Lords for their contributions and thank those who have spoken to me privately. I will attempt to answer as many questions as possible, but what I do not cover I will follow up in writing. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for his speech. Yes, this Bill is about prison capacity, but it is also about how we can reform the system so it is sustainable, it is affordable and it works, so that we get fewer victims and a real focus on rehabilitation.

I turn first to IPP sentences. I acknowledge that many noble Lords and noble and learned Lords have raised this today, and it is important that their concerns are raised and discussed today. This Government are determined to make further progress towards a safe and sustainable release for those serving IPP sentences—but not in a way that undermines public protection. I put on record my thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his work with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, on recall and what we are still learning from that work.

The IPP action plan has contributed to an overall reduction in the IPP population over the last 12 months. As the Prison Reform Trust has said, we are seeing “modest but welcome progress”. For example, the unreleased prison population has reduced by around 14%, to 946 people in September 2025. After three years of quarterly increases, the recalled IPP prison population has fallen in every quarter for the last two years, from 1,652 to 1,476 as of 30 September this year. We have implemented changes to reduce the qualifying period for referral of an IPP sentence to the Parole Board and introduced a provision for automatic licence termination. These changes have reduced the number of people serving IPP sentences in the community by around two-thirds.

The revised action plan, published on 17 July, sets out where we intend to go further, including increasing access to release on temporary licence, expanding the approved premises pilot to improve resettlement support, and enabling swift re-release following recall through risk-assessed recall review when it is safe and appropriate to do so. I am determined to do all we can to support the remaining IPP offenders and their families. I am confident that our efforts will further benefit the IPP cohort. I will continue to engage with noble Lords, and I will continue to focus on developing new ways and improving existing plans to help IPPers have successful parole hearings, and to see fewer IPP recalls. My door is open, and I look forward to our next Peers’ meeting.

I turn to noble Lords’ points on the proposals in the Bill. The earned progression model was raised by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Burnett and Lord Thomas. I must begin by being clear about the context in which the Government have introduced these measures. The prison population is still rising too fast, and we simply cannot build our way out of the capacity crisis. Our new progression model, inspired by Texas and recommended by David Gauke, sets a minimum release point of one-third for those serving standard determinate sentences, which currently have an automatic release of 40% or 50%. For certain sexual and violent offences, the minimum will be 50%. But the most dangerous offenders—those on extended determinate sentences and life sentences—will be unaffected by the measures in the Bill and will remain in prison for as long as they do now. Following the changes in the Bill, there will still be more criminals in prison than ever before.

Under the progression model, if they play by the rules prisoners can earn an early release. If not, they can be locked up for longer—up to the end of their sentence. So if someone receives a six-year standard determinate sentence and they behave badly, they can serve that full six years in prison. Although I have heard the issues raised by noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, it is essential that this model can be implemented quickly and effectively through the established process for punishing bad behaviour and rule breaches in prison.

I was pleased to hear my noble friend Lord Bach welcome the earned progression model, as well as the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and the noble Lord, Lord Carter. I reassure noble Lords that I have spent a lot of time already discussing how the progression model will work. Although it is not an exact mirror of the Texas model, because of the capacity issues and the complexities that it could create, in the prison environment you essentially go up the hill—for bad behaviour, you stay in prison for longer—whereas in probation you go down the hill, so the quicker you do your community service, the quicker you finish your responsibility. We know that this needs to be tough, which is why we are doubling the maximum punishment of added time from 42 to 84 days per incident. The noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Prashar, rightly brought up the subject of adjudications. Again, that is something that I am looking into; they are right that they need to be absolutely robust and fair.

A number of noble Lords have raised short sentences, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, the noble Lords, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Marks, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and others. It is an important point. We are not abolishing short sentences. Judges will always have the power to send offenders to prison when they have breached a court order, where there is a significant risk of physical or psychological harm to a particular individual, or in exceptional circumstances. However, around 60% of adults sentenced for under a year reoffend within 12 months; a number of noble Lords recited similar facts about the ineffectiveness of short sentences. That is unacceptably high for victims and the public. The evidence shows that those given a community order or suspended sentence reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. We are following the evidence to reduce crime, leading to fewer victims and safer communities. I am also following the lead of the previous Government, who introduced this measure in their Sentencing Bill.

I have heard the points raised about the impact of these changes on victims. I reassure noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch, that victims are at the heart of this Bill. First and foremost, we fail victims if prisons run out of places entirely and crime goes without punishment. For me, victims must always come first—and we will publish the VAWG strategy shortly. We are imposing tough restriction zones that limit the movement of offenders, instead of limiting the movement of victims, and creating a new domestic abuse flag at sentencing so that domestic abusers are known to prison and probation services and their victims are better protected. We remain steadfast in our commitment to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. In addition to the measures in the Bill, we are continuing the provision of free sentencing remarks to victims of rape and sex offences, and expanding the use of specialist domestic abuse courts, with trained staff to support victims and more co-ordinated management of offenders.

I turn to the points that noble Lords raised about probation capacity and how the reforms in the Bill are being delivered. What is clear from by far the majority of speeches today is that noble Lords are well aware of the pressure on probation but also how powerful it is when you get this right and how fantastic the staff are. That is why I suspect that we will drill deeply in Committee into how the probation proposals work and what we can do to make sure that they are robust. The Probation Service is an indispensable part of the criminal justice system that keeps us safe, but the last decade has been a very challenging time. We have already taken significant steps to focus resources on the highest-risk and prolific offenders, where the evidence shows that probation can have the greatest impact. Earlier this year, we announced a package of measures to rebuild the Probation Service. By the final year of the spending review, our annual £1.6 billion spend on probation and community services will rise by up to £700 million—a 45% increase.

As was clear in the Gauke review, the third sector has a key role to play. We are indebted to so many wonderful organisations that are integral to the work of probation, and I agree that the longer-term funding models are the direction of travel that I would like to see. Although the detailed allocations of that money are to be finalised, I can say that my priorities are clear: more people in post; digital investment that saves time; and tools for probation to use, from increasing tagging to rehabilitation, so that offenders can have a chance to turn their lives around. This will make the job of our probation staff more manageable and more rewarding. I am hopeful for further conversations with noble Lords to give more clarity on probation funding in the days ahead.

Recruitment, retention and training of staff are high priorities for the Probation Service. The right reverend Prelate is clearly aware that we need to ensure that we have sufficient workforce to safely supervise and manage people in the community. This Bill includes several measures, such as welcoming the removal of post-sentence supervision, the introduction of a new probation requirement, and the termination of community orders once an offender has completed their sentence plan. These will streamline processes, enable probation to focus its efforts on those who pose the highest risk, and incentivise offenders to engage with rehabilitation.

The theme of incentivisation is something I feel very passionately about. Having run a business whereby I incentivised colleagues on the front line in shops to serve customers well, I believe—and I see it across the criminal justice system—that not all but many offenders respond to the right incentive at the right time, in their time in prison or on probation. We have gone further since the Bill’s introduction. The Deputy Prime Minister recently announced an expansion of Justice Transcribe, equipping 1,000 more probation officers with the technology that cuts administration and ensures staff can spend more time doing the thing they do best: working with offenders face to face to turn their lives around. We want to go further with this too. Probation staff who have been engaging with Justice Transcribe call it a game-changer and something they have been crying out for for years. It is an important part of our plan to modernise the service. A range of further digital and process improvements will transform the way in which probation staff work, and ensure that they can spend more time doing the things that they love doing.

I am confident that our overall package of investment, continued recruitment and modernisation puts us on a path to ensuring the sustainability of the service for the long term. I will continue to work closely with the Deputy Prime Minister to that end. I would be delighted to meet the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, to talk about a country that is dear to my heart and which I can see from my house: Wales.

I turn to electronic monitoring, which is a crucial means of managing offenders safely in the community. I thank noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Bailey of Paddington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Porter. The noble Lord, Lord Bailey, may not remember but, many years ago, we met at No. 10, and I would be delighted to carry on the conversation that we had then, which followed the very strong theme of his speech today.

The evidence is clear: tagging works. It provides clear and reliable proof of an individual’s whereabouts and behaviour. A recent study found that curfew tags reduce reoffending by 20% as part of a community sentence. Since their introduction in 2020, alcohol monitoring tags show no tamper and no alcohol consumed on 97% of the days worn as part of a community sentence. Currently, there are around 20,000 people on tags. We will increase this by up to 22,000 across court bail, community sentences and prison leavers, with many subject to curfews and exclusion zones.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Beith, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, the noble Baronesses, Lady Prashar and Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, raised the Sentencing Council. Judicial independence in making sentencing decisions is a fundamental constitutional principle. The Government have an important duty to secure public confidence in our criminal justice system, and Ministers are responsible for that. It is that balance that we seek to strike in arrangements for the Sentencing Council. We shall return to this in detail in Committee.

The issue of youth sentencing was raised strongly by my noble friend Lady Longfield. There are, and always should be, substantial differences in how children are treated in law compared with adults. The youth sentencing system must strike a right balance between public protection and the principles of justice, while accounting for children’s lesser maturity and protecting their welfare. This is why we will be reviewing the position on youth sentencing separately in the light of the changes that the Bill introduces.

I turn briefly to other points that were raised in the debate. The removal of remand for someone’s own protection does not form part of the remand measures in the Sentencing Bill. As my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti is aware, the Mental Health Bill proposes to end the use of remand for someone’s own protection, where the primary concern is the defendant’s mental health. I am open to hearing more on the general removal of remand for own protection.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, raised concerns about Clause 11. The clause does not remove the court’s sentencing powers. It is ultimately up to the court to determine whether to include this requirement when making a suspended sentence order or community order. Probation officers assess each individual’s risks and needs after sentencing. They are currently responsible for determining the volume of supervision required and, as such, are best placed to determine how many rehabilitative activities will be most effective. That is why this clause removes the court’s set activity days. This ensures that resources are used where they have the greatest impact in reducing reoffending and protecting the public.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, raised recall. Recall is, and will remain, an important risk management tool to protect the public and victims. We are going further than the review’s recommendations to introduce important safeguards. To protect the public and victims, certain offenders can receive only a standard recall. These offenders will be re-released by the Secretary of State or the Parole Board before the end of their sentence only if they meet the statutory release test.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Beith, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, raised concerns about Clause 35. I am sure that we can agree that people who commit crimes should show that they are giving back to society. I assure noble Lords that careful consideration has been given to how this is implemented and how wider impacts can be mitigated.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, that I am keen to discuss gambling and how we support addiction generally in the community. It is something that I am very passionate about too.

I would be delighted to meet the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, to discuss joint enterprise with my colleague, Minister Alex Davies-Jones, as it is her area of expertise within the Ministry of Justice.

This has been a wide debate, and I bow to the experience and expertise in the Chamber today. I and my officials will read Hansard carefully and, if I have missed anything in my response, we shall make sure to engage with your Lordships before and after Committee. I look forward to that. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time.

Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

That the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they consider the bill in the following order:

Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clauses 2 to 9, Schedule 2, Clause 10, Schedule 3, Clauses 11 to 27, Schedule 4, Clauses 28 to 31, Schedule 5, Clauses 32 to 47, Title.

Motion agreed.

Accidental Prison Releases

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, any release in error is one too many. Releases in error have been increasing for years and are another symptom of the justice system crisis inherited by this Government. The Ministry of Justice has already taken immediate steps, including introducing stronger release checks with more direct senior accountability, commissioning an independent review to tackle this issue, which has persisted for too long, and deploying a digital rapid response unit to all prisons to modernise release processes.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, for the absence of doubt, I am asking the Question in relation to Mr Brahim Kaddour-Cherif. Can the Minister please identify a timeline of, first, when officials were first notified of the accidental release of this gentleman, and, secondly, when the Secretary of State was first notified of his accidental release?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Both the Deputy Prime Minister and me were informed first thing on Wednesday morning when we woke up. The Deputy Prime Minister quite rightly thought it was irresponsible to potentially give incorrect information to Parliament. The information was changing rapidly and the Deputy Prime Minister did not want to mislead Parliament without all the details.

[Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister explain what, if any, impact the previous Government’s austerity measures and policies over a decade or more have had on the Prison Service today?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that important question. I have been visiting prisons and been interested in this area for 25 years, and with the previous Government I saw a lack of investment across the board. There are three specific areas. First, they did not build enough prisons and did not maintain the prisons that they had. Secondly, they reduced the staffing levels as part of austerity, to the extent that lots of very experienced staff left, and that was especially so in probation. Thirdly, and connected with errors on release, there was a lack of investment in digital technology to help our hard-working staff, who spend hours and hours with boxes of paperwork, when it would be far more efficient and accurate if they had digital support to help them.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, the two accidental releases from Wandsworth, together with that of Mr Kebatu, which we discussed recently, demonstrate a continuing and frankly pretty chaotic lack of co-ordination. Will the investigation by Dame Lynne Owens, announced after Mr Kebatu’s accidental release, now be widened to encompass all the release procedures throughout our prisons to prevent recurrence of these mistakes?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord will recognise that Dame Lynne Owens is a superb choice to do this investigation. I have already met with her, last week, to talk about the scope. She will be looking at the whole area of releases in error and is already visiting prisons and speaking to staff. I want to reassure the noble Lord about two things. First, in my book the staff who work in the offender management units are amazing. They have to do an incredibly complex, difficult job, with boxes of paperwork, and to make sure it is accurate when there are multiple opportunities for failure in the system. Secondly, this is not a quick fix. This has been getting worse for a number of years and it will take time to get it right.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

The Minister answered the second of my noble friend Lord Hayward’s questions, but he did not answer the first: when did officials first know?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am not aware of the exact details, but I am happy to write to the noble Lord when I get them.

[Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, what work is being done to improve prison officer training to reduce releases in error, as a matter of urgency and in the long term?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The Ministry of Justice has a programme called Enable, around how we develop the skills of our fantastic staff. In the short term, we have introduced new checklists that are more robust than ever and asked for duty governor sign-off on releases. We are investing more money in training for our staff. That is not just for staff who are joining the service; it is important that we invest in the staff who have been with us for some time. The offender management unit does complex work. I have spoken to governors who have been in the service for many years. When they look at the release checks that the offender management units must do, they cannot believe how much more complex it has become over the last few years.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I know that the Minister works extremely hard and is very knowledgeable about this subject. He and I have been cantering around this track for more than two decades. When I was last in opposition, in the 2000s, I was shadow Prisons Minister and visited 75 of the prisons, young offender institutions and so forth in England and Wales. Even though there was a Labour Government, nobody ever said that it was the Labour Government’s fault that people escaped. Can we have a little less of it being said that it is the last Government’s fault? In the 2000s, there were people escaping, there were high levels of suicide and high levels of violence against prison officers, and there was sewage flowing from the top floors of prisons into the lower floors. The whole estate was in a shambles and the staff in a state of low morale. Let us solve this problem together. The Minister and I know that this can be done. I ask him not to fall into the trap of reading out the Whip’s notes.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord and I know each other very well. I hope he knows that I have my own view on this, because, like him, I visit lots of prisons all the time. It is clear that our prisons need investment and that we need to build new prisons. Only last week I went to a new prison which will be opening in 2028. These are modern, highly efficient prisons that are there not just to keep the public safe but to rehabilitate people. The problem that we are trying to fix is a long-term problem. It is not just about buildings; it is about people and how we support our staff to deliver an amazing service in rehabilitating people so that when they leave prison they do not come back.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I visited HMP Wandsworth last Thursday and was told that there are about 2,000 releases every year from there. I was visiting the independent monitoring board. One of the issues that it raised with me was a review that is going on into the IMB process and the secretariat that supports the IMB. Does my noble friend agree that IMBs are vital? They tell truth to power, truth to Ministers and truth to the inspectorate. Will my noble friend write to me to tell me about the process of review of IMBs which is under way and assure me that the IMBs are fully valued?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that the independent monitoring boards in our prisons do a really vital job. In every prison I go to, I try to meet the IMB leaders—the chair—and last week I met the national chair of the IMBs, Elisabeth Davies, to talk through how their plans were going. I know they struggle on recruitment in certain prisons as well, but the work they do, walking the wings, speaking to prisoners and speaking to staff, is absolutely vital.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the Minister’s Answer to my noble friend Lord Hayward. He said that the information available to the Deputy Prime Minister was changing rapidly. What information was available to the Deputy Prime Minister after Prime Minister’s Questions that he did not have beforehand?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The Deputy Prime Minister did not have the accurate information, because the information was changing by the minute; but what was certain is that, when we knew exactly what the situation was, that is what we dealt with and we acted upon it.

We have 57,000 releases from prison—that was March 2024 to 2025. In Wandsworth, which my noble friend mentioned, there are 2,000 releases a year from that prison. So it is important that we get the information right, because we are often dealing with individuals with different aliases and with multiple convictions, and we need to make sure we get it right.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, 10 years ago, when I was reviewing deaths in prison, I spent some time looking at the intake arrangements, which are clearly important in terms of assessing the risk. In the best prisons, that was a very detailed process. Can the Minister tell us whether, in his experience, and not necessarily talking about this particular case, there is a wide variation between prisons in the detail with which they do the process of release, in terms of the information they collect and the information they check?

Secondly, can he tell us how good he feels about—whether this is another area that needs investment—the information flows that take place within prison to make sure that the officer doing the releasing knows precisely the status of individual prisoners and, indeed, which prisoner they are talking to?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. The checklists that we have made more robust are the same checklists across all prisons, but the number of releases per prison varies dramatically. HMP Gartree averages two releases a year, whereas, as I previously said, in Wandsworth it is 2,000. That is why the digital team last week went into HMP Wandsworth, to look at opportunities for some quick fixes to embrace digital technology.

The AI team went in and, to give a couple of examples, they thought that an AI chatbot would be really helpful, along with a cross-referencing for aliases, because we know some offenders have more than 20 aliases. We have given the team the green light to get on with examples like that.

The noble Lord is exactly right that this is about how we deal with this information, and how we make sure it is accurate when we are dealing with often very complex people in a very complex situation.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

Further to that answer, can the Minister confirm how many prisons still rely on manual, rather than digital, release date calculations, why that is so and what plans there are to move to a digital system?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The process is a mixture of paperwork and computers and digital. In an offender management unit, there are literally boxes and boxes of paperwork, all over desks and on the floor, that follow offenders around the various prisons that they go to.

My and the team’s solution is very much digitally based, but we need to make sure we link that across the whole justice system, and the Home Office as well, because a number of the errors can be caused not just in the prison but in the courts too. So, longer term, it has got to be right that we look at a digital solution across the whole justice sector.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, what assessment has the Minister made of the raising of the skilled workers visa threshold and its impact on the Prison Service, in view of the current difficulties?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

It is right that the Government want to bring down net migration, and we are supporting the staff who are affected. I have to say that the staff I have met do a fantastic job and we want to support them as much as we can.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, could I offer a revolutionary thought? Are we not sending too many people to prison who would be better off dealt with in some other way, particularly those who have serious mental illnesses?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The number of people going to prison has increased and the number in prison will increase, but that is because reoffending rates are too high. Too many people are leaving prison still addicted to drugs and alcohol. Too many people leave with nowhere to live and then reoffend and go back in the system. One area in which I am specifically interested, and which connects with that question, is around female offenders, because I believe from going round women’s prisons that too many women are there because they are victims themselves or because they are vulnerable and ill, and prison is not always the best place to support them and their families.

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I noted that two of the recent escapees were captured following information from members of the public. What does this say about public trust and confidence in the police and the importance of it?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the question. One of my roles over the last couple of weeks was to be on a number of calls with police colleagues, and it was clear to me what an incredible job they do and how well they link to colleagues at the Ministry of Justice, specifically on their day-to-day work in prisons. I often see police staff in the various prisons I visit and their role in probation is often overlooked. They work with us to ensure that people who stay on the right side of the law are still supported by police colleagues. In the work they have done with us over the last few weeks, their support has been incredible and we should be proud to have them as public servants.

Prison Services: Insourcing

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

On behalf of my noble friend Lord Woodley, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

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

This Government inherited a well-advanced plan to outsource contracts after a 2023 Cabinet Office assessment concluded that in-house capability was not sufficient to make insourcing viable. Insourcing would be reliant on retaining staff from current suppliers, but labour market constraints and public sector pay rates were not likely to be attractive. Outsource providers consistently exceed the targets set and outperform GFSL across the majority of KPIs. My job now is to ensure best value for money from these new contracts until 2031, when we will reconsider all options for future provision.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer. As a former trade union leader, I have seen time and again what privatisation does. The public end up paying a higher price for poorer-quality service while private profits soar. Prisons are no exception, with outsourced maintenance and education examples of a lack of value for public money. Retendering these contracts is, I believe, a mistake. Can my noble friend the Minister therefore instead make the case for the Prison Service to benefit from a wave of insourcing?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The decision to outsource maintenance contracts was based on a detailed Cabinet Office assessment that concluded that the MoJ did not have the in-house capability to deliver the desired services, and that achieving this in the same timescale would have been costly and would not offer value for money to the taxpayer. Our intention is to look at the options of insourcing again in 2031. The majority of core teaching is delivered by public sector organisations and many smaller organisations, including voluntary sector providers, are delivering bespoke, locally commissioned courses. This diversity of expertise gives flexibility to meet the needs of prisoners, ensuring they have the skills they need to succeed. I will ensure that we continue to drive for innovation and improvements in the way we deliver education, including the role of digital, in achieving the best outcomes for prisoners.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s Government were elected on a promise of 50% of all food being sourced locally to prisons, hospitals, schools and other such local bodies. How close are they to meeting that target?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will be pleased to know that the prison industry actually grows £1.7 million in value of our own vegetables and fruit. We also do laundry services for all prisons, as we do for immigration removal centres and the police service. We also make everything there is in a prison cell apart from TVs, which we fix, mattresses, which we are working on, and kettles and pillows—but we are working on how to do that ourselves. We are trying to do an awful lot in-house, but there is more to be done.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that there are two particular areas that might benefit from insourcing when the review is undertaken? One area is tagging: this could easily be undertaken within prisons by prison staff. Numbers of prisoners have been released untagged into the community, causing risk to the public and potentially leading to unnecessary recalls when appointments are subsequently missed. The other area is prisoner transport to courts, where frequent failures have led to multiple court delays and increased backlogs. Could this too be better organised within the prison system?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises two important points, which I have been very focused on since I took on this role. I am a commercial person, so I have been interested in getting into the detail on this. On PECS—the prisoner transport contracts—the performance levels are exceptionally high but, when things go wrong, often it is not down to the PECS providers; it is down to our own self-inflicted problems at the prison. With regard to electronic monitoring, we inherited a problematic contract and, although it is performing much better now, there is still some way to go. Serco’s leadership team has been in my office a number of times and we are working really well together. I recently visited its Warrington office and saw its performance, which really is improving. What we need to do is get to a point where the service that it delivers is excellent.

[Lord Woolf (CB)]

My Lords, is it not the Minister’s experience that prisons are unlike the outside world and, as I found when I was giving my report into prisons, it is very important to understand those differences? Is there not a danger, if we do not continue to allow prisons to look after their own affairs, wherever possible, that they will not be looked after even as well as they are now?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I can only play the ball that is in front of me. What I am trying to do is to make sure that our prisons run excellently. It is very much a hybrid model of the voluntary, private and public sectors. I will give the noble and learned Lord one good example. We imprison lots of people who have skills we could use in a prison, and it is important that we use more of them. We have two schemes—one called Q-Branch, the another called CRED—operating in 70 prisons, where about 750 prisoners are employed each month. In HMP Lewes, the team repainted and sorted out all the floors, saving huge amounts of money. So I want to see more prisoners doing more work in prisons.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that publicly managed prisons are not delivering better rehabilitation outcomes than privately managed prisons?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord raises a really important question on how the performance differs between public and private sector prisons. It is something I have been interested in for a long time. I can show you some excellent private sector prisons and some excellent public sector prisons, and I think we need to learn from each other where we have areas of excellence and of poor performance. One thing I look out for is the quality of leadership in a prison. It does not matter whether it is a public sector prison or a private sector prison. I believe that too much of the performance of a prison is dependent on one leader, and that is the situation in both types of prison.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister says that the Prison Service has not got the capacity at the present time. Will he take between now and when the new contract is due to go out again to build capacity in the Prison Service, so that it can actually compete with the private sector?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord will be well aware that we have lots of maintenance issues in our prisons, 25% of which are Victorian. In HMP Preston, the first governor was appointed in 1790, and in 1791 at HMP Lewes. Dealing with the maintenance on those is very complex and often requires a hybrid model, because we are dealing with lifts, fire systems and often very complicated things. In December last year, we published our 10-year capacity strategy, which aims to make sure we have enough prison places for the prisoners that we will hold.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, prisons are not devolved to Wales, but education is. To what extent is there full co-operation between the Home Office and the Welsh Government, with regard to maximising the role that the educational services, under the Welsh Senedd, can play in education in Welsh prisons?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Across the English and Welsh prisons, we have 270 local contracts, with 88 education suppliers, including many voluntary organisations. I have regular meetings and conversations with Welsh colleagues as well. Even though I live just over the border in England, when I wake up in the morning and open my curtains, I can see a Welsh prison: HMP Berwyn.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I urge the Minister to draw on local government experiences around private provision and insourcing. I think what is really important is how the contract is drawn up and—more importantly—how that contract is managed, to make sure that we get the best outcomes for our prisoners, so they are rehabilitated when they come out of prison, and also so there is value for taxpayers.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I completely agree. Having run a business for a long time, and paid a lot of tax, I am very aware that I want it spent wisely. Let me give one example: BT does the majority of our phone contracts in our prisons, for prisoners to make calls to family and friends. I managed to reduce the cost of those calls by 20% by working with BT, and I think holding suppliers to account is part of my job. Maybe they do not like to come and sit in my office, but they frequently do and I challenge them to ensure we get good value for money.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister quite rightly mentioned the importance of leadership. Did he see a recent report regarding two prison governors, who put out a statement saying they were going to introduce drugs-free wings? Why are there drugs in prisons? Surely it is an absolute aberration for governors to be talking in those terms. We should be removing all drugs from prisons.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that drugs are a huge problem: 49% of prisoners who arrive in prison declare to us that they are addicted to drugs and alcohol. We then put them in prison with many serious organised criminals, who make their livelihood from supplying drugs. That is where we have the problem. We need more drug-free living wings. They are important and they help people turn their lives around. I also agree that we need to trust our governors and our leaders in prisons to make the right decisions for their prisoners.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are clearly very fortunate to have my noble friend the Minister in this vital role, with his commercial and prison-reform expertise. Following the intervention made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, when the Minister is considering the 2031 review, will he think not just about the commercial, value-for-money aspects but about the constitutional aspects of privatised incarceration and coercion as well?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. What is really important is that we make sure that we hold all operators to account between now and 2031. This applies to us, running 115 prison sites, and to the private sector. Hopefully there will be announcements soon on the direction we will be going in.

Adult Prison Estate: Support for Young People

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to mitigate the reduced support for young people moving from the Youth Custody Service into the adult prison estate.

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

Transition from the youth to the adult estate is a critical time and needs to be managed with care and thought for the safety of the young person. The transitions policy framework is a guide for all practitioners to ensure that the transition is focused on the needs of the individual, so that when they arrive in the adult prison estate it leads to a safe and positive outcome.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am encouraged by his support for rehabilitation and for reducing reoffending by young offenders. The state helps to look after looked-after children until they are 25, recognising that the effects of every young adult’s immaturity are amplified by adversity, family trauma and intense relational insecurity. Young adults in custody often face very similar challenges. Without excusing crime, how could boys’ entry into the adult estate be more trauma-informed to mirror how girls are treated? Also, could genuinely supportive relationships—such as peer-to-peer buddy schemes, including from the very good staff who were at the YCS—be maintained until they fully transition, to help young adults navigate the relational jungle that is the adult estate?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord does amazing work in this area and I appreciate his focus on it. The trauma-informed approach is well established for the transition of women within the justice system. Stephanie Covington and others have been great on training staff. We now need to train more in the youth estate for boys and the male estate for men. That is where the Enable programme comes in. It is rolling out now; it is in five prisons at the moment and it will be the basis of training a trauma-informed approach.

It is also important to understand the complexities of young people. As someone who was brought up in a foster family with lots of young people with challenges, I know that how they transition to adulthood and the adult estate is really important. Synaptic pruning, with the connections between brain cells and how they change through adolescence, is important, as is attachment theory. Peer mentoring when someone moves from the youth estate to the adult estate, with officers following them through there and someone who meets them at the gate and makes sure they are settled in well, is equally important.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme plays a significant role in the transition the Minister has spoken about. Can he tell us a bit more about the role that that very well-respected awards scheme plays?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

As someone who did a little bit of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme many years ago, and not very well, I would say that it is great to see it working well in prisons. It has been going for some time in the youth estate, but it never followed through into the adult estate. However, since 2020 it has expanded to the estate for those under 25 and is now operating in 38 adult establishments. It improves young people’s confidence and teamwork and their relationships with fellow prisoners and the adults who take them on. The volunteers who work on the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award are fantastic. If noble Lords go to Wetherby, they may well see young offenders working at local food banks, litter picking and at the Boston Spa church, all under the Duke of Edinburgh scheme.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, since the 2022 policy framework, decisions on the actual age for transition from the youth estate to adult prisons appear to have been made largely on grounds of prison capacity rather than individual need. Should not transition planning be based largely on the need for continuity of courses and vocational training? Can the noble Lord say what plans there may be to ensure flexibility in the age of transition and the timing of transfers, to meet young people’s individual needs for training and programmes?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises a very important question, because the transition from the youth estate to the adult estate can be a point of great concern, both for those who work within the secure establishment and for young people themselves. We have a complex case panel, which works on the best solution for that individual, including how we manage the risks and the opportunities for them. Sometimes, children stay beyond 18 for a few months, if they need to finish off various courses or if probation officers feel it is the right thing for them to do. But another important thing is that we have enough capacity in the adult estate to ensure that, when it is appropriate that they move into the adult estate, we have a suitable prison for them to go to.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the recent briefing from the Alliance for Youth Justice highlights that there is at present no clear rationale or effective policy for young adults moving into the adult estate, and that transitions are not being handled on a case-by-case basis. Can the Minister explain what immediate plans the Government have to improve the transition policy framework and to introduce a more structured, needs-based transition process, so that over-18s leaving youth custody receive the support they require in the adult estate?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord is right to raise the transition point, because complex case panels work on where the best place for that individual to go is, but, when they arrive in the adult estate, it is also about who looks after them to ensure that the transition is successful. We have some young adults in prison who have been there from the age of 14; they have very long sentences, and to move to an adult prison can be traumatic and could lead to a big deterioration in their behaviour. That is where it comes down to training and making sure, through the Enable programme, that we pilot and push through how we teach and train staff to manage that transition carefully, because there is more work to be done. We also need to learn from all the academic research that is coming through, while working with organisations such as Switchback and the Transition to Adulthood alliance, which do fantastic work, because we need to keep learning from their expertise.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted that this issue is being taken so seriously and that the developments are so positive, but can the noble Lord comment on whether there is a small proportion of people who should go from youth services to special hospitals, because of mental health issues, rather than straight to an adult prison?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Let me take the example of the female prison population. Young adult women aged 18 to 25 make up 12% of the female prison population, but they account for just under 50% of all instances of self-harm. For me, that is a very distressing figure. What was clear from going round women’s prisons, as I have done recently, is that I saw a lot of young women there who I believe are very ill, and it is about how we support them. It may be that prison is the right place for them, but it may be that we need to support them in a secure hospital environment that will help them manage their issues as well.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for all his answers so far. Is he aware—I am embarrassed that I was not—that people can still be remanded in custody, even pending trial for a non-custodial offence, for their own protection? This has a disproportionate effect on children and women. Will the Government consider abolishing that provision?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. I am not aware of the detailed numbers of young people in that position, but I do know that the number of children in prison has fallen considerably over the last few years. There are 461 children in prison today: just a few years ago, we had over 1,000. But we need to make sure that we always have a place in prison for those people who need to be there and that, where we can divert young people away from prison, we do so.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, the age when young people transfer from the youth system to the adult system is precisely the age when they are most trying to identify themselves and understand their faith and spirituality. Prison chaplains do an excellent job across the youth estate. Could the Minister give us some hints as to how they might be better supported and resourced to prepare young people at that time of transition, both in their lives and in the prison estate?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am sure that the right reverend Prelate will be pleased to know that only last week I met up with the head chaplain of the Prison Service to talk about a very similar topic. The role of prison chaplains in a prison or custodial environment is very widely spread. The time they have to talk to people, often one on one and in a very confidential and safe place, is important. I have met and employed a number of people from prison who had their lives turned around by a chaplain. It is important that we get more opportunities for chaplains and other members of religious groups to speak to prisoners when they are there.

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise the Minister’s great commitment to this subject and appreciate his comments on the fact that young people do not mature at the same age—it has nothing to do with their calendar age—and on the needs, vulnerability and learning problems of these children as they face the cliff edge of going from youth custody into adult prison. Can the Minister comment on the introduction of behaviour management systems? Much has been made of this, but intense violence is one of the aspects that intimidates young offenders and young prisoners and sets them right back.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Some 68% of children in custody are there for serious violent offences and 11% are sentenced to life. So we are dealing with what experts tell me is an increasingly complex and violent group of young people. That is why, unfortunately, we have had to add PAVA spray as one of the options to protect staff from prisoners and prevent serious injury and even loss of life in our prisons. However, I can assure your Lordships’ House that the staff who work in our youth estate are passionate about helping children turn their lives around.

Prisoner Release Checks

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the thanks of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, to the authorities that finally apprehended and deported Mr Kebatu, and, indeed, the sympathy that he expressed to the young victim of Mr Kebatu’s offending.

The Secretary of State’s Statement was made on Monday 27 October, following Mr Kebatu’s mistaken release into the community on Friday 24 October. I fully understand the Secretary of State’s inability on Monday to give full details of what happened, but, with two further days, I ask how much more the Minister can say about how this mistaken release actually happened.

As we have heard, the Secretary of State apparently said that he was livid and he described the release as a blunder—and we accept entirely that he was right in both those things—but saying so solves nothing. At least there is now to be an inquiry into how Mr Kebatu came to be released and what the failures were, to be chaired by Dame Lynne Owens, former Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and Director-General of the National Crime Agency. But setting up an inquiry does not solve the problem, nor does it answer the central questions that Parliament and the public are entitled to have fully answered now. First, what is the system and what are the safeguards currently in place for ensuring that only prisoners intended for release are in fact released? Secondly, what is the system and what are the safeguards for ensuring that prisoners destined for deportation are in fact deported and not released into the community?

As the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, said, the issue of mistaken releases is serious—and it is as serious as it is absurd. The number of mistaken releases has risen sharply: between April 2024—I remind the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, that that was before the general election—and March 2025, it rose to 262 in a year, up from 115 the previous year, an increase of well over double. But this is a problem that simply should not exist at all. We are now told that a new checklist has been introduced for prison staff to follow before a prisoner is released. How can there not have been a satisfactory checklist system in place before this occurred?

Certainly, morale and the ability of the Prison Service to cope have fallen to an abysmal level, but that is not entirely the fault of this Government—it has happened over years under the previous Conservative Government. But this case and these figures demonstrate the scale of the challenges that the service and the Government face if we are even to approach getting these things right, and the resources and willpower required to repair our collapsed penal system, which are far greater than ever we envisaged.

There is the further issue of the £500. We now hear from the BBC that Mr Kebatu was paid £500 apparently for not making trouble and not disrupting his deportation to Ethiopia after he had threatened to do so. We are told that the payment was made by the removal team as an alternative to a slower and more expensive process that would have meant the cancellation of his flight and the arrangement of a new one. That is according to a spokesperson for the Prime Minister.

Apparently, a parallel was drawn by No. 10 with the so-called facilitated return scheme, whereby a foreign national who agrees to leave the UK voluntarily can be paid £1,500 so to do. That is an entirely false parallel that was drawn. Apparently, Mr Kebatu had attempted to apply for the facilitated return scheme but was not permitted to do so. No doubt that was because he was liable to be immediately deported anyway, quite apart from the embarrassment that all this caused. I ask the Minister to confirm that and to answer questions about that payment.

How did that payment to Mr Kebatu come to be made, since it was not under the facilitated return scheme? Is there some kind of what can only be described as a slush fund that can be used to buy people’s compliance with their deportation? If so, on whose authority is it expended? One can understand that it might cost a great deal more than £500 if a flight has to be cancelled and a potential deportee cannot therefore be deported, but surely Downing Street can see that paying off one deportee for not making trouble will lead to a whole number of others taking the same course.

Who makes the decisions in any particular case? What controls are there over such payments? How is this not rewarding troublemaking? Who decides in any given case the amount that is to be paid out, if not £1,500? Is it discretionary? Can it be more? Must it be less? These are serious questions about what I am afraid has the smell of being an arbitrary, uncontrolled, unprofessional and unacceptable system. Will the Minister please explain?

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

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Wolfson and Lord Marks, for their contributions on these incredibly important issues. I will of course respond to as many of the points raised as possible.

I begin by thanking the Metropolitan, Essex and British Transport Police for their swift response in apprehending Mr Kebatu. My particular thanks go to Essex Police for the support they have offered to the victims, all of whom were contacted following the release in error. I can tell noble Lords that Mr Kebatu has now been deported and arrived back in Ethiopia this morning; nevertheless, his victims are, rightly, outraged and the Government regret the hurt and anguish this incident will have caused them. They deserve better, the public deserve better, and, as the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary said in the other place on Monday, Ministers expect better from a public service which plays a huge role in the first duty of any Government, to keep the public safe.

We are clear that any release in error is one too many. Immediate changes have been made to the release process so that there is more senior accountability, including a new checklist for duty governors to complete the night before releases happen. Noble Lords who have concerns about the arrangements currently in place should be in no doubt that these are the strongest release checks the Prison Service has ever had. This incident will throw releases in error into stark relief, but the reality is that they have been rising year on year since 2021. In 2023, there were around nine per month, but by the period January to June 2024, that had increased to 17 per month. This is clearly too high and we have work to do.

While I appreciate that noble Lords will be concerned that more focus is needed to address the issues, we have now commenced an independent investigation. It will be led by Dame Lynne Owens, with her years of experience as a former deputy commissioner of the Met and director-general of the National Crime Agency. Dame Lynne will establish the facts in this case, and the Government have been clear that there must be accountability for what happened. What I will say is that prison staff work incredibly hard, often in difficult circumstances, so we will of course take account of the training and technology available to support the release process when the incident took place. What is important now is that due process is allowed to happen. In addition, Dame Lynne will make recommendations to support the Prison Service to avoid such errors in the future. I look forward to receiving her report so that the Government can agree changes as soon as possible with HMPPS’s senior leadership.

When it comes to foreign national offenders, this Government stand on our record. In the year to July, we sent 5,179 FNOs back to their countries of origin, which represents a 14% increase on the previous 12-month period. This is no small feat. In July, I visited HMP Huntercombe to see for myself the operational challenges around foreign national offenders, the deportation delays and the ongoing issue of space inside prisons. As I have set out to noble Lords many times, our prisons continue to operate close to their maximum capacity. This puts us at risk of a total collapse of the criminal justice system, in which victims and the public would pay the price. With the prison system in its current state, it is, sadly, no surprise that releases in error such as that of Mr Kebatu can happen.

This Government have been clear about the changes needed to create a better, more sustainable prison system. The Sentencing Bill that is currently making its way through the other place and will soon come to your Lordships’ House will ensure that we never run out of prison places again. It will incentivise offenders to behave in prison to avoid longer spells in custody and put a greater emphasis on robust community sentencing which addresses the causes of crime. The Bill will deliver punishment that works to cut crime and keep the public safe. To those noble Lords who are concerned that Mr Kebatu would never have gone to prison under the Bill and would therefore have remained in the community, I gently point out that they may wish to examine Clause 42 of the legislation, which will extend the automatic deportation rules to include any FNO who gets a suspended sentence of at least 12 months.

On a few points that were raised by both noble Lords, the £500 that was paid was an operational decision to get Kebatu on a plane without any delays. It was far cheaper than booking more flights, and far cheaper than him being in a cell for another year, which would cost £54,000. I also think that it was a sensible decision by civil servants: to use a golfing analogy, if someone wants to give you a putt, you take it. He needed to get on a plane and get back to Ethiopia. As for Mr Kebatu returning to the prison five times, this will be part of Dame Lynne Owens’ investigation into what exactly happened.

The reference by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, to Pentonville is quite right. Immediately after the notification, I visited the prison and there were 10 releases that were incorrect: all of them had remained in prison for too long. There are problems at that prison, which we are addressing, and I am working on an action plan with colleagues, but it is clear that this is symptomatic of a prison system that is under a huge amount of pressure. I reiterate that prison education budgets are actually up by 3%, but the amount of education we can deliver has gone down because of the increased cost of delivering that service. As the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, will know, I cannot pre-empt the annual publication of these statistics. We are a lot more transparent than the previous Government, especially on the early release scheme, where 10,000 offenders were released in a cloak and dagger way. With the SDS40 scheme that we took on, we very much told everybody what was going on.

I reiterate to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that the extra checks that I insisted on will make sure that release processes are far more robust. Far from being soft on crime, this Government are taking the robust decisions needed to protect the justice system. Prisons are and have been in crisis for far too long, but we are putting in the work to build stability. Victims are and always will be our paramount concern when it comes to an issue such as this, and this Government stand on our record of deporting increasing numbers of foreign national offenders, as the public expect.

Again, I thank the two noble Lords for their contributions today and I will continue to engage with them and colleagues more broadly on this important issue as the Government address releases in error so that we can continue to uphold our first duty, to keep the public safe from harm.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I note that the Statement directly addresses strengthening prison release checks, but I put to the Minister that it is important to look at this in the broader context of the Home Office. I note that on Radio 4 this morning there was a list of schemes and programmes within the Home Office that are going wrong. The police national computer system replacement is six years late; the biometrics project is seven years late; and the emergency services communication system is a decade late and £3 billion over budget. Now, since the Conservative Front Bench did not, I will fully acknowledge that this is a situation that the current Government inherited; they cannot be held responsible for what arrived on their desk, but I read in this Statement about the extra checks, the new systems and governors that have been put into prisons to try to stop these releases going wrong.

We know that the reasons there have been problems with so many computer systems within the Home Office is that the rules have kept being changed and the problems with the quality of the data going into these systems have not been properly acknowledged. Can the Minister assure me that the Government are taking full account of the weakness of the Home Office and its systems overall, and the level of chaos that they inherited? Is it not time to think about a big restructure—a potential splitting up of a Home Office that is very clearly not working?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Decisions such as on the noble Baroness’s last point are far above my pay grade, but I shall just mention two points. First, on release in error, any release in error is far too many and there is clearly a problem here that needs to be addressed. My style is very much, “Let’s deal with it and let’s work out what the problems are”, and I think that the investigation that Dame Lynne Owens will do will be very helpful as part of that process.

On the question of data, and making sure that we are effective and accurate in the work that we do, I spend a lot of time focusing on how we can embrace technology to ensure that, specifically, the Prison and Probation Service—which I know is within Justice, not the Home Office—has the ability to get things done more accurately and enables front-line staff to focus on what they do best, which is to rehabilitate people, not to fill out forms. Justice Transcribe—which uses AI to dictate what happened in a meeting with an offender, rather than the probation officer having to spend an hour writing it down afterwards—may sound like a very straightforward addition but is making a big difference already, saving hours of probation officers’ time. As someone who has come here from the commercial world, I am convinced that the more we embrace technology to enable our front-line staff to deliver excellent public services, the better.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his explanation about the £500, which has been all over the media and was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. It makes eminent sense that this was an operational decision; it has saved vast amounts of money and enabled this vile person to be put on a plane and got out of our country as soon as possible. I very much hope that my noble friend’s answer will be picked up in the media to counter some of the contrary stories that have been out there today.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her comment. We need to make sure that we support our operational civil servants on the front line—whom we trust with a huge amount of responsibility—when they make a sensible and commercial decision such as this one.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his response to this Statement. He has already said more than once from the Dispatch Box that any release in error is one too many. Can he say whether we have a timeframe for Dame Lynne Owens’s report so that we can think about when we might return to this? I hope that we will be able to see a significant decrease. The notion of the checklist, used extensively in medicine and increasingly in other places, is a thoroughly good idea, and I am sure that it will make a huge difference.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Dame Lynne Owens is going to start immediately. We hope to get the report back within eight weeks. She will be covering the facts of the case and will establish what went on. She will consider all our operational policies and whether they are fit for purpose, and make recommendations on how we can reduce the number of releases in error. Peers will have the opportunity to scrutinise the recommendations that she puts forward.

[Lord Massey of Hampstead (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s assurance that changes will be made to the release process to ensure accountability at the highest level in the prison—which is, of course, the governor. As we observe the rising error rate, which seems to be accelerating, and the rather ad hoc decision to give the deportee £500 to take his plane, does it give the Minister pause to wonder about the quality of training, and possibly management, of front-line staff in the prison system today?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

It is a very good question about the training of our front-line staff—and our leadership, not just in prisons but in probation. I was fortunate that, before I was offered this job, I did a review for the previous Government into prison officer training. It was clear that there was lots of good training going on, but we really needed to up our game. Now I am in this job—and I will be at the allocations meeting coming up soon—this is something I want to get done. It is about not just improving the length of prison officers’ training when they join the service—that needs to be longer—but what and how they are taught. Let me give the noble Lord one example. We teach prison officers how to restrain prisoners who are being aggressive and potentially dangerous. We do that well, but we also need to teach them how to de-escalate problems by using the skills of talking and understanding the situation so that they can avoid using physical means. There is an awful lot more that needs to be done, and I will be interested to know whether Dame Lynne Owens talks about training in her report; I suspect she will, and I will happily take it on board.

Education in Prisons

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons A review of work and training provision in adult prisons, published on 13 October, regarding the impact of cuts to education in prisons.

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

We inherited a crisis in our justice system and I am passionate and focused on providing good education and work opportunities, which are vital to prisoner rehabilitation. The education budget has not been cut—in fact, it has increased by 3%—but many prisons will face reduced delivery due to rising costs, while others will see an increase. We are focused on maximising value from new education services and expanding work opportunities through employer partnerships.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I chair the Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee, and our recent report on prisoners made clear that we want to see a much wider range of education opportunities in our prisons, for more people, to help reduce reoffending and to make the public safer. As the Minister clearly said, he entirely agrees with that principle, but he has to accept, as the Chief Inspector of Prisons made very clear, that the current provision of education in our prisons is woefully inadequate. As the Minister pointed out, some provision of education in prisons is being reduced by as much as 50%. Can he at least assure us that, in addition to all the improvements in efficiency that he wants to make, he is lobbying hard for increased funding to pay for that much-needed education provision?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord and I share the ambition for our prisons to be places where people turn their lives around, and education has a big part to play in that. We are making progress. In five prisons, we have the working week happening now—31 hours of purposeful activity. This year, 10% more prisoners participated in education compared to last year, which is really good. Our reading strategy is now in every prison, and the third sector is involved in that. I am a big believer that we need to strongly manage contracts. As I said last week, there are too many classrooms with teachers but not enough prisoners. We need to see more of them. I have also changed the word “education” in our prisons to “skills academy”, thinking that that would appeal more to our prisoners who did not have a good experience of education. I saw that last week in HMP Hindley, where I had positive feedback from the staff and prisoners.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned reading, but he knows that nearly 70% of people entering prison are assessed as having numeracy levels below that of a primary school child. This both hinders rehabilitation and increases recidivism. Is the Minister aware of Shannon Trust’s model of support? It uses peer mentoring to teach maths to prisoners who would not engage with traditional education. It is a model that can take place outside normal structures and reach parts of the prison that formal education cannot. What assessment have the Government made of this model of support and how might they provide further support to Shannon and other charities to roll it out more widely?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am a big fan of the Shannon Trust. It does fantastic work in many prisons and I would like to see more of it. A number of other third-sector organisations play an equally important role: Storybook Dads is one that I have been interested in for a long time, and the National Literacy Trust does really good work as well. The role of peer mentoring is important. Often, fellow prisoners and volunteers are the people who turn someone’s life around. I have employed many people from prison who did not come out of prison with great reading and maths but who were inspired by somebody who helped them to turn their lives around. The role of the Shannon Trust and others is crucial.

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, as has been said, prison education is in a dire state. That is very clear from the report. Why have the contracts just been re-awarded to the same failing providers that are responsible for the mess? Rather than shoring up their profits, surely we should look at the advice being given by prison educators and the trade union UCU, which is calling for these contracts to be brought back in- house, for a standardised curriculum and standardised employment practices.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is aware that we are very reliant on fantastic teachers and educators in our prisons. For me, they are some of the finest public servants. They come in, day in, day out, in often very difficult circumstances. The government procurement situation is something that I am still trying to get my head around, coming from the commercial sector. It takes a little longer and is often more expensive than I would expect. We have more than 500 suppliers delivering education services in our prisons; I want to ensure that they deliver them to a high quality and that we hold them to account.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, when asked last week why the Government were abandoning their manifesto commitment to reduce reoffending through access to prison education, the Minister replied:

“We are rebalancing because some prisons had an oversupply of education”.—[Official Report, 14/10/25; col. 165.]


Given that His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons has just found that education provision is atrocious, will the Minister now tell us how many prisons he believes have an oversupply of education provision?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I met the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, yesterday, and we discussed exactly this situation. We discussed, for example, Manchester prison, which used to have over 1,000 prisoners and now has, I think, about 650 to 700. That is why we have reduced the amount of money being spent on education in prisons such as Manchester, because there are just fewer prisoners. The noble and learned Lord is correct that it is about reducing reoffending. We have to focus on that, and education has an important part to play. But it is not just about being in a classroom. When I go and visit prisons, what is more important to the men and women I meet there is them learning a skill so that, when they are out, they can get a job, which means they stay out of prison. Last week, I visited a workshop at Lowdham Grange, where they were making sofas—on which a number of Members of your Lordships’ House probably sit on a regular basis—and a fantastic bricklaying workshop. It is not just about education but about learning skills for jobs on release.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord.

Does the Minister accept that the damage done in individual institutions by cuts in education and skills training is compounded by the effect of the churn going on in the prison population at the moment, meaning that many prisoners are in individual institutions for short periods of time before they are moved to another institution? That is very damaging to the effect, which the Minister was talking about, of having the encouragement to change.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I completely agree. Stability is really important. That is one of the things that I am trying to get into the system. The Sentencing Bill that will come to your Lordships’ House has a real focus on stability. The noble Baroness will know from her fantastic work in prisons that you want to be able to work with an individual for a long period of time to help them turn their life around. When I went to Eastwood Park, a women’s prison just north of Bristol, the average number of days a woman is there is 46. That is just not long enough to support them with their often significantly complex needs.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I acknowledge the Minister’s personal commitment to purposeful training within prisons and the contribution that he has made to providing work to prisoners who have been released, but there are 10 serious concerns identified in this report. Could the Minister say to the House what concrete and specific measures the Government are proposing to take in, say, the next six months to address the more serious of these 10 concerns?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I was clear when I started in this role that it is going to take time to fix what is a complex and troublesome system. Therefore, I cannot say exactly what I can achieve in the next six months. However, I am very clear that we need stability, and staff who are trained to deliver a safe and secure environment. From a position of education, it is important that staff have enough prisoners in their classrooms to teach. All too often, due to regime issues, security issues and so on, we have too many examples—as I saw on my prison visit to Hindley on Thursday—where people are locked up 22 hours a day. That is part of our inheritance but something I am having to deal with. I am addressing it in exactly the same way I addressed how I ran my business: focus, delivery and making sure I get accountability from the teams that are passionately engaged in what we are trying to do.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the omissions from the report from the group of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is that there is no mention of AI. AI provides us with an opportunity for low-cost training, education and rehabilitation. Could the Minister say that, within the next six months, action will be taken to advance AI in prisons? You can engage prisoners more with AI than with traditional means. Maybe we could try to get some of the tech companies that are not paying tax to come in, working on a joint basis, and do some work in prisons to achieve the kind of objectives the Minister is seeking.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. In over 70% of the meetings I have, AI is mentioned. Often, it is mentioned as a way that will solve problems much further down the line, but it is about how we can embrace it now to get the advantage of it. Digital learning is important in prisons and something that we need to push further on. There is a product called Launchpad, which is in people’s cells. It is basically an iPad-type device that they can learn, read and educate themselves on. There is a business called Coracle Inside that supplies lots of iPads and laptops to prisons. I recently was part of a “Dragons’ Den”, where a number of tech companies came to present some really interesting ideas, and a number of them mentioned AI in their presentation.