Imprisonment for Public Protection (Re-sentencing) Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, my contribution to this important debate, as part of the “odd bunch” mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, will be brief. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Woodley on bringing this Bill to your Lordships’ House and on his remarkable speech.

During the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Act, there were many well-informed and impassioned speeches on IPP prisoners from all sides of the House, as there have been this morning. Many speeches referenced the remarks of a previous Lord Chancellor that the continuing situation of IPPs was a “stain” on our criminal justice system. We know this, given the levels of mental distress, self-harm and suicide among IPP prisoners. As many have said, hope has been extinguished from their lives. I hope that my own MP, Andy Slaughter, as the chair of the Justice Committee in the other place, will urge action on this.

I wish to make two brief points. First, significant voices have been raised to say that a resentencing exercise is the only fair and just way of dealing with the situation for IPP prisoners. These voices include Dr Alice Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, and the House of Commons Justice Committee report in 2022, which described the IPP sentence as “irredeemably flawed”. The committee proposed in this Bill would provide the structure and parameters to ensure that an effective and fair way forward could be found for dealing with this situation.

Secondly, talk from Governments—both the previous Government and, regrettably, up until now, the current Government—about resentencing not being appropriate abjectly fails to recognise and accept that it is the state that has extinguished hope in these prisoners. The state must therefore act to restore hope and address the most egregious of injustices. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to say something about this in his response.

My noble friend Lord Woodley has done this House, this Government and this justice system a service in bringing forward this Bill. I wish it speedy passage to the statute book. I look forward to voting for the helpful amendments which will come forward in Committee.