Prisoners: Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, as I just said, the Government will consider all the recommendations in the report. I should like to make clear that recall does not necessarily happen for trivial reasons. There are quite severe tests to be met for a recall. As far as the resentencing exercise and the panel itself are concerned, the Government will consider all the suggestions in the report, including those suggestions, and report back to the Justice Select Committee by the end of November.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, MPs and noble Lords from all parts of both Houses have welcomed the excellent Neill report, and we are looking forward to the government response on 28 November with bated breath. I appreciate that the Minister might be unwilling to be drawn on the contents of the Government’s response today, but will he at least agree with me that it is high time that this terrible wrong done to these indeterminate sentence prisoners is righted?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

As I said, the Government’s view is that, despite the intractability of the problem, public protection must come first. That is the position we have taken over the years. Without at all prejudging the Government’s position, I shall say a word about the suggested resentencing exercise. The only reason these offenders are detained is the Parole Board’s decision that they are unsafe to be released. That is the situation with which we are faced. If we talk about resentencing in that context, many of the prisoners have already exceeded their original tariff. I simply ask your Lordships to reflect that to resentence for the actual offence may not be a particularly fruitful exercise, because the tariff has already expired. Is it that what we are really considering is a reassessment of the risk to public safety? That is an assessment that the Parole Board is already carrying out. So where does all that take one? I simply leave that question rhetorically for your Lordships.