Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Suitability for Fixed Term Recall) Order 2024

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)]

My Lords, in October 2023, my right honourable and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said in the other place that the Government would review the use of recall to ensure that the prison system is working effectively and consider how to safely manage any risk posed by offenders, while not having people in prison any longer than necessary. That is the purpose of this statutory instrument.

Recall, as your Lordships know, is a preventive measure available to the Probation Service to bring an offender managed on licence in the community, following release from prison, back into custody. There are two kinds of recall. The first is known as fixed-term recall, which is for a period of 14 days if the offender’s sentence is less than 12 months, or of 28 days if they are serving a sentence of over 12 months. The other is standard recall, where offenders are recalled to prison and remain in custody until the end of their sentence, unless released earlier by the Parole Board.

Unfortunately, pressures on the Parole Board mean that it is sometimes quite a long time before a prisoner’s further release comes up for consideration. In the case of offenders already serving less than 12 months, the delays in the Parole Board might mean that it does not get round to considering their case before they are due for release anyway. This means that in the case of offenders serving less than 12 months, a recall is quite a severe consequence.

Between 2017 and 2023, the number of people in prison on recall rose by about 85%. In that period, there was a major decline in fixed-term recalls—20% in general and 27% for those offenders serving less than 12 months. The purpose of this statutory instrument is to rebalance that situation and mandate the use of fixed-term recall for lower-level offenders—those on less than 12 months, subject to certain exceptions that I will come to—so that they are automatically recalled for 14 days and then rereleased. Of course, they would then remain on licence until the end of their custodial period being served out in the community.

That is the essential purpose of the statutory instrument. I accept that it is against the general background of pressure on the prison estate at the moment but, in the Government’s view, this measure is fully justified in its own right, in fairness to offenders serving less than 12 months and as a way of rebalancing the system in the way I described.

As your Lordships know, probation can recall offenders if their risk while on licence increases because they fail to keep in touch, do not observe the curfew, have been under the influence of alcohol if the conditions forbid alcohol, et cetera. However, as I said, for those serving short sentences, the reality is that one recall might mean that they serve the rest of their sentence, are held in custody for too long, and when they come out they are not on licence as their licence has finished. It is much better, in general, for the short-sentence offenders to remain on licence when they are released back into the community for the balance of the sentence period.

The order will apply to lower-level offenders aged 18 and over serving custodial sentences of fewer than 12 months and assessed as requiring recall. It will not apply to the more serious offenders who are managed under what is known as MAPPA at levels 2 and 3, or those who have been charged with a further serious offence under Schedule 18 to the Sentencing Act 2020.

As my right honourable and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, updated the Houses the other day in their Statements on “Prisons and Probation: Foreign National Offenders”, we are preparing the Probation Service to be ready for increased demand, introducing changes to operating procedures that will allow front-line staff to maximise supervision of the most serious offenders and to deal with intervention and engagement at as early a stage as possible.

I take the opportunity to express our deep gratitude to all those working in the criminal justice system, including in prisons, probation and the police. They deserve enormous credit for their commitment. They are under heavy pressure and managing magnificently. I hope that this statutory instrument will further ease that burden and rebalance the system in the way I hope I have described. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I can sort of see the rationale for this, but it is completely misguided. Every time the Government talk about tougher sentences and being tougher on crime and the causes of crime, they start packing out the prisons. Of course, there is now no capacity. This is a rather cynical move to clear out the prisoners so that we can pack other people in.

I have a much better idea, which I will come to in a moment, but I do not understand why the Government are wafting this statutory instrument through yet find it impossible to do something fairly fast for IPP prisoners. I would like an explanation from the Government.

Part of the problem is that we tend to send people who committed low-level drug abuse crimes to prison. I suggest a constructive way forward, which is that we automatically release anyone in prison for low-level drugs offences, because they are less dangerous to other people and really only dangerous to themselves. Please could we have some rationale about the prison system, which is crumbling with this Government and could be better?

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, apparently it is my turn. In a way, this is a continuation of the Question put by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. The Minister knows the crisis in our prison system. That crisis has been made partly by legislation that we have passed in this House over the last decades.

I remember that, when I went into government with the noble Lord, Lord Clarke—Ken Clarke, who I still consider my friend—we had some ideas about reducing the prison population, which had then crept over 80,000, double what the noble Lord had experienced 20 years before when he was Home Secretary in the early 1990s. We sent a little package across to the No. 10 Politburo, but the message came back: “Not politically deliverable”. That has been the problem with Governments of all shades over the last 20 years: not being able or willing to try to bring down our prison population.

The noble Baroness is right that this is gesture politics, but it is a gesture in the right direction and therefore we support it. There is a concern that it is another example of central government moving responsibility to local government and local voluntary services, which then find themselves under pressure. If more probationers are in society and still needing supervision, will there be any more help for the voluntary services?

Apart from pointing out the ridiculous idea of putting in prison too many prisoners who do not need to be there and could be better managed in society, my argument, going back to the Question put by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, would be to look at the whole process of managing the way out for prisoners at the end of their sentences, which is expensive, difficult and almost impossible in an overcrowded prison. It came up in that Question—and the Minister indicated that it may already be happening—that some of the experience and wisdom of prison officers towards the end of their careers could be used in a management and mentoring role. Otherwise, we give this SI our support.