Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Prashar Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prashar (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a former executive chairman of the Parole Board of England and Wales. Although that was some 25 years ago, I have continued to take a keen interest in this work.

I too have received several excellent briefings from organisations concerned about victims of crime and abuse. I share their concerns with regard to victims and agree with the points that a number of noble Lords have made about the weaknesses and gaps in this Bill. I agree that it falls short of its original aim of strengthening and securing the rights of victims. Contrary to the Minister’s comment in his introduction, the changes proposed with regard to parole and prisoners, as Claire Waxman, the London Victims’ Commissioner has said, will have a negative impact on victims by causing delays. This will be a lost opportunity if we do not take the time to improve the Bill in this House.

However, I will confine my comments to the provisions in Part 4 concerning prisoners and parole. Despite the amendments in the other place giving powers to the Secretary of State to refer certain prisoners’ release decisions where sensitive material may be relevant for reconsideration to a higher court, these provisions undermine the independence of the Parole Board. They are also unworkable, unclear and unnecessary. They will add unnecessary complexity and delay to an already burdened system, not least the Upper Tribunal’s capacity and expertise.

It is not clear what problems these provisions attempt to solve. The Parole Board’s record speaks for itself. There is very little evidence that its decision-making falls short when it comes to public safety. The Bill’s Explanatory Notes state:

“Less than 0.5% of prisoners released by the Parole Board are convicted of a serious further offence within three years of the release decision having been made”.


Perhaps the Minister can tell the House what is broken which this Bill is trying to mend.

It is also inappropriate to introduce a public confidence test as a filter for deciding which cases should be referred to a higher court. As we know, a similar criterion was introduced by the previous Secretary of State in seeking to reduce the number of indeterminate prisoners being moved from closed to open conditions. This was reversed by the current Secretary of State as it was deemed highly subjective and difficult to apply. It was also criticised by the High Court, which stated that this policy criterion adds nothing.

It is dangerous if we use public opinion as the basis for ministerial interference in an independent process. Clauses 53 and 54, which give the Secretary of State the authority to remove the chair of the Parole Board in the interest of public confidence and enable executive interference in the composition of particular board members, are quite alarming. Given the sensitive nature of the role of the chairman of the Parole Board, he or she requires more protection, not less. Such interference will, in effect, undermine the Parole Board’s independence. In a recent judgment, the High Court said that it is

“well established that, when exercising powers in relation to the Board, the Secretary of State must not do anything that undermines or would be perceived as undermining the independence of the Board or that encroaches upon or interferes with the exercise by the Board of its judicial responsibilities”.

As we know, this also risks being incompatible with Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Perhaps the Minister can tell the House why this is necessary when there is already an established process for removing the Parole Board chair from office.

This new power to specifically remove the chairman on the grounds of public confidence can be interpreted only as responding to media outcry or political pressure following an unpopular parole decision. This will damage the Parole Board and undermine its ability to undertake effective risk assessments.

Clause 54 also prohibits the chairman from being involved in individual parole cases and from trying to influence the outcome of the Parole Board’s decision in such cases. The question of whether the chairman is involved in individual cases should be a matter for the board and not a statutory prescription. It is another unnecessary interference. Furthermore, mandating the Secretary of State to make rules to require a certain type of person to sit on panels is wholly inappropriate in terms of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights and basic principles of fairness.

It would breach principles of justice and common-law standards for one party to proceedings to have power over the composition of the judicial panel to which they are presenting their case. These measures do not make any logical sense and should be dropped.

Then, as others have said, there are the proposals to disapply fundamental human rights to prisoners. This would set a very dangerous precedent. These specific disapplications of human rights for people given custodial sentences would undermine one of the fundamental principles underlying human rights: universality and application to each and every person on the simple basis of their being human.

Because those in prison are under state control, their human rights are all the more important. They need protection, not erosion, of their fundamental rights. These gradual encroachments into dismantling our human rights framework—as we also saw during the passage of the Illegal Migration Bill—are worrying, dangerous and totally unacceptable. It is a slippery slope. On the one hand, the Bill includes a statement of compatibility with the Human Rights Act; on the other hand, it contains provisions to disapply a critical aspect of the Act. Can the Minister please explain?

Apart from arguments on grounds of principle against these provisions, there is no practical need for these clauses to disapply the Human Rights Act either. The Government’s argument that these measures protect against judges misusing the powers given to them by the HRA rings hollow when the Government’s own Independent Human Rights Act Review, chaired by Lord Justice Sir Peter Gross, found no evidence of this being a problem. This is a very flimsy justification for these measures.

We all care about public safety and public protection, but we also care about the values and principles that should underlie public policy. These measures will weaken, not strengthen, the work of the Parole Board and, of course, erode the well-founded principles that underpin our public policy.