Sentencing Bill

James Daly Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I am certainly happy to look at the data, but whichever way we slice it, the central message is unassailable. Essentially, those who have a sentence of imprisonment that is suspended are less likely to offend—because of the sword of Damocles effect, as I have called it—than those who serve short custodial sentences. Of course I will look at the data, and I would be grateful for my hon. Friend’s assistance in doing so.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

During my 17 years representing people before the criminal courts, by far the largest cohort was drug-addicted shoplifters. I am afraid I must ask the Lord Chancellor for some clarity about what he said. Many people I represented had 200 previous convictions, with 50 previous convictions for breaching community orders. I wonder whether, in the search for the perfect answer with the correct motivation, we are giving a clean slate to shoplifters to continue offending with no risk whatsoever of a custodial term. I cannot see how they would ever reach the exceptional circumstances test.

[Alex Chalk]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who brings such expertise to the House and uses it in the public interest as a member of the Justice Committee and, indeed, by lobbying Ministers. It is precisely because of the circumstances of the people he has defended in the past that we have framed the Bill as we have. It has a really important aspect to which he did not advert. If someone is arrested, charged, convicted and disgraced for committing an offence that would attract a short custodial sentence while they are subject to an order, the presumption does not apply. He knows that all too often people in that group—I have seen them in court as well—will be subject to a community order or some other order. Community orders, as he remembers, can last up to three years. If anyone commits an offence during the currency of that order, the presumption does not apply. It is really important to make that point crystal clear.

The Bill sends a clear message, which goes a bit like this: either someone complies with a court order or they go to prison. That is a really important message that we send. We underscore the authority of court orders to give offenders a clear choice: either they do what they should do—repay their debt to society, rehabilitate themselves, and stay off the booze, if that is what the courts require—or they go to prison. It is up to them.

Let me move on. The tags enable the courts to monitor whether offenders are getting on with their lives by going to work and observing robust curfews of up to 20 hours a day, but we can also put in place exclusion zones to monitor whether offenders are staying out of areas where they are most likely to get into trouble—for example, a particular high street. They allow us to ensure that there is proper compliance with the punishments given out by the court—for example, unpaid work requirements. That means that offenders are visibly repaying their debt to the communities they offended against, but without it costing the taxpayer many tens of thousands of pounds to effectively pay for bed and breakfasts. If they breach any of those conditions, the probation service is quickly notified so that action can be taken.

Our high-tech alcohol tags have only been available for the past few years—my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire did more than any other Minister to roll them out. They take a reading of the offender’s sweat every 30 minutes to make sure that they are confronting the issues with alcohol that likely landed them in trouble with the law in the first place. The results speak for themselves: offenders who are ordered to wear those tags and have a complete ban on drinking stay sober, on average, 97% of the time. It not only means that they stay out of trouble, but gives them the opportunity to face up to their issues and turn their lives around. It is easy to see why: they know that within minutes of having a drink, any breach will be detected and a report will be sent to the probation service. The offender is then at risk of being brought back before the court and facing alternative disposal.

Offenders mandated by the court to wear tags have that sword of Damocles hanging over their head. They know that if they step even one inch out of line, they can be sent straight to prison by the courts. Essentially, the newer tags are the equivalent of expanding the workforce so that we can man-mark individual offenders. It is clear not only that we need this new approach, but that advances in technology mean that a new approach is possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I find the wording of the Bill quite curious. I will limit my remarks to issues relating to suspended sentences under 12 months. The sentencing code is amended to add:

“The court must make a suspended sentence order in relation to the sentence where this section applies unless the court is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances”.

As a lawyer, I know that if we had 10,000 lawyers here, they would give us 10,000 different definitions of what “exceptional circumstances” means. But the court can take into account those that

“relate to the offence (or the combination of the offence and one or more offences associated with it) or the offender”—

so, if a court finds a fact about the offender or the offence that falls within the general definition of exceptional circumstances, it can impose an immediate custodial sentence—and

“justify not making the order.”

I hate to break it to colleagues, but that is actually what happens in the courts now; there is very little difference. This is an attempt, rightly or wrongly, to encourage some magistrates in some parts of the country to impose fewer immediate custodial terms.

The Bill will not stop custodial sentences being imposed for offences under 12 months. As I said in my intervention on the Lord Chancellor, it would be utterly bizarre if that were the case. Over 17 years, I represented thousands of people in the criminal courts and the vast majority of cases were drug and shoplifting related. I represented people with 400 or 500 convictions—the full gamut of offending—who never complied with an order in their life and literally had hundreds of failure to comply with court orders. What magistrate in the world is going to think, “I know what we’ll do, we’ll impose a suspended sentence”? If a characteristic of the offender is that they do not carry out the order imposed on them, the magistrate is not going to impose it in the first place.

If there is something particularly abhorrent about an offence—this is why I have some sympathy with what those on the Opposition Front Bench were saying—there will be an immediate custodial term. What I do not like is the debate that we should treat some crimes differently from others. Yes, there is a full range of seriousness in terms of offending, but if we are getting to the point where we are saying that for some you can get an immediate custodial term and for others you cannot, then I think that is nonsense. We have to be realistic.

When we are dealing with people in the criminal justice system, we are dealing with broken, fallible individuals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) said, we are dealing with people and their lives and motivations, and all the other things that go into making them, at a certain time and point, commit a criminal offence. In this Chamber, we never, ever discuss what, in my opinion, could deter crime: work when children are growing up, a stable upbringing, and a set of values that they can carry with them through their lives, whether through education or parents, of whatever type. That is what matters.

Having a debate and judging whether we as a Parliament are successful on criminal justice by how long we send people to prison is utterly preposterous. What is the point in that? It is like we discuss money in this place: “We’ll send you to prison for 15 years.” “No, let’s go to 16 or 17 years.” That is not the point. The point is to allow our independent judiciary, within the sentencing framework we set down—bearing in mind that none of us will be in that court, none of us will know what motivated the person and none of us will know the circumstances—to make the decision that they want to make.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) made some very telling points. We cannot run away from the fact that this legislation is about prison numbers. However, it is fair to say—I repeat something that has been said—short-term custodial sentences are decreasing. One thing I am proud of is that under this Government longer-term sentences of 10-plus years for the most serious offences are increasing. We are having an impact on the most serious offending.

[Lia Nici]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue is that non-custodial sentences are, frankly, often pathetic? They are not inconvenient enough, or do not make such a change for people that they are deterred, without custody, from offending.

[James Daly]

I agree. We cannot have a debate about criminal justice simply on the basis that everyone should be sent to prison; there has to be some form of alternative sentence. My experience over 17 years, however, is that none of it works—little or none of it—because this is about the individual.

I have not met an individual—unless they are suffering from severe mental health problems—who does not know what they need to do with their life to be a better person or to not commit crime, whether that is to stop taking drugs or drinking alcohol, or whatever it is. The vast majority of people who appear in court are not demented fools; they are intelligent, articulate people who are choosing not to make the correct decisions that could put their life on a more even footing. The range of sentencing options, such as a curfew, or all the types of modern technology we talked about, are nonsense. They will not make a blind bit of difference to anyone’s behaviour.

The point I am making is that the criminal justice system is, by its very nature, fallible. It will never be efficient or give us the outcomes that we want. The idea that any MP in this place could set up a structure that will deal fairly with every offender that appears before the courts is absolutely for the birds. My view is that the Bill does not make much difference to the position we are in. It is not something that colleagues should get overly concerned about, because having spent 17 years in front of magistrates, I can tell the House that they will still send people to prison on the basis of this Bill. A few people might well get a chance, with a curfew or something like that, but they will breach it in five minutes and will be sent to prison.

Under the Bill, someone is forgiven for the first breach, but they go to prison for the second breach. Whatever happens, they will go to prison at some point, because most of them breach the order that is imposed in the first place. I support the Bill because I support—

[Sir John Hayes]

Is my hon. Friend saying that the Bill is inconsequential? If it is inconsequential, why do we need it? The Bill is either as bad as I think it is, or it is as harmless as he thinks it is. Either way, we do not want it.

[James Daly]

Frankly, it allows our independent judiciary and magistrates, sitting throughout the country, to make decisions based on the individual circumstances of the case. I think it still allows them to impose an immediate custodial sentence in the vast majority of circumstances. I have read out the legal test, which can be applied any which way we want.

[Neil O’Brien]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be wrong to steer our independent judiciary away from this? Many people in the judiciary complain like mad if we suggest higher sentences or greater automaticity. They say, “No, we must have judicial freedom and independence.” Should we not be giving them the same for short sentences? Also, does he agree that sometimes a short prison sentence—say, a year—can give a community great respite from an individual who often causes huge terror and misery in that community?

[James Daly]

I agree. That is why such sentences exist and have been used for the past 30, 40 or 50 years. Since the ’90s onwards, prison sentences have gone up on a steep curve, but what can we do if someone shoplifts repeatedly? This is the other fantasy about people in the grip of drug addiction who are shoplifters. There is a common sense approach: “Let’s put in place a rehabilitative order.” But they are not in any position to apply for that rehabilitative order. If we let that person out of custody, they will commit a criminal offence.

The Minister wants to wind up, so I will bring my remarks to a close. The only point I am trying to make is that, for me, the legal test that goes along with the suspension allows the courts in 99% of cases to still impose the sentence they think is appropriate.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I will try to be brief, and will pass quickly over clause 1 of the Bill, other than to welcome it. It delivers on our manifesto commitment to have tough sentences for the most serious crimes. Also, it finally delivers on the contract that was struck with the British people back in 1965—when capital punishment was repealed, the quid pro quo was life imprisonment. That, however, has never been the case—life imprisonment for serious murder—so the whole life order delivers on that original contract. I welcome the clause for that reason alone.

I move on to clause 6, which much of this interesting debate has been about. It is absolutely right to say that there is a balance of competing forces. The criminal justice system has to balance punishment with the reduction of reoffending. I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) that there is a moral perspective to punishment: society expects that people who commit crimes will receive punishment and wants them to see the physical consequences of crime. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) is right, too, that when a perpetrator is behind bars, a community experiences physical relief, and that is a common good. But—and it is a big “but”—those benefits have to be balanced with systems that lead to a reduction in future reoffending.

Although we have been arguing a little about the details behind the evidence, the overwhelming weight of the evidence that I have seen is that short-term prison sentences do not lead to reductions in reoffending—in fact, quite the opposite. Although there are benefits to prison sentences, and I have named a couple, there are costs as well. One is that we perhaps turn a small-scale offender into a much more detailed offender because they will meet and mix with the wrong kind of people, and lose their jobs, homes and relationships—all the binding elements of community membership. When they come out, they are statistically more likely to reoffend. That is a cost of prison, and we should not shy away from that. We should recognise it.

I have looked up the data about the effectiveness of sentencing options on reoffending from the Sentencing Council, an arm’s length organisation, which says:

“The evidence strongly suggests that short custodial sentences under twelve months are less effective than other disposals at reducing re-offending. There is little evidence demonstrating any significant benefits of such sentences. Indeed, there is a reasonable body of evidence to suggest short custodial sentences can make negative outcomes (such as reoffending) worse.”

[James Daly]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I will not. I am so sorry, but I have only a couple of minutes.

The quote gets to the nub of the matter. I am a deductive reasoner; my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, who is no longer in his place, says that he is an inductive reasoner. Just because someone is an inductive reasoner does not mean that they no longer look at the data. We need to do both. It is because I have been looking at the data that I support the Bill.

Prison Capacity

James Daly Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

It is incredibly important that no one from this Chamber deliberately or inadvertently gives the impression that rapists are not going to be sentenced. They are going to be sentenced; the sentences imposed will be, on average, a third longer than those imposed in 2010; and they will serve a higher proportion of those sentences in custody. We are prosecuting more people for rape than in 2010 and, as I say, they are being punished more severely, so let the message go out that people who offend against women—and it is overwhelmingly against women—and behave in such a barbaric way can expect not just to hear the clang of the prison gate, but to be reflecting on their actions for a very long time.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give the House a guarantee that judges or magistrates will retain the discretion to impose short-term custodial sentences in the interests of public justice and public protection? In the circumstances, does he foresee a change to the sentencing guidelines for the raft of offences covered by the 12-month sentencing threshold? Does he foresee that all such offences will now be sentenced according to the one test he has outlined?

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend has been a practitioner in the courts, so he understands, as all practitioners do, that there are offenders who, I am afraid, show themselves unwilling to abide by the order of the court, or incapable of doing so, and even if the court is prepared to say, “There should be a suspended sentence in your case,” they will breach it. In those circumstances, magistrates and judges must have the power, in the final analysis, to send that person to immediate custody. We will always ensure that they have that power. That is important for the rule of law and to send the message that there will be consequences if a person flouts an order of the court.

Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences

James Daly Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Third Report of the Justice Committee, IPP Sentences, HC 266, and the Government response, HC 933.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to the Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee for enabling us to have this debate. I am glad to see the Minister in his place. I know he will take seriously what are grave matters that need to be raised—both the issue itself, and the complete inadequacy of the Government’s response to a considered report by a Select Committee. I welcome my fellow members of the Select Committee. This report had support across parties in the Committee and was based on detailed evidence. I regret that none of that evidence seems to have penetrated into the reasoning of the response.

Let me set out the situation. I regret that we have to have this debate. We spent a great deal of time considering this issue and, as I said, we had a detailed evidence base and a comprehensive report. I hope that with changes in the Department and a new Secretary of State, there will be more scope for the Minister, whose personal qualities I entirely recognise and respect, to revisit the position on this matter.

Sentences of imprisonment for public protection, or IPP sentences, are indeterminate—that is, they have no fixed end date. They were originally designed to ensure that dangerous, violent and sexual offenders stayed in custody for as long as they presented a risk to the public. IPP sentences were introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and came into effect in 2005. Following criticisms of the sentence and its operation, it was reformed in 2008 but, frankly, those reforms did not work satisfactorily either and the sentence was abolished by 2012.

The sentence was abolished largely because—this was accepted by the originators of the scheme, not least the noble Lord Blunkett and others, as I will come to later—the way the scheme was drafted and the number of offences that brought people within its scope, together with the lack of understanding and, at the time, judicial training on the matter, meant that far more people fell within the scope of the scheme than had been the political intention. Rightly, in 2012, the coalition Government, of which I had the honour to be a member, rectified that and abolished the sentence. However, they did not deal with those who were already serving sentences. In other words, the abolition did not have effect retrospectively for those who were already subject to the sentences.

In total, some 8,711 people received an IPP sentence. The sentence works in three parts. First, there is a mandatory period in prison known as the tariff. That is broadly based on the nature of the offence for which the individual is convicted and sentenced—that is, the tariff for that offence or the index offence, as it is sometimes referred to. Secondly, that is followed by indefinite detention until such time as the Parole Board determines that the person concerned has reduced their risk enough to be safely released. Thirdly, following that release, they are subject to a life licence in the community, from which they may be recalled if they breach their licence or reoffend. Ten years after their initial release, IPP prisoners can apply to the Parole Board to have that licence terminated. There is, of course, no guarantee that it will be.

Our inquiry was prompted by the serious concern, which has been ventilated in the media and both Chambers of this Parliament over a period of time, about the number of IPP prisoners who have never been released, despite the fact that the vast majority have served their tariff. Some 97.5% of IPP prisoners currently in prison have already served their tariff, and in many cases they have served well beyond their tariff. The last figures that we had showed that at the end of December 2022, there were 2,892 IPP prisoners, of whom 1,394 are serving their original sentence and have never been released.

Some 621 of those prisoners are at least 10 years over their tariff, and 222 of those had received a tariff of less than two years. To put that in stark terms, they have been in prison for something like five times longer than the index sentence that the court that sentenced them and the judge who heard the facts thought was the appropriate tariff for the offence for which they were convicted. The tariff was set at, say, two years or less—the going rate for that offence—and some have been inside for five times that. That is a stark and shocking figure.

Some 1,498 IPP prisoners in custody at the end of December 2022 have been released but subsequently recalled to custody. When we were doing our inquiry, it was suggested to us that, at the current rates of recall, the proportion will change so that a majority of the IPP population will have been released and recalled. That point has now been reached. More than half of IPP prisoners have been released and recalled for one reason or other, and I will come to that later. There are a number of problems with IPP sentences.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

It is actually starker than my hon. Friend sets out. One IPP sentence was given with a tariff of 28 days, so hypothetically somebody who received a 28-day tariff could spend 50 years in prison. Even in the worst banana republic, that would sound extraordinary, but that is actually what this sentence is about. We are going to keep people locked up indefinitely, even though in any other circumstances they would be released. Will my hon. Friend touch on that? I do not have the words to describe it, but I agree wholeheartedly with him.

[Sir Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, he speaks with great experience as a long-standing solicitor specialising in criminal work. He and I have seen this in our professional experience. We have perhaps seen rather more of the prison system than many of those who pontificate in either House or the media about what it is like.

This is a scandal. That is why one of the great supporters of reform, the noble Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood—one of the last Lord Justices of Appeal, one of the first members of the Supreme Court and one of the most distinguished lawyers of his generation—described it as a “stain” upon the reputation of the British legal system, and he is absolutely right. That is why, to his credit, the noble Lord Blunkett, when he gave evidence to us, said frankly, fairly and honestly, “This was not what we intended should happen with these sentences.” My hon. Friend is therefore entirely right to point out how stark that could be. We would be shocked if this were happening in some of the countries with which we do business, and we rightly criticise it elsewhere around the world.

One of the problems is that IPP prisoners face barriers to progression to prove they are no longer a risk within prison and, if they are released, within the community. The aim of our inquiry was to examine carefully and on the evidence the continued existence of IPP sentences and identify possible legislative and policy solutions to a situation that is, as my hon. Friend rightly says, really not acceptable.

The seriousness of those concerns and the strength of feeling about IPP sentences was reflected in the volume of evidence that the Justice Committee received. It was the largest number of submissions we have ever received for any inquiry that we have undertaken. Of course, I looked at all of them, and they included hundreds of handwritten letters, some going into considerable detail, from serving prisoners. They were moving, and articulate in many cases, but also frequently deeply distressing.

Beyond that, the Committee also proactively sought the perspective of all stakeholders affected by the sentence. That is why we took evidence from Lord Blunkett, who was the original architect of the scheme, and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former Lord Chief Justice. We also held private meetings and roundtables with affected parties, including people serving IPP sentences in the community, family members, legal professionals who have supported IPP prisoners, Parole Board members, prison and probation staff—it should be said that it is not easy for prison and probation staff to deal with people in this situation, and I suspect that there is also an injustice to them—and victims of IPP prisoners. I do accept that the victim’s perspective also has to be considered, so we deliberately and specifically sought victims’ views.

I thank all who took the time and effort to engage with our inquiry and to provide the evidence that underpinned our recommendations and conclusions. In particular, I thank Donna Mooney and Shirley Debono, both of whom gave oral evidence to us on behalf of the United Group for Reform of IPP. I think that some of the group are in the Public Gallery.

Donna Mooney shared with us the experience of her brother Tommy Nicol, who took his own life in 2015 following a second refusal of parole by the Parole Board. His tariff was four years; by then, he had already served six. Donna told us of the difficulties her brother Tommy faced in enrolling on courses that he needed to complete to demonstrate progression, and in accessing mental health support. He often told her and his family that his sentence was “psychological torture”.

Shirley Debono, whose son is a released IPP prisoner, told us that even those who have been released and are serving an IPP sentence in the community are immensely fearful of being recalled to prison. She described the licence conditions as “draining” and difficult to cope with. She said that her son had been afraid of the telephone in case it was the probation service calling. That is not a happy situation to put probation officers in, never mind anything else, including the difficulty that it causes people who are genuinely trying to rehabilitate themselves.

The Committee’s report considers the difficulties faced by IPP prisoners in progressing through sentences, and the psychological harm that that causes. Our evidence focused on actions that the Government should take to address the problem, and we began by considering the prison-based barriers to progression.

The psychological harm caused to individuals serving an IPP sentence was evidenced by a number of contributors to the inquiry, including those serving the sentence, family members and professionals who have experience of working with people who are serving the sentence. It was demonstrated clearly that rates of self-harm among IPP prisoners are high. Although it is good to see that the rate of self-harm thankfully reduced between the end of 2017 and the end of 2021, it is still almost double that for prisoners serving a determinate sentence. The Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody told us that as of May 2021, of the 250 IPP prisoners who had died in custody since the sentence came into effect, 65 had taken their own lives.

The Committee recently took evidence from the former chair of that panel, Juliet Lyon CBE. She told us that nine people serving an IPP sentence died last year. She said:

“It is something one cannot afford to forget. The utter hopelessness of their position means it is very difficult for them to maintain any sense of future; it seems just utterly sad and hopeless.”

Juliet Lyon has served in post for a considerable time and has decades of experience in the criminal justice system. Her wise words ought to weigh heavily. Sadly, I was notified that only two days ago another young man serving an IPP prison sentence took his own life in His Majesty’s Prison Manchester. This is still happening all the time.

Given the psychological harm that ensues as a result of the sentence and the conditions attached, many have argued that assessing risk is more complicated than it is for other prisoners. We heard that mental health need and risk are sometimes conflated and that poor mental health may therefore become a barrier to release—although, ironically, it is the serving of the indeterminate sentence that has triggered that poor mental health, and we have a vicious circle.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I must refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) said, I was a criminal defence solicitor for 17 years. I dealt with many IPP prisoners during that time, and I am a proud member of the Justice Committee. Rather than repeat his every word—I agree with every single word that he and the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said about this—I will tell you about Thomas.

In 2012, Thomas received an IPP sentence for robbery of a mobile phone. He was ordered to serve a minimum tariff of two years, only a few months before IPPs were abolished. If Thomas had been sentenced four months later, he would not be in prison now. That in itself tells a tale.

Thomas is now aged 39. He has been in custody for more than 10 years. He should have been released after his tariff of two years, so why is he in prison 10 years later? It is because—as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said—his mental health has taken a huge blow during that period. He has suffered with psychosis and various other mental health traumas.

Where has that left Thomas’s family? His 13-year-old son has been left without a father. He has been moved 16 times, and on many occasions, has not been given access to the appropriate recourses because of his mental health challenges. Certainly, on occasions, he has not been able to engage with what has been provided, but the provision has been sparse to say the least.

This man is in prison with mental health difficulties. He has served over a decade more than his tariff, yet he is viewed as somebody who cannot be released. How is that possible? That brings us to risk, which is what my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst talked about. I do not have enough time to discuss how the Parole Board deals with this, but how on earth is a man who committed an offence more than a decade ago, who clearly should be in a mental health facility, viewed as a risk? The reason why is that risk, incredibly, has become related to mental health—I talk from personal experience, and we also took evidence in camera from people who were involved, who wanted to speak candidly but felt that it was difficult. If somebody has a mental health issue, that is viewed to be a risk factor to causing harm. We cannot treat people like that. That is not risk.

The figures bear this out. When the Secretary of State appeared before the Justice Committee, 66% of the people who had been recalled had not committed a further offence. Why were 66% of them still in prison if they had not committed an offence? The reason is that for many of those individuals, the Probation Service and the Parole Board take an overcautious, scattergun approach. IPP prisoners are treated differently from other prisoners—I do not know what the reason is, but they are.

To justify that and to ensure that backs are covered, we put in place lots of conditions, most of which have no relation to risk. Risk is the risk of harm to other members of the public. If someone breaches a curfew, why are they getting sent back to prison? That is not evidence of a risk of harm. It is an indictment of the Government’s response on this issue that there has been no evidence base to challenge any of the questions that were raised by experts, members of the Committee and others—none.

What could possibly be the reason for—as of 2022—2,892 people still being in prison on an IPP sentence? How can Parliament allow that, if Parliament views that sentencing exercise as unjust? More than 2,800 people are in prison serving a sentence that Members of this House think is unjust. Can somebody explain how we can look one another in the face and allow that situation to continue? It is quite extraordinary.

Looking at the Government response, this cuts to the heart of what the Government are saying:

“The risks to public protection from the immediate release of serving IPP prisoners continue to exist. Although the Government recognises the frustrations and concerns surrounding the IPP sentence, our view is that the IPP Action Plan remains the best way in which these offenders can progress towards safe release.”

Not a shred of evidence is provided to back up that statement—not one. There is nothing. We are left in the uneasy situation where what we are actually keeping people in for is a concern, and it may well be a non-existent concern, but people’s lives are being blighted by politicians deciding that they do not want the risk of somebody coming out and doing something and then it being a headline in the newspaper. That is not the way to make policy. The justice system that I served for 20 years did not recognise that as justice. That is what this has come down to.

The response to the various things that my hon. Friend set out is just words on a piece of paper. We all know it, and there is that acceptance. I could read out numerous statements about the Government being committed to improving mental health support and rehabilitation support. I could have stood here and said that 10 years ago. If a Government are committed to trying to doing something, it means that they are not actually doing it. It is an acceptance that the proper support—the rehabilitative support and the courses—that is needed for somebody to be released from prison does not actually exist. Not only is this sentence unjust, but we are not providing pathways out for people with mental health difficulties.

The Minister—I like him very much—is an honourable man and an excellent Minister. How on earth have we got into this situation? As I said, Thomas is 39 years of age. He has been in custody for 11 years. Let us say that Thomas lives to the age of 70. If the basis for which somebody stays in custody is their mental health condition, which is deteriorating by the day, that would be another 31 years. He would be in prison for 40 years, having received a two-year sentence. People think that that is okay, seemingly, without any evidence of risk or anything.

That situation is repeated throughout this cohort of people. It is genuinely appalling. As my hon. Friend said, the Justice Committee’s report is not some radical document saying, “Open the doors and off we go”. It is an expert-based resentencing exercise, where some people may not be released from custody immediately, but at least they would have a determinate sentence that they and their families could have some hope to work towards.

We talk about the effect of these sentences, and I hope the Minister will take that into account. I could read out many facts, but the rate of self-harm among IPP prisoners is twice that of those serving a life sentence. Do we think that that happens by accident? The causal link through all the evidence is clear: the sentence is creating this situation. The deterioration of people’s mental health is a result of the sentence, and it is just appalling.

I am saddened to say this, because I believe that the Government are a force for good, but on this occasion, their response has left me exasperated. All of us who have been involved in the process have seen the personal stories of individuals and their family members. During my career in criminal law, one thing that I sometimes noticed was that we tended to treat people who were in a custodial environment as non-human beings. These are human beings with the same feelings, aspirations and desires for a house, for love and to have a positive and good life. We have created a situation where that has been cut off from them.

I will finish with this point, because I am going to keep to my 10 minutes, although I am tempted to go on for longer. With the change of personnel and with the new Lord Chancellor—a criminal barrister for many years—I think we all know that we should look at this afresh. We all know that we cannot have this situation going on in perpetuity, because we may as well book this room every five years and come back and say the same thing. What will happen is that more and more people will commit suicide and self-harm, and more lives and families will be destroyed, and for what? For a sentence that Parliament accepts is unjust. What other situation do we do that in?

Sometimes in Parliament, we talk about a lot of things and throw words around, but everyone accepts that this is unjust and yet we continue with it. I genuinely believe that this is a national scandal. It is a disgrace and a stain on the justice system in which I and my hon. Friend served. In the Justice Committee—with the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) as well—we have tried to come up with a responsible way of answering those concerns and of reflecting the personal and bespoke circumstances of each individual, and the views of victims, to ensure that public safety is part of the resentencing exercise that clearly needs to take place. Please, Minister, please, let us bring this farce to an end, accept the recommendations and give these people some hope.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)]

It is very good to see you in the Chair, as always, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) for his opening remarks and for securing this debate on behalf of the Justice Committee following the publication last year of its report on imprisonment for public protection sentences. I also thank all colleagues in the Chamber for what they have brought to this important debate and to our discussion of these incredibly serious matters.

The Government welcomed the report by my hon. Friend and his Committee as a real opportunity to take stock of the debate on the IPP sentence, which rightly continues to generate enormous interest, attention and challenge across both Houses of Parliament. Having discussed this matter with IPP campaign groups and colleagues of different parties last month, I am even more acutely aware of the depth and strength of the feeling evoked.

Today’s debate is timely, because the updated IPP action plan from HM Prison and Probation Service was shared with my hon. Friend’s Committee yesterday. One of the Committee’s key recommendations was to refresh the agency’s action plan, and this debate provides an opportunity to share some details of the refreshed plan with the House. I am confident that it will make a genuine difference to the way that IPP offenders are rehabilitated and supported through to safe release, consistent with public protection.

I will provide a brief overview of the IPP sentence, before turning to the Justice Committee’s report and the Government response. As a number of colleagues have mentioned, the IPP sentence was introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 for offences committed on or after 4 April 2005, and it was abolished from December 2012. As has been noted, abolition was not applied retrospectively, as the Government assessed that it would not be right to alter a sentence that had been lawfully imposed by a court prior to its abolition. This means that the Parole Board grants release to those serving an IPP sentence once they have demonstrated that they are safe to be released.

At the time of abolition, more than 6,000 offenders were serving an IPP sentence in prison. Since then a substantial number have been released on licence, so that at the end of March this year there were 2,916 offenders on an IPP sentence in custody. Although that is a significant decrease from the peak in 2012, I recognise that there is more to be done. I reaffirm the Government’s commitment to support those serving an IPP sentence, both in prison and on licence in the community, to work towards a safe and sustainable future release. We will continue this work through the updated IPP action plan.

I thank all members of the Justice Committee for their thorough work in examining the issues surrounding IPP sentences. The Government gave careful consideration to all the report’s findings and each of the Committee’s recommendations. We carefully considered the recommendations to undertake a full resentencing exercise of all remaining offenders serving an IPP sentence and to establish a time-limited expert committee to advise on the practical implementation of such an exercise, as the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and others outlined. However, the Government’s priority remains the protection of the public, and any resentencing exercise that aims to provide each IPP prisoner with a definite release date would inevitably result in the immediate release of a considerable number of offenders who committed serious sexual or violent offences and whom the Parole Board has previously deemed unsafe to be released.

[James Daly]

What evidence basis does the Minister have to make that statement?

[Damian Hinds]

I make it on the basis of the profile of the prison population and the fact that prisoners have had parole hearings where determinations have been made not to release. That is based on the release test, with which I know my hon. Friend is extremely familiar.

It is vital for public protection that those serving the IPP sentence in prison, whether not yet released or recalled following release, are released only following a thorough risk assessment that finds that their risk has now reduced to the point where they can be safely managed in the community. That is a judgment for the parole board. It is for that reason we rejected the Committee’s recommendation of a full resentencing exercise for such offenders.

Prison Capacity

James Daly Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one measure that could be taken to release capacity in the prison estate is to follow the recommendations of the Justice Committee report on imprisonment for public protection prisoners and resentence the 3,000 such prisoners who have been imprisoned for an inordinate length of time and deserve to have their fates decided in a different way, rather than remaining in prison, perhaps indefinitely?

[Damian Hinds]

As ever, I thank the Select Committee that covers the Department for its work, including on that report. As my hon. Friend knows, a response to that particular report will be coming, and I ought not to cut across that process.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

The Government have invested significantly in the criminal justice system, not just through the recent settlement with the Criminal Bar Association, but in the run-up to the settlement. There is continued investment in the criminal justice system. He may disagree, but those are other facts.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Although I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to increasing rape charging rates and the positive news regarding rape convictions, the facts suggest that what is happening is somewhat to the contrary. In the year ending March 2022, the police recorded the highest annual number of rape offences to date—70,330—but charges were brought in only 2,223 cases. With the split in responsibility between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, what steps can my right hon. Friend take, working with his Home Office colleagues, to make sure that more people are charged and put before the courts?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank and pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all his work on this issue and the considerable experience that he brings to bear. I read out the statistics and there is clearly more work to be done, but, actually, the trajectory of the latest figures is going in a better direction. The decision making on CPS charging is independent, but it is critical that we proceed with the national roll-out of Operation Soteria, because it is proving to be a very effective tool in getting the police and the CPS to work together more collaboratively to bring forward cases that can go to court.

Anonymity of Suspects Bill

James Daly Excerpts

Friday 28th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I have endeavoured to do that in the drafting of this Bill. That is why clause 1, which sets out the offence of disclosing the identity of a suspect, makes clear in subsection (1) that it is subject to the exceptions in subsection (2). My hon. Friend’s intervention is covered by the exceptions set out in subsection (2).

This is a balanced Bill. It is not just confined to cases of alleged sexual crimes, but applied to crimes in general, because, depending on the status of the person, the allegation that, for example, they are in hock to the Inland Revenue may be incredibly damaging to them. I know that HMRC is compliant with the principle that details about people’s tax affairs should not be disclosed, and that, it is one of the best organisations in meeting those very high standards. Sadly, though, other organisations are not so compliant.

I recognise that there are circumstances in which it is said that, by disclosing the person who is under suspicion, that may lead to other people coming forward. That should not be the case, and it certainly was not in relation to Cliff Richard, Paul Gambaccini and many others. That is why I have set out the exemptions in the Bill. Basically, the main exemption will be where the disclosure is reasonably necessary for the prevention or detection of crime, or for the administration of justice.

I am not saying that the Bill is perfect, but, because we do not have much time to discuss it today, I hope that my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench will agree to have a meeting to discuss it further, because this is a really serious subject. It would be useful to be able to discuss with him where we can go with this. There is much public feeling out there that something must be done. We cannot allow heroes in the country to be brought low by these allegations that then turn out to be false. Having the allegations ventilated in public has caused irreparable damage to the people adversely affected.

Another person who has been the subject of such false allegations is our former parliamentary Conservative colleague, Harvey Proctor. He has been put through the hoops twice on this, although, in the end, he received a pay-out of £800,000 from the police. But who ends up paying that? Of course, we do. Ultimately, his life has been completely wrecked as a result of the false allegations made against him on two separate occasions. He did not have much in terms of resources. He was not in a position on his own to be able to seek redress. I mention his name, because he was not a great star in the media or on television who had resources. Even for Paul Gambaccini, immediately this information came out into the open, he was suspended from being able to do his radio programmes on the BBC. He lost a whole year’s work.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

No, I will not, because I am just about to finish.

In the case of Cliff Richards, the consequences were that his charities suffered to the tune of more than £100,000 a year in lost income while he was under suspicion.

It is with pleasure that I move the Second Reading of this Bill, and hope that, in due course, I will be able to have a meeting with the Minister to discuss its contents.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

The Justice Committee —[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) is going to have to take her seat. She cannot just stand there while we are in the middle of questions.

[James Daly]

The Justice Committee, of which I am a member, published our report on IPP—imprisonment for public protection—sentences on 28 September. There was a very clear recommendation that all IPP prisoners currently in custody should be resentenced, something which I wholeheartedly support. Could I ask my hon. Friend to confirm the timeframe for the Government’s response to the Justice Committee report? Further, what immediate steps are being put in place to support IPP prisoners currently struggling in a custodial environment?

[Rob Butler]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. It is probably right that I point out that I was still a member of the Justice Committee when it took evidence for that inquiry, but I did not contribute to the drafting of the report. I absolutely acknowledge that we find ourselves in an extremely difficult position with IPP prisoners, and I am determined to resolve the problem as far as possible, but it has to be understood that there is not a simple one-size-fits-all solution that is appropriate for all people, so I am very carefully considering the recommendations. That is something we are doing very speedily, and as soon as we have come up with a conclusion, the Justice Committee will receive my response.

Rape: Criminal Prosecutions

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady hits on a sensitive point, in that the “Code for Crown Prosecutors” sets out the tests that prosecutors must apply, not simply in cases of sexual violence but across all criminal cases, and the threshold of 51% or thereabouts for the evidential stage. This means that, as we know from speaking to victims, there are occasions when the CPS does not believe that test has been met, which is why the roll-out of Operation Soteria, both across police forces and across CPS regions, is so important. In this effort for non-defensive transparency, the CPS is looking at its own actions and ensuring that the right standards are being met, for example in the application of the test and in disclosure. All of this is being lined up to ensure that the law is applied properly and appropriately. We have also reformed disclosure guidelines recently, in order to help the police and the CPS make important decisions about whether material needs to be gathered at all and, if it does, whether it meets the very specific circumstances in which it falls to be disclosed.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I welcome the increase in the conviction rates. Having worked closely with my hon. Friend, I have witnessed her determination to address the underlying issues and find solutions for victims of serious sexual offending throughout the country. The issue we have missed out of this debate is that the vast majority of cases are not even referred to the CPS by the police. My concern is that unless there is a slam dunk, an overwhelming case, victims are being penalised, so that those who have addiction or mental health problems are being viewed as unreliable witnesses by the police and their cases are not even being referred. How does she feel about that? What steps are being taken to address the issue?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend, who brings his professional expertise into this Chamber. He is right to say that the focus on a victim’s credibility has in the past meant that too many cases are dropped when they should not be. We have therefore had the roll-out of this suspect-focused investigation technique, Operation Soteria, across the first five forces, and that learning is being shared nationally ahead of the national roll-out next year. This is what will make the real difference, both to the police and to the CPS.

Sentencing: Repeat Offenders

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Westminster Hall

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I completely agree with what the hon. Gentleman says on the facts that I have heard about this matter. He can accuse the Government of many things, but the sentencing function is for the independent judiciary or magistracy; it is not the responsibility of the Minister. There is much to be discussed on a political level, but certainly not sentencing policy and what sentences are imposed in such circumstances.

[Grahame Morris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and what he says is reasonable. I have just been reading a book about the former Director of Public Prosecutions and his early career; he is now the leader of the Labour party, I believe. [Laughter.] He was at pains to provide sentencing guidelines in discussions with Ministers—Conservative Ministers, I might add—to try to address some of these issues. I do not think that Ministers can completely wipe their hands of responsibility.

I will elaborate some of the related issues and explain why prison is not as effective as it might be, although it is an important alternative, particularly for serial offenders. As I said, the victim of the particular crime that I referred to has completely lost confidence in the system and has said that he would not give evidence in future, because he thought that the sentence that was given was inappropriate—in fact he said that it was laughable.

When a case goes to court and the outcome is an affront to justice, it is the police who experience the fall-off in public confidence. Members might be aware that YouGov regularly conducts a survey in which it asks the public whether they have confidence in the police’s ability to deal with crime in their area. The trends are very worrying; 47% of the public lack confidence in the ability of the police to tackle crime, compared with only 43% who are confident in the police. Overall, the number of people who believe the police are doing a good job—nationally, and not in County Durham; I think we have an outstanding police force—has fallen from 75% to 53% in the last two years. I hope that sets alarm bells ringing for Ministers.

The failure is systematic. When I presented my Prisons (Violence) Bill in the previous Session of Parliament, I warned that offenders often left prison more damaged and more dangerous than when they arrived. The out-of-control levels of prison violence make rehabilitation in the current circumstances practically impossible. That leads to more reoffending, at a cost of tens of billions of pounds a year to the criminal justice system, as well as causing misery for millions of victims and their loved ones, who have to live with the consequences of even more crime.

That situation is more than an appalling waste of both public money and people’s lives; it is nothing less than a crime against our communities, and I must say that the Government are complicit in it. The Conservative Government and all Ministers are responsible, first, for the devastating cuts to the budgets of the Prison Service during the coalition years of austerity. It was those cuts that triggered the escalating level of violence in prisons. For example, the number of prison officers was cut by a quarter. That meant that a massive amount of experience, held by experienced prison officers, and of that most precious resource, which prison officers refer to as jailcraft, was taken out of the system at a stroke. The vacuum that was created was quickly filled by prisoners who had become more experienced than many officers on the landings of our prisons. The vacuum has also been filled by violence.

Despite recent recruitment drives, the Prison Service has lost almost 90,000 years—I repeat, almost 90,000 years—of prison officer experience since 2010. That is a shameful statistic, but it just gets worse every year. As the experience of the prison officers who are in charge of our prisons goes down, violence goes up; there is a direct correlation. In turn, that leads to even more officers leaving the service. Not surprisingly, the retention rate for prison staff is at a record low, as of course is their morale.

It has not helped that this Government have raised the retirement age for prison officers to 68. Frankly, for prison officers—both men and women—who are grappling with young and fit criminals, 68 is far too old. It is a cruel policy, which we have discussed on many occasions in this place.

The Government consistently ignore the advice of their own experts. The Prison Service Pay Review Body has proffered advice that prison officers should be given a proper pay rise. Ministers have ignored experts for three years running, and we are currently waiting for them to respond to this year’s pay review body recommendations.

The Government broke our Prison Service when they robbed it of resource, in the name of austerity, and now they need to fix it if they want to have any chance of reducing reoffending. The Government have also broken our probation service with a failed privatisation experiment. They took an award-winning service, envied and held up as a model and example around the world, and smashed it—fragmented it into little pieces, each to be run for private profit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grahame Morris]

That must be one of the prisons on my list to visit, though I hope not as an inmate. I received numerous invitations from prison officers when I was in Eastbourne. I held a surgery for prison officers to raise concerns, anonymously if they wished, and there is a catalogue of issues to be addressed. Prison education is certainly one of those, but that is normally delivered by members of the UCU, the prison educators, who have an unenviable task, which I will come to in a moment.

I want to continue my point about the role of probation. In the complex jigsaw of the criminal justice system, there are vital elements: the police; magistrates; the Crown Prosecution Service; prison officers; the prisons themselves, which should be properly staffed and resourced; probation and prison educators. Those are all important elements of that mosaic. Probation officers play a vital role that is largely unrecognised in reducing reoffending. That is what their jobs are all about and how we gauge their success. They perform a vital public service, protecting our communities from crime, while helping ex-offenders to develop the skills they need to turn their lives around.

By introducing a profit motive into probation—a mistake since acknowledged—the previous Government betrayed the highly skilled and priceless work done by probation officers with many years of experience, leaving their pay, terms and conditions at the mercy of private firms, which tried to reduce their role to little more than a tick-box exercise. That led to a flood of resignations, with people leaving the system, and all the problems we saw as a result.

Even now, two years after the Government admitted defeat and announced a full reintegration and renationalisation of probation, the service is still in the midst of a recruitment and retention crisis, very similar to the one in prisons. Napo has told me about the workload crisis facing its members. Many probation officers are working over their recommended offender management levels—the number of cases they have to look after—by between 20% and 50%, and in one case, by over 90%. The staffing and workload crises in probation have had terrible and tragic consequences in the past. It is no wonder that the mental health of many probation officers is at breaking point.

The Government have put the public at serious risk from reoffending by trying to run prisons and probation on the cheap, and undermining the pay and terms and conditions of those critically important workers in the process.

[James Daly]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. I have the greatest of respect for him, but I am failing to follow what he is trying to say. I assume that on behalf of his constituents he is saying that we need to impose more custodial sentences on repeat offenders. If that is the case, he is arguing that we should send more repeat offenders into a custodial environment. He is then arguing that we need to do something different in the custodial environment. Rather than using generic figures, will he tell us precisely what he disagrees with in terms of Government policy being implemented in prisons to aid the rehabilitation that we all seek?

[Grahame Morris]

The hon. Gentleman has got the thread of my argument precisely. I am not arguing in a contrary fashion, because I believe that repeat offenders—people involved in serial offending—need to be incarcerated for the protection of the communities and themselves. However, I do feel that in prisons, over a number of years now, the resources have not been made available to effectively prevent reoffending by offering alternatives and rehabilitation to those people who are incarcerated. I hope I can go on to develop that argument, but it was a good point, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

The greatest tool to tackle record rates of reoffending must be effective rehabilitation. At the heart of rehabilitation is education, which is desperately needed by so many prisoners. Prison education is a complete mess; that has been confirmed by independent inspectors, by the Education Committee, which is highly respected, and by Ofsted. The Government have announced plans for yet another shake-up, promising a new prison education service—I hope the Minister will say something about that. Unfortunately, details are still very thin on the ground. Ministers have had little to say about teachers, who, it might be thought, would be central to any new strategy to turn around the current, failing system. The Education Committee’s report said:

“Poor pay, lack of career development, unsafe working environments and no time or respect to do a quality job has left the recruitment and retention of qualified and experienced prison educators at crisis point.”

I hope that the Minister will listen, if not to me, then to the Education Committee, which is chaired by a Conservative, the right hon. Member for Harlow.

The problem is the Government’s ideological obsession with running key services, including the criminal justice system, for profit. Four giant prison education providers compete for business while cutting all sorts of corners to maximise profits. According to the union sources I have spoken to, pay and terms and conditions can vary widely. Any serious plan for fixing our broken prison education system should start with standard contracts across the whole sector, plus a pay rise to bring wages up to comparable roles outside. I do not want to go into the details of the issues that have been highlighted to me, but there are things that I hope will be included in the new prison education strategy, which the Minister might refer to when he responds.

Prisons are simply not fit for purpose. In the main, that is as a result of this Government’s savage cuts and poor treatment of the workforce—and all of us are paying the price. However, I believe that prison can and must work. A custodial sentence for a repeat offender provides the community with respite from their offending. In the communities that I represent, which in the main are fairly poor, a relatively small number of prolific offenders cause havoc and cause the majority of crime and antisocial behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Sir Gary, and to follow the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall). Either he follows me or I follow him, and I am happy to be following in his footsteps on this occasion in making my contribution, which will back up what he said.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) on introducing the debate in such a knowledgeable, factual and detailed way. I am here simply because the subject of the debate interests me and my constituents. To be fair, things are slightly different in Northern Ireland, where some of the people who walk the streets in Northern Ireland after having offended happen to be in positions of Government. It distresses us greatly that those people did not get their just deserts and do due time in prison for their crimes, but I digress. I understand that those issues are not the purpose of today’s debate.

Many constituents come to me and express concern about someone who is a repeat offender and, unfortunately, continues to repeat offend. Some of the cases that we have seen are particularly harrowing. There are different levels of crime, and I understand that there are different levels of punishment as well. That is reflected when the courts—

[James Daly]

The hon. Gentleman is clearly going to develop his points in respect of this issue, but the title of the debate is somewhat troubling, in that repeat offenders receive two types of sentence. One is a custodial sentence, and the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) has spoken about the rehabilitative measures that are required within the custodial environment but not touched on licence conditions. Secondly, the vast majority of reoffenders are sentenced to non-custodial disposals, so their contact with the prison system is less important than what is happening in the community. I would be very interested to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on those two separate strands of sentencing.

[Jim Shannon]

I will try to develop my points and, I hope, answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. I look forward in particular to his contribution to the debate.

With regard to my party colleagues, I am ever mindful that this is a devolved matter and therefore what we do in Northern Ireland is not the responsibility of the Minister here, but this Minister, when he replies to our contributions, always does so with knowledge and also with help to try to develop the requests that we put in for his attention.

It is no secret that I am a firm believer in strict, fair prison sentences. The sentence should fit the crime: that is where I am coming from. I fail to understand and see the reasoning behind overly lenient prison sentences for repeat offenders, which appear only to normalise the concept of repeat criminality. The issue here lies with the word “repeat”. As legislators in this House and, indeed, for the Assembly back home and for the other devolved Administrations, we must do all we can to ensure that there is no repeat offending. That is ultimately the goal that we are all trying to achieve, and that may be done, as the hon. Member for Totnes described, with the schemes that those coming out of prison can get involved in to take them away from a past that we hope they will not return to.

Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan, from back home in Northern Ireland, recently revealed that from March 2022 there would be harsher sentences for those repeat offenders guilty of abhorrent domestic abuse crimes. That is one of the types of crime that I am thinking of when I say, in relation to repeat offending, that the punishment should fit the crime. I fully support the Lady Chief Justice’s statement. There is no doubt that that is a step forward. But there should be no allowance for repeat offending in the first place. The Department of Justice revealed that adults released from prison had a proven reoffending rate of 38.6%, which is a huge amount of criminal reoffending. In addition, a large number of criminals getting off charges with no lessons learned and a mere smack on the wrist is not acceptable. The general public deserve protection and they want to see justice.

There is also the very strong argument from the side of the victim of crime—I will often speak up for the victim of crime—in relation to harsher sentencing. Whether we are talking about a burglary, assault or something considerably more serious, there is a victim who must be protected and assured of a fair, decent sentence. Repeat victimisation has become a major issue as a result of repeat offending. Sexual assault and robbery were among the crimes with the highest percentage of repeat offending—often against the same victims. Those figures alone emphasise the real need for harsher sentencing at the beginning to ensure the protection and safety of victims.

There will not be many of us who do not know or cannot give an example of a case from our own constituency in which the person who carried out the crime gets out of jail—I am thinking particularly of cases of sexual assault—and suddenly is walking around the neighbourhood where it took place. I tell you what, Sir Gary: if I were a victim, I would feel pretty disturbed, angry, annoyed and concerned that the person was able to walk round the countryside, the town, the lanes and the villages where the crimes took place. I want to see protection for the victims.

I will ask the Minister this question—if, of course, it is within the remit of this debate, Sir Gary—because I am very keen to find out what the intention is. When it comes to offenders getting out after carrying out crimes, there should be an onus on us to notify the victims that they are returning. Indeed, it would be better if a person did not return to the village where they carried out a despicable crime, but we must make sure that protection is there. We have often heard about assailants getting out and being able to wander close to the family home of the person they assaulted.

There is a debate to be had about how we treat petty crimes, such as public drunkenness, using a mobile phone while driving, or underage drinking or smoking. The hon. Member for Easington has raised before the call for community service and electronic tagging for petty crimes, and I support that. For petty crimes, the right thing to do is not to be harsh when trying to pull people away from a life of crime and point them in the right direction. Although I agree that the statistics on reoffending must be looked at to see if that is a beneficial form of punishment, we must consider stronger prison sentences if there is reoffending for petty crimes. As has been stated, lessons must be learned, as there is always the potential to be a victim.

The Northern Ireland Audit Office has undertaken work to develop a strategy to stop adult reoffending—the Minister, having looked into all these issues thoroughly, will be aware of it. This will ultimately rehabilitate offenders so that they do not reoffend after completing their sentence. It has shown considerable success.

Difficulties at home, financial issues, deprivation, or problems with alcohol, drugs or mental health can result in a continuous negative pattern of behaviour, which repeatedly brings people back into the system. People with mental health issues need to be rehabilitated and helped beyond prison. Repeat offenders are responsible for 75% of all offences recorded per year—a truly astonishing figure.

Although justice is a devolved matter, there must be more collaboration between the Departments to tackle repeat offending. I ask the Minister, has there been any contact with the devolved Administrations, in particular the Northern Ireland Assembly, to exchange ideas? I am a great believer in the idea that we can all learn from each other—I will do that to the day I die. We can do things better when we talk to those who have a system that works.

To conclude, there are ways to tackle repeat offending that reflect the callousness and intensity of the crime. For example, I believe that sexual assault cases should be harshly sentenced to start with, as community service does not reprimand the evil of assault. However, for petty crimes there are other ways to teach people the difference between right and wrong and keep them on the straight and narrow—to use a biblical term—and to ensure that they stay away from the wrong path. The issue remains what steps we should take when lessons are not learned from a certain kind of punishment. I always try to make a contribution from a Northern Ireland perspective, but I would also echo the comments of other hon. Members and I look forward to their comments.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I congratulate my friend the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) on bringing forward this important debate, which, as I said to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), can be viewed from a number of different viewpoints.

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare an interest as a practising solicitor. I was a criminal defence solicitor for 16 years. During the halcyon days of the Labour Government under Tony Blair, I was in court every day and in police stations every evening, representing the reoffenders we have been talking about. I am sure the hon. Member for Easington has not come here just to engage in political point scoring, and he will not want us to get into a debate about this, but I could go through a whole raft of statistics from when I was practising before the courts under the Labour Government. Reoffending was rampant.

This will be my last point, because I do not want to get into this, but I do not know how Labour or any Labour politician can actually challenge a Government Minister when their leader has such an appalling record as Director of Public Prosecutions. There was a fall in conviction rates for serious sexual offending and other sexual offending. We should come to these issues without the political preening and look at what we can do to make things better.

I can tell the Members present that we could have been having this conversation back in 2001, when I first stood up in the magistrates court. The first mitigation I did was completely by luck—I was making it up as I went along. I got there at 9 o’clock in the morning and my new employer said, “Court starts in 45 minutes—off you go.” The first person I represented was a shoplifter. I did not know what to say, having had no experience of these things. It occurred to me that it would be a novel idea if the court was able to impose a sentence of a job and a home. I had no background training whatsoever, having done no criminal law during my training contract. I just had a feeling, at some point, that I would go into criminal law. I thought it sounded interesting. The feeling I had during that first mitigation has never left me: the way to tackle offending, certainly with repeat offenders, is by the state bringing as much stability to their lives as possible. That is an incredibly difficult action for the state.

Sentencing is a bespoke exercise. The idea that the Government impose sentences that are routinely put and that everybody—whether they are in Totnes, Easington or Bury—gets the same sentence in the same circumstances is utterly ridiculous.

[Andy Carter]

My hon. Friend knows that I sit as a magistrate. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) said that Members of this House do not necessarily sentence, but I actually do sentence. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) is absolutely right. One of the greatest debates that benches of magistrates have is on the appropriate sentencing for the offender they see in front of them. Rehabilitation activity requirements and courses to help people understand the issues they face—on drugs, alcohol and dealing with conflict—are incredibly valuable and can form part of a sentencing package. As my hon. Friend says, it is right that magistrates have a full range of sentences available to them to ensure that the punishment fits the crime that an offender has been convicted of.

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[James Daly]

Thank you, Sir Gary. I agree with everything that my hon. Friend said. When we look at reoffending rates, we must look at what we are talking about, because we cannot talk in the generality. When I first appeared before the courts, I was representing up to 10 shoplifters a day. My hon. Friend has been on the bench for a long time, so he will know that that was the nature of repeat offending—drug-related acquisitive offending at a relatively low level.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman saying that he represented 10 shoplifters a day. When I visit shops nowadays, they tell me they are deeply frustrated that shoplifters are allowed simply to walk out of the store because nobody is interested in ensuring that they are caught and taken through the court system. Does he share that lament?

[James Daly]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. I am sure the Minister will confirm that I have that conversation with him on a regular basis. It is an important issue. The level of offending that I saw when I initially practised has vanished from the courts. I do not know where it has gone; I do not think it has disappeared into the ether. All constituency MPs know that shoplifting is still a prolific issue, but it is not appearing before the courts.

When we get down to the issue of repeat offending, perhaps the nature of the offending that appears in a sentencing exercise has changed. Where do we look for that offending? What specifically categorises it? I have to say that I do not agree with what the hon. Member for Easington says, although I understand why he said it in terms of categorising the offending as organised crime. That is a very general description of what we are talking about. Organised crime tends to be very high-level offending. When I look at reoffending rates, I look at the offences where it is a prolific problem, such as domestic violence and serious sexual offending; all of those offences, which have very specific different motivations and reasons why they are committed, are the ones that I look at. I only make the point that we cannot debate this issue in the generality. We cannot say that one sentencing option or one rehabilitative model is going to suit every single option.

We then get to the question—I raised this with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—of how to deal with repeat offenders: with a non-custodial sentence or a custodial one? I think every hon. Member would agree with the hon. Member for Easington that, in the circumstances he spoke about, the gentleman should be sent to prison. I represented people who had committed 400 offences. What do we do with them after 400 offences? Everything has been tried. Every sentence that had ever been invented had been tried by many of my clients, and had failed spectacularly. What do you do with them? They have to be sent to prison, because if it is highly unlikely for a sentence to be carried out or for an offender to take part in the requirements, that sentence cannot be imposed.

The drug rehabilitation part of non-custodial sentences is not as straightforward as people suggest. All the offenders I have represented, save those who had serious mental health issues, have understood that they should not be doing what they were doing. They know the difference between right and wrong—it is not a moral question. In many circumstances, it is a question of addressing their substance problem or opioid problem. When courts impose drug rehabilitation orders, we cannot simply take a wand out and hit somebody over the head and suddenly everything is okay. For the orders to be successful, there has to be planning, work and stability in their lives. For an offender who is living on the street, with very little money, a drug rehabilitation order may seem a sensible sentence because that is what the problem is, and that is why the offence has been committed, but we should not impose a sentence if we know it is going to fail, even if it addresses the root cause of the problem.

On non-custodial sentences, I agree with the points that were made about the probation service—I think we have got back to a better place, but we cannot simply talk about terms and conditions and how extremely important they are, and all the other things that the hon. Member for Easington referred to. This is about the interaction of the individuals, in the circumstances that they face on bail. It is those that are going to decide whether a sentence is successful or not.

In the custodial environment, there is a real debate about what we view as success in what people are offered, and that is not just about violence. Most of the reoffenders I represented were not violent individuals—they were not going into prison and that was sending them on to a different scale. It was about how the fundamental stability issues were addressed, particularly employment. I hope the Minister will comment on this point, because the Government are doing some really good work in looking at the root causes of offending. They are putting a lot of money into job creation and education, which we should not just brush aside. Some really positive steps are being taken.

Some other measures are really showing the Government’s innovative approach to sentencing policy. They were not around when I was practising. Alcohol abstinence tags have a phenomenally high rate of success. Many domestic violence offences are committed by people who are drunk or who have serious alcohol problems. Alcohol abstinence tags, whether part of the sentence or the licence conditions afterwards, are showing real success and we should—“celebrate” seems the wrong word for a sentencing exercise—at least acknowledge that good policies are being put in place.

There is also GPS tagging, which is about making sure that the justice system knows where a person is after they are released. If a burglar is coming to the end of their sentence and there is a concern about what they might do next, if they are GPs-tagged and silly enough to commit an offence, they will be arrested and put back into the court system as soon as possible. There is some really good work in this area. There is integrated offender management, which brings all the services together to produce a bespoke package to help offenders who are struggling with their lives.

The picture is complex. This problem has been around for a long time. Over many years, including under the Labour party, community rehabilitation orders have sadly been spectacularly unsuccessful, but that is not a reason for us not to keep on trying to use modern technology to learn from some of the things that have happened in the past and to have a real debate about how we can affect individual lives. Not everyone is the same. Each person we rehabilitate and bring back into a life where they are not committing offences is a success. That should not be viewed in the thousands, but in each individual success. We are all committed to doing that, while also, getting back to the original point, sending people to prison for sentences that are lengthy enough to deter reoffending behaviour.

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[Alex Cunningham]

I agree. I think employers should play a greater role in prisons and we should encourage more of them in. However, we need to provide the right environment for employers. Many years ago I was employed by National Grid, which had a scheme working in partnership with prisons—I think forklift truck drivers were the main output from one prison in the south. Those people did not reoffend—or very few of them did—because they worked with the employer while they were still in prison, they had day release into the workplace and then they got a job afterwards. That is the real answer: education followed by a job.

We know that community service sentences have enormous potential for reducing reoffending as an alternative to short prison sentences, which, under this Government, only entrench offending behaviours. A large body of evidence suggests that community orders are more effective in reducing reoffending than short sentences. Under this Government, community sentences are being set up to fail because the Government do not seem to care about stopping repeat offending at source.

The number of hours of community service was falling significantly even before the pandemic, but has now fallen to less than 1.5 million, from over 5 million five years ago. Public trust in community sentences is flagging because those schemes have stopped being seen to be viable. The number of offenders completing a community sentence has fallen by a quarter in the past five years because offenders are breaching the terms of their sentences, often by not turning up.

Labour has proposed a better way forward. The public need to see that justice is being done in their communities. That is precisely what Labour’s community and victim payback boards would do, by providing publicly available data on the work that offenders are doing, determined by the communities and victims affected. We have put the victims of crime and the communities blighted by it at the centre of unpaid work schemes through existing safer neighbourhood boards. Another reason for the failure of community sentences, particularly where repeat offenders are concerned, is down to the fact that judges no longer trust that they will be delivered. The fault with that lies in the problems experienced by the probation service, which this Government have created with the service’s disastrous privatisation in 2014.

[James Daly]

I would be astounded if the hon. Gentleman had any evidence to back up the claim that judges do not trust community sentences. I do not know whether he has seen the Government’s work on community payback, which is extremely visible and effective. It is essentially already doing what he has just said.

[Alex Cunningham]

I accept that some progress has been made in this area, but we have a long way to go if we are to make it effective for many more people in the system. That is an illustration that the Government have belatedly realised their error and are starting to put things right. There are still worrying hangovers, such as recruitment and retention, from the previous system of community rehabilitation companies.

The rate at which probation officers are leaving the service has increased by a quarter since 2015. Resignations have consistently outstripped retirement and other reasons for leaving the service over the past five years: 60% of all leavers are choosing to walk away. The causes cited by some include high workloads, stress and poor pay, given the nature of the work and the rising cost of living. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington talked of some of those issues.

The workloads of existing staff have now reached unsafe levels. That is reflected in the alarming growth in certain serious further offences in recent years; that is, offences committed by repeat offenders who are the subject of probation supervision. I am sure the Minister will tell us how we are going to reconfigure the probation service, to ensure that we can put that right. SFOs for murder were higher in the three years to 2020 than they ever have been—surely, the most severe form of repeat offending that there is.

The public have a right to be concerned about these serious violent crimes in their communities, because this Tory Government have shown time and again they are not capable of dealing with the issue. There is no better example than repeat knife crime. The Government promised in 2015 to lock up repeat knife offenders, but almost half of repeat offenders avoided jail in 2021, and knife possession offences across England and Wales have increased by a fifth since the Conservatives came to power. The Minister and I spent a considerable length of time in Committee for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Act 2022. I hope the measures it introduced will have the effect that the Government hope. Of course, many of the provisions have yet to be enacted.

The root of the problem with repeat offending is the neglect of youth services and youth offending teams, which could be preventing offending by engaging young people, instead of leaving them to their own devices and the influence of others who drag them into crime. That neglect has resulted in enormous rises in the scale and cost of violent youth crime, which now stands at more than £11 billion under this Government. Being soft on repeat offending and soft on its causes blights communities and costs taxpayers. Labour has shown it will tackle reoffending and repeat offending head on, and bring security to our communities. That is what my hon. Friend the Member for Easington wants.

Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

James Daly Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Following on from the hon. Gentleman’s point, which I think is absolutely fundamental to this issue, we are in a position where 90% of rape allegations are not referred by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service. We have a severe problem prior to charge in terms of how we deal with these matters. We have a conviction rate in the courts of 4%, so 4% of police referrals are put in that position. We have to concentrate on what is going wrong in police investigations. Does the right hon. Lady agree?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree. I think that things are going wrong at every stage in the process. Things are going wrong in the police investigation—I will come on to talk about Operation Soteria, and how we should go much more widely—in the referral process between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, which is also breaking down, and in the prosecution. The hon. Member is absolutely right: at every stage in the process things are going wrong. That raises the challenge for us in Parliament, because there is always a risk that different bits of the criminal justice system end up blaming each other. We need the oversight to pull everybody together and demand that action is taken. My fear is that we are not seeing that oversight, because it is simply not delivering results.

I have respect for the Ministers in both the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office who work on violence against women and girls, but I say to them that the work is not delivering results, and it is overwhelmingly not on the scale that we need. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue has said:

“Provision is at breaking point.”

It has said:

“Rape victims are continually and systematically failed by the criminal justice system.”

How have the Government allowed that to happen? How have the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice allowed that to happen? How have we allowed it to reach breaking point? Back in 2014, Labour called for action to increase prosecutions, but the opposite has happened. The rape prosecution rate is down to a horrendous record low of just 1.3%—lower than ever.

We should consider for a moment the reality of what that means. Around 63,000 rapes are reported a year. It is estimated that at least as many again are not reported. Of those reported, just 1.3% result in someone being charged. That means that across the country more than 300 women will be raped today—more than 300 lives devastated by a vile crime, according to those estimates. Those figures mean that, on average, 170 rapes will be reported today, but the figures also suggest that just less than three of those rapists will see the inside of a court room this year, never mind the inside of a prison cell.

These are the basic pillars of the criminal justice system: if a vile crime happens, the victim should expect to be able to get support, and for the police to investigate and the perpetrator to be pursued, prosecuted and brought to justice. Nothing can ever undo the damage that the crime has done, but at least we can give the victim justice, and protect others from the same thing happening again. The truth is that all of us should be ashamed of the reality of the way that the criminal justice system is treating violence against women and girls. I know that across the criminal justice system there are brilliant police officers who are working hard to get evidence and to get the prosecution rates up, brilliant lawyers and CPS prosecutors who are working incredibly hard to try to get prosecutions, and brilliant support workers and advisers who are working hard to support victims, but the total system is failing.

We have a system that still too often has blind spots around violence against women and girls. There could be blind spots, for example, on the way that domestic abuse prosecutions happen—something that I have been raising, and that the Government have accepted. A woman in my constituency told me how she had been assaulted while she was pregnant, but the case timed out. She could not get justice because of the six-month limit in the magistrates court, which works sensibly for common assault if it means fights in the street or in the pub, in order to speed up the justice system, but does not work for domestic abuse, where there may be countless reasons why someone cannot report a crime straightaway.

When I first raised that, neither the Home Office nor the Ministry of Justice had any research on it. Many in the criminal justice system and in organisations that had campaigned on violence against women and girls had assumed that it was just not possible to change that, because it was so embedded in the criminal justice system. I welcome the fact that the Minister talked to me about this, commissioned research and accepted the proposals that we put forward to change the system and to lift the six-month limit, but it reflects a deep blind spot that has been in the system for too long.

There is still a blind spot on spiking. Until the surge of needle spiking last autumn, it had been too often dismissed as a crime linked to young people drinking and drug taking, and particularly to young women drinking and not taking enough care to protect themselves. The best that would happen was that a bit of advice would be given young women on how to cover their drinks to stay safe.