Early Release of Prisoners

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy]

The hon. Gentleman resembles one of those Japanese soldiers found in 1950 who were still fighting the second world war. The Whips and the Labour party have given up on this debate, and he is still reading out the planted questions given to him earlier today by the Whips, before they bottled it and folded. [Interruption.] I would be happy to give way again, if the hon. Gentleman wants to keep on with this argument, but he is chuntering from a sedentary position.

The first action of this Prime Minister—the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), if hon. Members can keep up—was to announce that he would let tens of thousands of hardened criminals out of prison early. Between September 2024 and December 2025, under the standard determinate sentence 40 scheme, more than 50,000 prisoners were let out early. It is no surprise, as prison governors have been lining up to tell the Government, that in the rush to let criminals out, more prisoners were released in error than at any other time on record. It is no surprise that prisons are finding it harder to ensure that released prisoners have a plan for housing and work—but that is not the only mess caused by this reckless policy.

Prisoner recalls are at a record high. In fact, more criminals have been recalled to prison than released under SDS40, but Ministers refuse to tell us how many recalled prisoners were let loose through early release. Now the Government are going further. Under the Sentencing Act 2026 and SDS33, thousands of prisoners will be let out after serving just one third of their time. More than 7,000 victims have received letters telling them that the perpetrators of the crimes against them may be set loose. No wonder the Justice Secretary is hiding in his ministerial office, rather than defending his record, or the policy that has now been abandoned.

In January, as this House considered Lords amendments to the Sentencing Act, the Minister told the House that

“nothing in the Bill changes sentences for prisoners convicted of the most serious, heinous crimes”. —[Official Report, 20 January 2026; Vol. 779, c. 199.]

We all knew that was nonsense, because when we tabled amendments to exclude from SDS33 those convicted of the most serious offences—rape, sex offences, child sex offences and more—the Government whipped their MPs to vote against us. That would be bad enough on its own terms, but the Government have completely lost control of the process for early release. They do not even know who is scheduled to be released, or when. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) asked Ministers to break down which offenders would be released when, and to disclose what crimes they had committed. The Minister told the House that it was

“not possible to know future release data precisely so far in advance”.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

There is a perpetual uncertainty about this issue, as my hon. Friend describes, but at the heart of it is the distance between the popular expectation of what criminal justice should deliver, and what the Government are putting in place. I am not saying that this began with this Government—there is a more fundamental and existential problem—but, in the end, every time Governments do this kind of thing, people lose faith in the justice of the criminal justice system.

[Nick Timothy]

I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend. The statistics show that between 1993 and 2012, our prison population grew very significantly, and through that period, crime fell. It plateaued after 2012, as the population grew, and that was a mistake. The Opposition are willing to accept that that was one of the errors of the coalition Government and the Conservatives’ time in power. We need to move on from that, and we will develop policies so that a future Conservative Government can build the prison capacity that the country needs.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)]

I thank the shadow Justice Secretary for his opening remarks. This is a profoundly serious matter for all Members in this place, victims across the country—including those here in the Gallery—and indeed all members the public.

Confidence in our law and order system must be maintained. We must all, therefore, recognise that we as a country face a challenge: to ensure public safety and protect victims while maintaining a functioning prison estate. I have no doubt that this is a priority for us all.

To begin, it is imperative to recognise the genesis of the Sentencing Act 2026, its implementation and provisions and, ultimately, why we are debating these issues. On 5 July 2024, the Home Secretary, in her first day in office as the then Justice Secretary, was presented immediately with a criminal justice system in crisis. There were fewer than 100 places left in the adult male estate. A day one decision for her was the nature and scope of an emergency release scheme, not whether there should be one. We all remember the chaotic scenes that we saw in the weeks afterwards. There were similar scenes when such last-minute release schemes were implemented by the last Government: judges were told not to jail the most serious offenders due to a lack of prison places and criminals walked away, with a lack of time to provide the most robust community measures.

The Conservative party released more than 10,000 prisoners early for a series of emergency measures taken to manage the capacity crisis they created. Those schemes were introduced at short notice, without the long-term reforms necessary to put the system on a sustainable footing, but there was no option but to act to prevent a collapse of the criminal justice system, which would have seen sex offenders and others able to act with impunity.

A prison capacity crisis is not just a problem for our prisons; it means the unravelling of the criminal justice system completely, with courts unable to hear cases, police unable to make arrests and a grinding halt to law and order in our country. Therefore, in the aftermath, the Government rightly wanted to ensure that would never happen again. The Home Secretary—then the Justice Secretary—commissioned the right hon. Sir David Gauke to undertake an urgent review of how we sentence offenders. On its conclusion, Gauke found that under the previous Administration action was taken only when the criminal justice system was within three days away of collapse.

We recognised then that a two-pronged approach was required. One part was to build more prisons, backed by capital investment. That is how we have been able to embark on the biggest prison building programme since the Victorian era, with 14,000 new prison places by 2031. Two years into this Government, 3,200 places have already been delivered—contrast that with just 500 extra places over 14 years under the Conservative party.

In the 14 years of Conservative government, 23 prisons were closed. We would not be having this debate if those decisions had not been taken.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is right: prisons were closed that, in my view, might have been kept open. Has he looked at those prisons to see if any of them could be brought back quickly into use? Clearly that would be much faster than building new prisons. Has he looked to other secure facilities that might be used as prisons? During covid, the Government acted quickly, passed laws and put Nightingale hospitals in place. Why can we not have emergency prison places rather than letting these dangerous people on to our streets to do more harm?

[Jake Richards]

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He has been consistent on this, although we do not agree on everything when it comes to criminal justice matters. The Government have looked at all options, including whether we can reopen those prisons closed by the last Conservative Government. I was struck by the shadow Justice Secretary’s welcoming of the suggestion that there should be new planning reforms around how we build prisons, because every time we try to build a new prison in a Conservative MP’s constituency, the Conservatives oppose it. It has happened time and again, with one thing being said at the Dispatch Box and their MPs arguing something completely different in their local media.

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[Jake Richards]

As happened on numerous occasions under Boris Johnson and Theresa May, in Opposition day debates the Government are quite within their rights not to divide on an issue—an Opposition day is an Opposition day.

This Government are dealing with the prison capacity crisis that we inherited. We are facing a situation where, if the Sentencing Act measures are not implemented, in October or November of this year we will be back where we were in July 2024. The Sentencing Act received Royal Assent in January and some of its measures are being implemented from September onwards. The Government will always balance making sure that we have a sustainable prison system and never going back to the crisis that we saw under the Conservatives with public safety and confidence in the system. That will continue under this Prime Minister and under the next Labour Prime Minister.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time—he is very generous—and for his kind remarks about my consistency. He also mentioned our differences, and I will explore those in greater detail in due course, with your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether I can be helpful to the Minister. This matter seems to go well beyond party politics, because we have a crisis in prison numbers and this is an occasion on which we might find common cause and seek a way forward. Indeed, that offer has generously been made by those on the Opposition Front Bench, so perhaps the Minister, who I suspect is a rather decent man at heart, should take up that offer in the spirit in which it has been made, and see whether we can sort this out in a way that protects all our constituents from harm.

[Jake Richards]

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s kind words, personally, but I gently say that the Opposition party has no plan for how to deal with the prison crisis that its amendment would have brought about later this year—there is no plan; there is no suggestion; there is no idea of where they would put the criminals we are locking up every day. By the end of this Parliament there will be more criminals behind bars than ever before under a Labour Government. We are building more prisons than since the Victorian era. There is no plan from the Opposition. It is very easy and straightforward to bemoan the changes in the Sentencing Act, which received Royal Assent in January, but the Opposition have to come Parliament with a credible plan for capacity.

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[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Disraeli, the great Conservative Prime Minister, said:

“Justice is truth in action.”—[Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 11 February 1851; Vol. 114, c. 412.]

When criminal justice deviates from what the public see as the truth, the faith in its delivery is undermined. People want to see that justice is done and seen to be done, and that punishments for wickedness are dealt with appropriately. I take a different view from the Minister about the character of a retributive approach to criminal justice, as I do think that retribution is an important part of satisfying a legitimate public thirst for appropriateness—that is to say, when something awful is done, people expect the person responsible for that horror to be treated accordingly. They do not take the view, which has prevailed for successive decades affecting all kinds of Governments, that we should, in the first place, treat the criminal as though suffering from an illness. The treatmentist approach has dominated thinking on criminal justice for most of my lifetime is out of tune with popular sentiment.

The truth is that crime is not an illness to be treated; it is a perverse choice by those seeking to gain from it. That might be financial or, in the case of sexual crime, about lust. When we speak of wickedness, let us be straightforward: these kinds of instincts have been endemic in humankind since we fell from the state of grace, so we should not assume that people are not capable of the worst horrors—all of human history shows that they are. When that occurs, people expect those who exercise power to deal with it emphatically, without fear or favour.

We need a criminal justice system that defends the innocent and punishes the guilty, and I make no apologies in making a case for punishment. People should be punished when they do awful, wicked things, so I want to see more people locked up for much longer. I do not think I am out of tune with my constituents, because I think they would say exactly the same.

What we actually have is public policy that is taking us in exactly the opposite direction. We are seeing people sentenced and, as though that sentence is meaningless, then serving half of it. What is the purpose of a judge agreeing a sentence when the victims of the crime know that the person responsible for it will only serve half the time that the judge insists is necessary for punishment to be done?

Early release will not just affect minor criminals; we have heard from Members across the Chamber that it will be applied to people of all types. When my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) asked for clarification about numbers, answer was there none. We do not know how many of those who will be released remarkably early are likely to pose a considerable danger to my constituents, the Minister’s and my right hon. Friend’s. I was not generous but accurate in describing the Minister as a decent man, and I think the least he owes us is, before the debate concludes—he can get a message sent to him from on high, by which I mean the Box over there, not from God—to be precise about the number of people in each of the categories that have been described today who will be released early. How many people convicted of manslaughter, how many child sexual offenders and how many rapists will now be on the streets as a result of this policy?

The Minister has come to the House and said, “This is a matter of practicality because there are insufficient prison places to hold all those there.” We know that there are two reasons for that beyond the desire to lock people up. One is the number of foreign national offenders in our prisons, so let us have some clarity about the number of those who are being deported. Is the number increasing dramatically, and if not, what are the impediments to those offenders returning to their country of origin?

Secondly, there are large numbers of prisoners on remand because the throughput of the courts is insufficient. How many people are on remand? How long have they been in prison? What steps will the Government take to improve the throughput in our court system that allows fewer of those people to be clogging up our prisons? We have to assume that some of them are innocent; not everyone who is on remand will later be found guilty, so there may be innocent people in prison, but we are going to let guilty people—we know they are guilty, because they have already been sentenced—free. That seems to me to be entirely inappropriate.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I am always happy to give way to the hon. Lady.

[Carla Lockhart]

I thank the right hon. Member for giving way; he is speaking very eloquently. The British people believe in a simple principle: if you do the crime, you should do the time. We in Northern Ireland, unfortunately, have witnessed the early release of prisoners under the Good Friday agreement, the impact that it has on victims and the retraumatisation of victims. I agree with his point totally. When we speak about prison capacity, would we not all agree that the airport is where foreign nationals should be, not the high street, which will retraumatise victims?

[Sir John Hayes]

Not for the first time, the hon. Lady has brought both insight and character to our considerations. She has been consistent in raising this issue in the House. From the experience in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, we know the effects of early release: many of the people released early will go on to commit other crimes. The figures are really quite shocking. Official data shows that there were 870 notifications of serious further offences committed by released prisoners in 2024-25, including 56 murders and 107 rapes.

When, from time to time, I make the case for capital punishment as a sentence available for the worst possible crimes, I am told that we could not possibly have that because we might make mistakes. However, we know that many people who have committed murder and subsequently been released have murdered again. Some of the people we are about to release will commit awful, horrible crimes. Not only will their victims be traumatised by fear, but crimes are almost bound to be committed by those people, in reality, notwithstanding the efforts of the Probation Service and the police, and that will be on the Minister’s head—I do not think he wants that, for he could not possibly defend it to his constituents. I do not think that that any Member of the House would be comfortable with the idea that a decision taken here might have that effect.

I implore the Minister, as I did earlier, to speak to the shadow Minister to see if the House can come together to find a solution to the problem. I know it is not straightforward, and that other Governments have wrestled with it. None the less, this issue surely stretches beyond the party divide, and is one that we can all use our endeavours and our imagination to try to solve.

[Paula Barker]

The right hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. Does he agree that this House is at its best when we put party politics aside, as my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) said? We owe it to all our constituents and to the country as a whole to come together and find a solution to this problem; that is not beyond the wit of man, and is within the scope of this House.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Lady is right. If you will allow me to digress for a moment, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am often asked by constituents—I imagine other hon. Members are asked the same question—“How on earth do you get on with people on the other side of the House?” I respond by saying that I get on with them just as well as I do with the people on my side when we come together to fight a battle, take up a campaign, or defend a cause that we believe is right and good. No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No Government get everything right. Governments make mistakes, as indeed do parties, and when we are big enough to acknowledge that publicly, we grow in respect; we are not diminished by it. The hon. Lady has grown today by her suggestion, and I hope that the Minister, too, will grow when he accepts it.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

We will be in a bizarre situation: the House will come together and express an unopposed view on what we should do about this issue, but before we have even done that, the Minister has indicated at the Dispatch Box that that view is immaterial and will not make a difference.

[Sir John Hayes]

Before I deal with that directly, may I say that in championing the interests of victims, my hon. Friend has done the Conservatives and the whole House proud? He has a remarkable record of standing up for victims, having met victims’ groups and formed a connection with them that has rightly encouraged their trust. I always take his interventions on this subject seriously. He is right that there is space and an opportunity to have a mature discussion, not about where we have come from—that is pointless, as was said earlier—but about where we go from here. There are ways in which we could address the matter that would avoid our letting the most dangerous criminals on to the streets.

[Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

If this is an issue of practicalities, as we have heard, can we not assume that there might be common ground on the idea of withdrawing visas from those countries that will not take back their offenders? That would lessen the pressure to release as many prisoners as are projected to be released.

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. Friend is right. The figures are stark: one in eight prisoners is a foreign national taking up valuable prison space. There are 10,376 foreign national criminals in our prisons today, which represents around 12% of the total prison population, and they cost almost £650 million a year. Absolutely, we should address the issue that my right hon. Friend raises; we should look at those countries that will not take back offenders, and at how obstacles might be overcome. That would relieve pressure on prison space and perhaps provide a way for the Government to confirm that they will not let violent offenders, child groomers and sexual offenders on to our streets.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I am sorry to labour this point, but given the consensus that I think there is in the House this afternoon, and in the light of what the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) said, let me say this. By my reckoning, we have five working days, or a maximum of six, before the summer recess, and some potentially dangerous people are likely to be released in September. We can use the time that we have, and can work with the Government to get whatever is necessary on the statute book to address this issue in the short term, while we deal with the longer-term issue. Am I right?

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. Friend is right. We are perfectly entitled to make that request of Government, as he has done in eloquent terms. It seems to me that the plan to release up to 6,000 criminals in September needs to be stalled, so that we can think again. There is a good argument for removing sex offenders, rapists, those guilty of manslaughter and those involved in grooming children from the list of those to be released. That is the least that could be done, and the opportunity is there to do it. If I may say so, the fact that a Member as senior as my right hon. Friend has made that suggestion should in itself carry significant weight.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend recall that when the Government put forward their proposals, they said that the most serious and heinous crimes would not be affected by the scheme? The reason we are in this position is that statements made at the Dispatch Box were, to put it mildly, inaccurate. In fact, very serious and heinous criminals will be released in September unless, as he suggests, the scheme is paused, and paused it should be.

[Sir John Hayes]

As my hon. Friend will know, the Sentencing Act facilitated early release. Did we not ask then for clarity about what that meant, in the terms that he describes? What kind of criminals would be released? What damage might they do? What assessment had been made of the risk of this policy? It is not as if the Government were not pressed on all those things, but there has been a remarkable lack of clarity—for example, the Prime Minister said, “It is impossible to say who will be released, where and when.” Frankly, you cannot get less clarity than that, can you, Madam Deputy Speaker?

We need to know that more innocent people will not be put at risk. The very least we should do is deal with the issue of serious sexual offenders and, in particular, those responsible for abusing children. I make no apology for quoting particular cases. Shabir Ahmed, the Pakistani ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, was freed despite warnings that he was “unsafe” to be released into the community. He was jailed for 22 years for 30 child rape offences. The parole documents that reveal that he was deemed unsafe for release into the community include his belief that it was

“acceptable to sexually abuse children”.

That is a chilling thought, and I know that decent people across this House, and across this country, will be shocked by it.

A woman groomed and raped as a child by a friend of her family has appealed to the Government to abandon their plans to free him nearly two years early. Jade Belgrove waived her anonymity to describe the Government’s early release scheme as an “absolute disgrace”. Her case highlights that women and children are at risk from rapists and sex offenders who are freed early. She was raped aged 14. She deserves justice, if justice is indeed “truth in action”, as Disraeli said.

I differ from the Minister on the purpose of criminal justice. I believe that the treatmentist perspective that has dominated for a very long time needs to be challenged; I believe that just retribution should be at the core of how we deal with the wickedness that I have outlined. However, let us put all of that to one side. Those are issues of principle, and although there may be differences of principle between us, the Minister did not come to the Chamber to advocate for a principle. He did not say, “We are doing this because of some high-minded view about how we should deal with crime”; he said, “We are doing this because we can do nothing else—because of practicalities.” Therefore, as we are dealing with practicalities, let us look at what can be done to fix the problem, and let us do so early, so as to find a solution to it before September.

In doing so, let us broadcast a message from this House today that people need not walk in fear because dangerous people are going to be released on to the streets of their village, town or city; Parliament has said that that cannot be so. If we were to do that, public faith in Parliament would be a little stronger, a little restored. That is the request that I make of the Minister, because I stand by and for the people, having been chosen by the people to do so.

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[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely do share that frustration. If we are serious about addressing one of the biggest national scandals that the country has ever faced, we surely cannot have a scenario in which Professor Alexis Jay produces a detailed report—having done a huge amount of outreach in dealing with those who have experienced child sexual abuse—only for the state to fail in its responsibility to enact its recommendations. I have long called for all those recommendations to be implemented in full. There was a gap during which gang rapes of victims and survivors who had experienced child sexual abuse were not looked at properly. Baroness Casey then produced a detailed report, which came before Parliament in June 2025, recommending a national inquiry, but more than 18 months later, we are still in the same position.

We have had the announcement that Bradford district and Keighley will be investigated in that inquiry, alongside London, but where else are those victims and survivors across the country being let down? This is an important point, because if we are not delivering accountability and justice through an inquiry that now has three years before reporting back to the Government, we are not dealing with the crux of the issue of re-establishing trust between those who have been let down by the state and those in whom that trust needs to be re-established.

That brings me to the very heart of the issue. The Government are now considering releasing prisoners early—perpetrators who have carried out some of the most horrendous crimes that anyone in the country could have imagined. Dual nationals, for instance, have been released early. Last year in Keighley, eight men were convicted of carrying out gang rape, two of whom had dual nationality, and two of whom were sentenced in their absence from court and are now living a life of freedom in Pakistan. Where they are living is common knowledge, but they have escaped justice because the courts did not have the ability, or rather the common sense, to remove their passports during the trial and the sentencing. That is a disgrace, and it only builds on the scenario that the state is not delivering for those victims and survivors.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend has done a heroic job in highlighting the perennial problem in his area and beyond it. The reluctance to acknowledge that these grooming gangs were run largely by men of Pakistani origin is exacerbated when those very people, once caught and convicted, are released early. The lack of faith that was bound to come from that reluctance will now be exaggerated—doubled—when these people are let out of prison, where they ought to stay, probably forever.

[Robbie Moore]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. In a moment or two, I will read out some descriptions of the feelings, and the frustrations, of the many victims and survivors who are hugely anxious and fearful that their perpetrators will be released early, because the sentences that are being given to those perpetrators are nowhere near long enough. Many of those victims and survivors are having to see sentences served concurrently, which is exactly what happened in the case of perpetrators of gang rape in my constituency decades ago. I had to challenge the Attorney General to call in those cases under the undue leniency scheme so that the sentences could be longer.

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend that the sentence should be life. Those who carry out these heinous crimes should not face weak sentences of up to six or eight years—sometimes much less than that.

The fact that victims and survivors receive a standardised letter—it is not personalised at all—that makes them fearful that their perpetrators may be released on to the streets early brings shame on this Government. I have read those letters. The first paragraph says:

“These changes have been introduced with the aim of improving the effectiveness of sentencing and better managing offenders in the community.”

What absolute cold-heartedness! It is an outrage that the Government are releasing that narrative to victims and survivors. Who on earth signed off the letters that have gone out to survivors who are deeply worried about those perpetrators?

I will take some time to read out to the House how some of those victims and survivors are feeling. I was lucky enough to meet those who are up in the Gallery earlier today. I put on the record my admiration for both Amy Clowrey and David Greenwood from Switalskis, who have worked for decades with victims and survivors from Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford and across the wider Bradford district, to ensure justice is delivered.

Sarah Wilson was just 11 years old when her exploitation began in Rotherham. She was a little girl forced to undergo a virginity test, and her innocence was stolen from her on the same day. For years she was raped and trafficked up and down the country by countless men. For 11 years she fought long and hard for the little girl she once was, and over two years she endured three criminal trials under Operation Stovewood. Those trials have now resulted in 125 years of justice against seven men. But how does that make Sarah feel? She says:

“I feel that all my hard work fighting for that little girl I used to be has been thrown back in my face like it was all for nothing. It seems like they have had a huge slap on the wrist and are allowed back out to reoffend. I’m scared that in a couple of years I could potentially see some of my perpetrators back on the same streets they abused me on. I’m scared of the repercussions. These are some of the most dangerous to walk our streets.”

Those are Sarah’s words after receiving one of these letters. I will continue to read this out, because it is important that the Minister, the Government and the Justice Secretary understand the anxiety that this has caused.

Erin—not her real name—was exposed to child exploitation in the Kirklees area between the ages of 12 and 21. She was subjected to abuse by older Asian—Pakistani—men, many of whom were notorious criminals involved in drugs. A number of the perpetrators are now serving lengthy sentences after Erin assisted the police in recent operations. How does receiving one of these letters from the Government make her feel? She says:

“I am writing in devastation and fear regarding the Government’s plan for the early release of prisoners. I am a survivor of severe, long-term abuse. I spent years of my life bravely fighting through the legal system to bring the men who harmed me to trial. The justice system had already failed me by giving them prison sentences that were shorter than the time I spent fighting them in court. Before that, the systems that were meant to protect me, including social services and the police, failed me too.

Now I feel as though I am being punished and terrified all over again. Hearing that the men who abused me may be released early has completely broken my sense of safety. My family and I still receive threats from these men and their families to this day.”

Early release would be a disaster for her, and I hope the Minister will respond to each and every one of the points I read out.

The name Fiona Goddard is very familiar to this House. She first contacted me when I was elected back in December 2019, in the hope she might find someone willing to fight her corner. I have huge admiration for Fiona. At the age of 13, she was taken into care by Bradford council. She was initially placed at Edgefield children’s home, where she was first exposed to child sexual exploitation. She continued to go missing on a regular basis. Fiona fell victim to a campaign—a campaign—of rape and sexual assault over five years. She believes that up to 100 men were involved. Following a criminal trial in 2019, under Operation Dalesway, nine men were convicted of crimes relating to sexual exploitation.

How does Fiona feel as a result of receiving this letter about how, under this Government, the perpetrators could be released early? She says:

“Since finding out that some of my abusers may be released from prison, my mental and physical health has deteriorated significantly. I no longer feel able to keep myself and my family safe. I have been trying to raise money so that I can move out of the area, because the thought of them being back on the streets… is terrifying.

I always knew that these men would be released one day, but I believed I had more time to rebuild my life and prepare myself for that reality”,

after those convictions. She went on:

“Finding out that they may be released early has completely set me back. I have barely left the house. I feel constantly anxious, frightened and unsafe. I can barely sleep, and when I do, I do not feel rested. This news has affected me so deeply that my physical health has also suffered, resulting in hospital admissions.”

That is the result of this letter from the Government. Who, I ask the Minister, signed off these letters?

Jessica was exposed to child sexual abuse from the age of 12 in Batley, Dewsbury. She was sexually abused by over 50 men in this period. Between the ages of 12 and 16, Jessica was introduced to other men by a girl known to the police, who was older than her. In 2022, as part of Operation Tourway, her perpetrators were finally convicted. How did it make Jessica feel to receive one of these letters from the Government? She said:

“It’s made me feel worthless all over again and like my safety does not matter at all. These people are going to be released back into the town and community where I live. For my safety I think I will have to move.”

She had always known that one day they would be released, but she did not think it would come this soon. She went on:

“It’s just so unfair that they’re not even going to serve the sentence that was handed to them”.

She knew that the sentences given were far too short in the first place. She says:

“When I received the letter, I just started crying. I am now only two years out of court and my case took eight years to get to court. They might not even serve eight years”,

as a result of the reassessment by the Government. She just cannot believe that two years after going to court, she now has to go through the trauma of the perpetrators being released early, which she says is “soul-crushing”.

Carly was 12 when she became involved with a group of Asian men who sexually abused and exploited her. Her abuse continued throughout 2004 to 2011. As part of Operation Tendersea, Carly gave evidence at the trial in late 2018 that secured convictions against three of the men. As a result of receiving one of these letters, she says:

“I am extremely disappointed…that my perpetrators and abusers will only be serving 33% of their sentences, so they are going to be released as early as September. It is just another kick in the teeth.”

She feels incredibly disappointed that what little justice they had been given has been taken away. She says:

“We cannot let people who have abused children for years and decades onto the streets. How is it safe? It is not safe for our children, and it’s not safe for the next generation of children. You are just releasing them back onto the streets for them to commit further offences, with a probation system that is fully broken.”

There are three more quotes that I will read out, and I will not apologise for doing so, because these girls have faced the most horrendous crimes. Jade was the victim of rape aged 14, and waived anonymity to describe the Government’s early release scheme as “an absolute disgrace” that put women and children at risk from scores of rapists and sex offenders freed prematurely. She said that the two rapes left her with a “life sentence”, while the rapist who groomed her will just get a slap on the wrist. Recalling the moment that she read and digested the content of the letter, she said:

“I felt sick, to be honest. I felt like my rapist was being protected again”—

protected by the state—

“It’s an absolute disgrace they can make victims feel back to being unheard and vulnerable. The fear all comes back because you know they’re going to be out so much sooner than you had in your head originally.”

Other than murder, Jade thinks that these are some of the worst crimes that should get the most severe sentences. She continues:

“It’s put such a fire in my belly because it scares me so much that so many predators and paedophiles are getting out, which scares me for my children’s future because they’re just back on the street again.”

That is as a result of this Government.

Angela was first raped by her stepfather when she was just eight years old. She tried to tell people but was ignored by school support staff and social services. The abuse continued until she was 15, when she refused to go home from school until the police got involved. She suffers from long-term post-traumatic stress disorder and hearing loss in both ears from repeated head trauma. This was her response on receiving the letter:

“It took three years for me to get justice and I was let down repeatedly by adults who should have been protecting me. My abuser was sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison of which he has only served six. The email received”—

it was an email, not even a letter, that came from the Ministry of Justice—

“was for all intents and purposes the government saying they do not care about the safety of women and children. I feel completely let down and made to feel like my safety and that of other victims isn’t valued. This decision is an insult to women and the children we were who had to endure such violence. We deserve justice, I deserve to have time to put my life together without fear. I should be enjoying my degree and being in my twenties, having the normal stresses of a young woman. Instead I am having to fight for myself all over again. This decision is so obviously wrong that it amazes me it was even a discussion in the first place. It undermines everything we as victims went through.”

Finally, I will read a quote from Charlotte:

“From the age of eight years old until I was 13, I was raped and beaten by my older brother. In February 2025, he was arrested and charged with 20 sexual offences. In June of 2025, he pleaded guilty to nine out of the 20 charges and received a sentence of five years”—

just five years.

“In an email breakdown of his sentence from the judge, it shows all the reductions he got to his sentence for different factors, such as his age and admitting part of what he did. At no point was there an increase for my age or my pain”—

with Charlotte being so young.

“His sentence went from 21 years down to 5, of which he was supposed to serve two thirds…

My children are just starting to get their happy mum back after spending so long scared and broken. My life was ruined at just age 8. I spent 21 years living in fear and embarrassment and questioning why me.”

She said that

“5 years was not long enough and him being able to walk free after a year and a half”

will be hugely detrimental to the rest of her life. Unfortunately, Charlotte now needs medication just to be able to function.

These are the exact words of many of the victims and survivors who have received these letters, and there will be many, many more across the country. Why on earth will the Government not use the time remaining in this place before recess to bring forward emergency legislation to counteract the recommendations included in the Sentencing Act 2026, put a stop to this issue and reassure the many victims and survivors who are sat up in the Gallery right now and across the country that those perpetrators will not be released early?

--- Later in debate ---

[James Wild]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The Lady Chief Justice appeared before parliamentary Committees to tell MPs that she could have more sitting days if only the Government would produce, I think, about £20 million of funding—a fairly minimal amount in the scheme of the £1.3 trillion that the Government spend every year—rather than go down the route of removing people’s right to jury trials in certain cases.

The prison places coming online are those commissioned by the last Government. Yes, I accept that we should have commissioned more, but the Minister has confirmed in parliamentary answers that no new prisons have been planned or approved by this Government since the general election. Politics is about choices, and Ministers have chosen early release and softer sentencing rather than ensuring public protection and punishment. That is despite Ministers saying that the most serious and violent offenders would be excluded from this change. Anyone who has listened to the testimonies shared with the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley could not consider that they do not represent the most serious and violent offenders.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. It would be straightforward for the Government to issue a statement—a written statement would do, actually—on the back of this debate simply excluding the kinds of offenders that have been highlighted by a variety of hon. Members, and in particular by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore). When the Minister winds up, she might confirm that the Government intend to issue such a statement, and we could then move on.

[James Wild]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. It looked like Labour MPs were set to be whipped against this motion to stop the early release of sex offenders who had committed crimes against children. When I was first elected to this House, I had to explain to my Whip and the Minister in post that I would not support a measure to bring forward an early release scheme for offenders—I expect that many of my newly elected colleagues did the same—and that measure was withdrawn.

While MPs may not be whipped to vote against the motion, and there seems to be common cause from Government Members in the Chamber, we heard nothing in opening from the Minister, who spoke but failed to address the next steps. There might be some grounds for optimism as apparently the right hon. Member for Makerfield is looking at how to tighten the scheme to exclude such offenders, but if that change is to happen, the legislation needs to come forward now.

We know that the new Prime Minister will not be in post until we have risen for the summer recess. Tomorrow and Thursday, we will have general debates in the House. The motion—it looks like it will pass without a Division—calls on the Government to bring forward legislation immediately, so if the Government are accept the motion, what is their plan? Will they bring forward commencement regulations to delay implementation, as set out earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy)? Will they table emergency legislation tomorrow, Thursday or next week? We had no response on that from the Minister, which I found deeply disappointing.

Those who were in the Gallery earlier and those victims across the country deserve answers today on what the Government will do. By passing the motion, we can begin the process to prevent those guilty of rape or grooming from being released early, we can provide reassurance to victims that we put their interests first, and we can show that public protection is our priority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

As Members of Parliament, we often go around our constituencies and talk to many of our constituents across the political spectrum, and the thing I always say is that the people who come to this House—not that we do not get things wrong, and not that we do not disagree—are doing so because they want to make a real difference to people’s lives. They want to make an impact. While we may sometimes disagree about how that is to be achieved, there are good intentions right across the political spectrum.

When we face a situation such as the one we face today, it becomes so much more important that we do not act in a party political manner, but in a way that is in the best interests of those who have been hurt the most. We have all witnessed it. Every single one of us has seen constituents who have been impacted by the 7,000 letters that went out, informing them that the people who have done them harm will be released early. I cannot imagine how crushing that must be.

This is not something that we have to sit idly by and just accept; it is something that we can genuinely change. The statistics have already been covered by so many others, but I must say that there is something fundamentally wrong when 62% of rapists and 83% of child groomers will be let off early. This is not about party politics; this is just about good judgment and doing the right thing.

I understand that the Minister has been sent out by her absentee boss to make the argument. I know, because we have all been in that situation when we have been in ministerial office, where we are sometimes sent out to make arguments we do not feel comfortable with or are not necessarily happy making. I urge the Minister not to ignore the victims and the people who have been impacted by this legislation, but to take action. She can utter mild and inconsequential words at the Dispatch Box, but this means that victims are going to spend not just another day and not just another week, but multiple weeks, not knowing what is going to happen. As we go into summer recess, it will be week upon week without clarity, and that will erode their confidence and make them worry about the person who has done them so much harm. I urge the Minister to do what is right by the victims, against what is right by her absentee boss.

[Sir John Hayes]

There are times in this place when a combination of popular sentiment and the power of argument become overwhelming. I have seen it happen whoever has been in government. At that point, it is important for Governments to change tack and, as I said earlier, Governments grow when they do so. It seems to me that those two things have been evident beyond doubt in this short debate. Will my right hon. Friend echo those calls made earlier to implore the Government to take a step back, think again and act quickly?

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. We have a moment of what I believe is cross-party unity, because behind the Minister, I believe that those on the Back Benches of the Labour party do not want the Government to go down this course. On the Opposition Benches, we do not want the Government to go down this course. We want to make sure that there is a solution that supports and protects victims—the people who Ministers said would be protected but who have not been as a result of the measures in the Sentencing Act.

It is important to act. As has already been pointed out, there are acres of legislative time and opportunities. It is not as if the general debates that are pencilled in, as worthy, important and valuable as they are, could not be moved to facilitate the legislation and the votes in this House to get this corrected. I would say to the Ministers that they must not sit there passively acting as a shield for their absentee Secretary of State, who does not seem to care or be interested in the victims who are being impacted by his legislation—not our legislation, but his.

Action is required, and if Ministers sit there and do not take the action that is required, they will be as guilty as the Secretary of State is for bringing such flawed legislation to the Floor of this House in the first place. Do not sit by as victims suffer. Do not sit by as people worry, stress and fear about what will happen to them in the weeks ahead, while the Labour party is going through internal trauma and is not providing a clear and direct way to help these victims. I implore the Minister to be bold, to act and to show some leadership, which has been completely absent from the Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

The only comfort I can give is that there are some exclusions to the early release scheme. If someone is on a life sentence as a minimum term, or on an extended determinate sentence, release does not happen earlier; but we know that more than 90% of the offenders sent to prison every year for child grooming are on a standard determinate sentence and will be eligible for early release.

The Government have quite rightly highlighted the challenges around conviction rates, and I accept the criticisms that the Government have made about the reduction in conviction rates—it is an incredibly important issue—but people do not go to court for the sake of it. It is not done just for the hell of it. They go to court and want a conviction so that a sentence is passed that is an appropriate punishment. The Government take away people’s motivation to speak up when they undermine the outcome.

Let me be specific about what an assurance that serious offenders would be excluded from the scheme would actually mean in practice to a victim. We talked earlier about Fiona Goddard, a survivor of rape, sexual assault and child grooming, whose abusers were sentenced to between 16 and 20 years in 2019. I again pay tribute to her courage. Fiona received a letter from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, telling her that people who abused her may be released early. She talked to the press and went to the media, and a journalist raised her case with the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice said officially, in a quote that was read out on “Good Morning Britain” when Fiona appeared on it, that the most serious offenders would be excluded. It said that to a journalist, in writing, and it was broadcast to the nation, with this victim listening in. It was saying that Fiona’s abusers had not committed offences serious enough to allow her to be protected, and would not be excluded from the scheme.

Survivors were in the Gallery today because letters landed through their doors telling them exactly the same thing. When the Minister says that serious offenders are excluded, they are saying, to every single victim who receives one of those letters, “Those are not serious offences. They are not heinous crimes. They are included in the scheme.” That is absolutely appalling, and thousands of people have received those letters.

I say to every Labour Member that this is not a partisan observation. During the urgent question, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) said there should be more exemptions and that Members should work together on this, and the hon. Members for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) and for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) have contributed to this debate. Let us be clear: there are hundreds of Labour MPs, and not a single one of them has come to the Chamber today to defend the Government’s policy and position. That is absolutely extraordinary and tells us what we need to know. It seems that the Government just want to keep their fingers in their ears and pretend this is not happening.

I want to be clear about what has actually happened under this Government. At the same time as this Labour Government have released over 60,000 criminals early, prison capacity has fallen on their watch, so we have roughly 500 fewer prison places under a Government who seek continually to attack our record on prison building. I accept the criticism—we should have built more prison places—but in their time in office, the figure has gone down. As with so many issues, from police numbers to teacher numbers, things have got worse under this Government.

We have more than 10,000 foreign national offenders in our prisons right now, representing around 12% of the prison population and costing hundreds of millions of pounds a year. The Government could have moved faster on deportation and freed up those places. As I said, I am clear about our failings in government, and I am happy to say it again: we did build more than 14,000 prison places, but we closed too many prisons that were not fit for purpose, and that has created challenges in the system. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and I have said, and as Members on both sides of the House have said for a long time, the failings in the prioritisation of our justice system go back many decades, over many political parties.

I say this not to make a political point but to demonstrate that these are long-term issues. When Labour was last in office, it introduced the existing automatic halfway release for all offenders. Despite that, prison capacity was so tight that Labour released 80,000 prisoners early. When Labour was last in office, it made use of early release schemes because it failed to build enough prison places to keep people in prison.

[Sir John Hayes]

The concept of parole is age-old, but parole was based on merit; people were considered for parole if they were felt to be worthy of it. This is entirely different—this is about an automatic process, regardless of merit, and it flies in the face of both popular sentiment and natural justice.

[Dr Mullan]

As I said, we inherited the existing system of automatic release. During our time in office, we sought to raise the time served before automatic release to two thirds for some of the more serious offences.

I recognise that there are challenges in the prison population, and I am raising Labour’s record to make it clear that these have been challenges for multiple decades over multiple parties, including the Lib Dems when we were in coalition. That is why we have gone as far as we can with our motion to enable the Government to achieve the absolute minimum that we could ask. I do not want any serious offenders let out of prison before they have served their time. Again and again in the meeting with victims earlier, they told us how appalling it is to hear a sentence in the court, knowing that in the vast majority of cases, prisoners will never, ever serve it. I wish that people could serve even longer sentences than the ones we currently give out, but we all know we are not in a position to make those promises.

Our amendment to the Sentencing Bill was broad and sought to ensure that any serious or violent criminals—for example, people who kill by dangerous driving, people who commit manslaughter or people who commit child neglect and cruelty—were excluded from these early release schemes. The Government insisted that that is not possible, and Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs defeated us on that amendment. We are not even asking for that today. Our motion purely calls on the Government to exempt those convicted of sexual offences against an adult or a child—that is all we are asking for today.

The challenge for the Government is this. They say it is absolutely necessary to keep particular people in prison, but they do not even know how many of these people they will be letting out. For example, if they do not know that 500 rapists are going to be released, they cannot tell us, “Sorry, but we really need those 500 extra places—we don’t have the capacity” because they did not know that when they passed the legislation.

The incoming Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), is reportedly exploring how to tighten the scheme for child sex offenders, and we welcome that, but I want the House to understand the timeline, because it is closing. The commencement order was laid on 8 June without a ministerial statement, a “Dear Colleague” letter or a response to any of the questions raised by the shadow Justice team. We do not know the details, but we understand from reporting that the first 700 offenders will be released on 2 September, and then a similar number will be released each month for the following nine months. We understand that the total number could be between 5,000 and 7,000 offenders, but we do not know because the Government will not tell us.

The House rises for the summer recess at the end of next week and any new Prime Minister will be in Downing Street shortly after that. When Parliament reassembles in September, the first criminals will be about to be released. In fact, the first Prime Minister’s questions that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) will take will be on the day those offenders start getting out of prison. The Government, the Lord Chancellor and Ministers have had every opportunity to act differently. They could have excluded serious offenders, made a statement when the commencement order was laid and answered our questions and our freedom of information requests, but at every turn they chose not to do so.

I say with all sincerity that we know that Members on all sides of the House agree that a single sex offender released earlier than their sentence demands is one too many. There are Labour Members in the Chamber who we know agree with that. Indeed, 40 of them abstained when we originally divided on the legislation—they did not go into the Lobby and say that they believed that it was right to let rapists and child sex offenders out early. They all had doubts and some of them have spoken in today’s debate because of those doubts.

We have now descended into farce. We have been told that the Government will not oppose today’s motion and we expect it to go through, but the Minister made it clear that as far as he is concerned, that does not matter one jot and things will carry on as normal. Parliament is expressing its will today and there is an expectation that the Government should respond to Parliament’s will, but the Minister has already made clear his intention not to give a monkey’s. A vote in favour of today’s motion is to say that Parliament believes that rapists and child sex offenders should not be released early, and that victims deserve better after eight months of evasion and a commencement order laid without a word of notice to Parliament. A vote in favour of the motion would send a clear message that this House has come together to support victims.

To finish, I return to the victims I met earlier. It was a privilege to meet them. They asked us, MPs from different parties, whether what they are doing—coming here today, giving up their privacy, reliving their trauma and fighting for a conviction in the first place—was worth it? I told them that it was worth it and that it made a difference because the Government will not oppose the motion, so they have won and they have got the motion over the line. We are going to ensure that that is the case, whatever the failings of my party or the Labour party on the issues of justice, going back over many decades.

When I was frustrated earlier by the Minister’s failure and inability to answer basic questions yet again, the Minister told me to calm down. Well, I will not calm down. Whatever our failings and the Labour party’s failings during its previous time in office, victims of rape and child sexual abuse do not deserve to pay the price of political failure over many decades. We will carry on ensuring that this Government are held to account and MPs do not let down and betray the victims of some of the worst possible offences in our justice system because of misleading efforts by the Government to pull the wool over their eyes. The wool has not been pulled over the eyes of MPs from all sides of the House. It is time that the Government came clean about what they are doing and listened to the House, because this House says, “No, we do not want those people released”. The House will vote and tell the Government that, and it is incumbent on the Government and the incoming Prime Minister to listen.

Courts and Tribunals Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lammy)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am very proud to bring this Bill back before the House, because it will drive long-overdue reform to effectively evolve our 20th-century criminal justice system so that it is fit for the 21st century. This House will recognise that a particular kind of silence now echoes through the corridors of our courts. It is not the silence of a jury carefully weighing the evidence, or the hush as a judge delivers their verdict; it is the silence of waiting. It is the silence of victims who have been told, sometimes for the third or fourth time, that their trial has been adjourned because there is no judge, no courtroom, and no capacity to hear it. It is the silence of people like Katie, who reported her partner for actual bodily harm and rape in 2017 but, staggeringly, did not see justice until 2024, after waiting seven years. Her life fell apart over that period—it left her mental health in tatters and caused her to lose her job. This is an injustice. It is Katie’s injustice and the injustice of thousands of victims across the country, and this Bill seeks to redress that today. It builds on Sir Brian Leveson’s thoughtful and considered review. I am grateful to Sir Brian for all his work, particularly in getting us to this point with part 1 and part 2 of this Bill.

This Government inherited a justice system close to breaking point from the previous Government, who could and should have reformed it. The consequences of their inaction are clear: we have nearly 80,000 cases in the Crown court backlog. That is more than double the number in 2019. More than 20,000 cases wait for more than a year, and that includes around 2,000 rape cases. It is an average of 255 days before a Crown court case gets heard and finishes. For rape, it is a staggering 423 days. If we do nothing, the backlog is projected to reach 200,000 within the next decade. That is five times what it was in 2019. This is not a matter of efficiency; the progressive case for court reform is about whether the institutions of the British state can still deliver justice. For the people we were elected to represent in Parliament, when we speak about the rule of law, we do so as though it is a lofty constitutional principle, but the rule of law is not abstract. It is a public service. If that service cannot be delivered in a timeframe that allows victims to move on with their lives, the law is not ruling, but failing.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that the rule of law is a living thing, and the connection between the public and the exercise of criminal justice is fundamental. Central to that is the age-old principle of juries and jury service. It is a direct engagement of the public in something that otherwise would be remote from the vast bulk of them. Does he retain my view that jury service is critical, and that juries should play a continuing part in the criminal justice system, or is he determined to minimise the number of jury trials? That is certainly what his proposal looks like to the vast majority of people in the Chamber.

[Mr Lammy]

I absolutely retain the right hon. Gentleman’s view that juries are a cornerstone of our system. They are fundamental. This Bill is about protecting them. All Governments put thresholds on where juries sit. He will recall that one of his great heroes, Margaret Thatcher, made such a change in 1989.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

First off, I thank the hon. Gentleman for mentioning victims. For too long in this place, we have tended to focus either on the prosecution side or on defendants, but it is important that we put victims at the centre. That is why we are coming forward with more magistrates. We need that 90% of cases dealt with more swiftly, of course, but court reform is what gets us the entire package. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to support our court reforms over the coming months.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

3. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of his proposed changes to jury trials on the criminal justice system.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

13. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of his proposed reforms to jury trials on the court backlog.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lammy)]

As I have said, our focus is on victims who are being left to wait three, four or five years for their day in court. That is why I will bring forward bold change to fix the rotting Courts Service that we inherited, deliver record investment in our courts so that they can sit for more days than ever before, introduce modernisation to deal with the inefficiencies that we inherited, and reform the system so that we can triage which trials get a jury and stop criminals gaming the system.

[Sir John Hayes]

As you know, Mr Speaker, the age-old jury system connects the public to the exercise of law, and is therefore at the heart of popular consent for criminal justice. In abandoning this link, are the Government careless of the accountability that it brings, or are they driven wholly by thoughtless expediency? Are Ministers careless or thoughtless?

[Mr Lammy]

We are not abandoning the jury system, but as Sir Brian Leveson said in his Sunday Times article this weekend, the threshold needs to be rebalanced. I am not sure if the right hon. Gentleman was in Parliament in 1988, but I am sure that he did not object when Margaret Thatcher rebalanced the threshold and moved criminal damage and driving a vehicle without authority to the magistrates courts.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

I think the hon. Lady is referring to the sentencing powers and the proposal to increase them, rather than the wait time. The fact is that our magistrates court is an efficient jurisdiction, dealing with 1.3 million cases a year. The Magistrates Association and the Magistrates’ Leadership Executive have endorsed the Government’s plans, which are a vote of confidence in our magistrates’ ability to deal with the caseload, and cases of this nature, swiftly, robustly and fairly, but she is right that our magistrates deserve support in dealing with emotionally charged matters. We will ensure that that support and training is provided.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

16. What estimate he has made of the number of prisoners eligible for early release under the earned progression model.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)]

Following the changes in the Sentencing Bill, there will be more criminals behind bars than ever before. Those convicted of the most serious crimes will be unaffected, and will remain in prison for as long as they do now.

[Sir John Hayes]

The salient difference between the Government and the people is that the public expect vile, vicious, violent people to be locked up, so that they can ruin no more lives, whereas the Government want to let them free. About two thirds of rapists and 83% of child sex offenders will be eligible for early release. Is it any wonder that the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner have criticised these plans? Will the Government at least exclude those kinds of offenders before implementing this policy? Otherwise, they will wreak harm, hurt and hate on every part of our country.

[Jake Richards]

I had the great pleasure of hearing the right hon. Member’s contributions on Report and in Committee on the Sentencing Bill. I remind him, as I did then, that we inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse. The worst way to fail victims would be to have no prison places, and to be unable to keep the worst offenders behind bars, and we will not allow that to happen. I remind him again that the Sentencing Bill is informed by the independent sentencing review, led by a former Conservative Lord Chancellor, who offered sensible reforms to ensure that our prison system can cope with demands and is fit for the future. Finally, I remind him that this is not a case of being soft on crime; by the end of this Parliament, under this Labour Government, there will be more criminals behind bars than ever before.

Draft Judicial Appointments Commission (Amendment) Regulations 2025

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 General Committees

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Judicial Appointments Commission (Amendment) Regulations 2025.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John.

The draft statutory instrument amends the Judicial Appointments Commission Regulations 2013, which outline the composition of the Judicial Appointments Commission’s board of commissioners and the eligibility criteria for the commissioners. I will refer to the Judicial Appointments Commission as the JAC.

The 2013 regulations are being updated to strengthen the JAC’s capacity and to ensure its continued effectiveness in judicial recruitment. The amendments in this draft statutory instrument will change the total number of JAC commissioners from 15 to 16 by increasing the number of persons practising or employed as lawyers, referred to as professional commissioners, from two to three. It also expands the eligibility criteria for the senior tribunal commissioner by including a wider range of senior salaried tribunal officers.

As the draft statutory instrument relates to the composition of the JAC board, it may be helpful to outline briefly the role of the JAC and its board. The JAC is the independent body established under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 to select candidates for judicial office in England and Wales, and for some tribunals with UK-wide powers.

The JAC is governed by an independent board of commissioners appointed by His Majesty the King on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor. There are currently 15 commissioners, including the lay chairman; the other 14 are drawn from the judiciary, the legal professions, non-legally qualified judicial office holders and the public. Twelve are recruited and appointed through open competition, while three senior judicial members, including the senior tribunal commissioner, are selected by the Judges’ Council or the Tribunals Judges’ Council.

A key objective of the board is to ensure that the JAC is upholding its statutory functions and duties, which include ensuring that judicial appointments are made solely on merit, through fair and open competition, and with regard to diversity and good character. Commissioners oversee the selection processes, review recruitment strategies, and make final recommendations for judicial appointments to the appointing authority.

The proposed amendments relate to the number of commissioners and the eligibility criteria for the senior tribunal commissioner. I will address each in turn. On the number of commissioners, as noted, under the existing statutory provisions there are 15 commissioners, including the lay chair. That includes two professional commissioners, who must hold different qualifications, being a barrister, a solicitor or a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives or CILEX. Currently, as only two of the legal professions can be represented at any one time, there is a barrister commissioner and a solicitor commissioner. The draft instrument increases the number of commissioners to 16 by adding a third professional commissioner and retaining the requirement that they be from different professions.

The purpose of that is twofold. First, it will strengthen the JAC’s capacity to efficiently manage high levels of judicial recruitment. Secondly, it will ensure all three main legal professions—barrister, solicitor and CILEX fellow—are represented simultaneously on the board. Creating a more certain route for the appointment of a CILEX fellow will support the JAC in its duty to promote diversity in judicial appointments. The approach will bring an additional sector perspective to the board and a commissioner to lead on outreach in the field. That is important because CILEX membership is generally more diverse on two characteristics than the other legal professions: 78% of CILEX fellows are women; and, as CILEX provides a non-graduate route to become a lawyer, its members are from more diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

Under the statutory provisions for eligibility to be the senior tribunal commissioner, this role is open to upper tribunal judges, chamber presidents of the first-tier tribunal, chamber presidents of the upper tribunal, and presidents of employment tribunals for England and Wales, and Scotland. That means that not all senior salaried members within the unified tribunal structure are eligible. To address the inconsistency, an amendment expands eligibility to include all salaried members of the upper tribunal, certain judges of the employment appeal tribunal and deputy chamber presidents of the first-tier tribunal and deputy chamber presidents of the upper tribunal. The extent of this statutory instrument is UK-wide, as is its territorial application.

I will turn now to the consultation that we have undertaken on these amendments. The 2013 regulations were the result of public consultation completed in 2012. A further public consultation for these amendments was not considered necessary, given that the changes increase the number of commissioners, strengthening the JAC’s capacity for judicial recruitment, and address anomalies in the senior tribunal commissioner eligibility criteria. We formally consulted the Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales, the JAC chair, the Bar Council, the Law Society, CILEX, the Legal Services Board, the Senior President of Tribunals, the Lady Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and the Lord President of Scotland. All were supportive of the changes.

I assure the Committee that the amendments set out in this statutory instrument are necessary to strengthen the JAC’s capacity, provider greater equality of opportunity for those applying to be commissioners, and support the JAC’s commitment to encouraging judicial diversity.

Sentencing Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I want to speak in support of new clause 36, which would require offenders to comply with an earned progression scheme before being subject to release. I think that is an important opportunity to enhance the Government’s ambitions for this Bill, because shoplifting, antisocial behaviour and car break-ins continue to plague my constituents in Accrington town centre.

Increases in levels of town centre crime and break-ins are often caused by offenders released early who have failed to receive the rehabilitation they require. They often have drug or alcohol addictions, and they are back on the streets trying to feed those addictions, and stuck in a cycle of lose, lose, lose—for my residents, for the police and for the taxpayer. Although we must be tough on crime, we must also tackle the root causes of crime and ensure that the system delivers for victims and stops the revolving door of our prisons that serves none of us.

The reforms to the community order requirements will lead to less crime and safer streets for my constituents in a number of areas. The Bill will provide a more tailored and effective approach to punishment and rehabilitation, because courts will have expanded tools to tailor community and suspended sentence orders to better fit the individual offender, the offence and the risk posed. The Bill adds new community requirements to the list of options attached to a community or suspended sentence order, such as prohibitions on driving or attending pubs, bars, clubs or public events, and being restricted to geographic zones. That enhanced flexibility means that sentences in the community can be more meaningful and effective—not just a series of generic tasks, but specifically calibrated to the offender’s behaviour, the harm caused and the need to protect the public and victims. It ensures that community-based sentences are not perceived as light or ineffective, but carry real conditions and consequences.

The Bill also strengthens public protection and victim confidence; in fact, bolstering protection for victims and communities is one of the key aims of the reforms. By allowing restriction zones, bans on attending premises that sell alcohol or public events, and driving prohibitions, the Bill enables courts to impose orders that explicitly guard against certain behaviours or contexts associated with risk. Those measures reassure victims that offenders remain under meaningful restrictions and that community sentences carry real weight and oversight, rather than being a passive “watch and wait” approach. In turn, that helps to maintain public confidence in our justice system and supports the principle that people who offend should face real consequences.

Furthermore, the Bill supports rehabilitation while reducing the unnecessary use of custody, which must be for the most violent and serious offenders. It complements the broader move to ensure that custody is used appropriately—not as a default for lower-level offenders, but reserved for cases where it is necessary for public protection. By strengthening community orders and equipping the courts with more tailored requirements, the Bill supports the case that many offenders can be managed in the community through conditions that deter, restrict and rehabilitate. For far too long, the evidence has shown that it is those changes that will tackle the ongoing problems that the courts and prisons are facing, as well as the ongoing issues with that low-level but incredibly damaging crime happening time and again in our communities.

Such approaches help to reduce prison overcrowding, better align our resources, and focus custodial capacity on those who most require it. At the same time, the reforms encourage compliance—for example, by introducing a community sentence progression scheme, under which offenders who fully comply with the requirements and complete their sentence may have their community order terminated early.

There are practical benefits for communities, offenders and the Probation Service. For communities, community orders become more visible and meaningful. The added conditions reflect the reality that punishment and supervision in the community should be not lesser than custody, but different. For offenders, the structured environment of a community sentence with tailored requirements offers the possibility of real change through supervision, conditional freedom and accountability, rather than automatic imprisonment, which can increase harm and reoffending. For the Probation Service, the Bill’s provisions also include strengthened investment in community supervision, better tools for monitoring and enforcement, and clearer mechanisms for rewarding compliance.

In conclusion, the Bill represents a significant advance in our justice framework, offering modernised, flexible and robust community sentencing options that strengthen public protection, shore up victim confidence, support rehabilitation and make more effective and efficient use of our resources. The new community order requirements and community requirements are central to that: by giving courts more precise, meaningful powers, they ensure that justice is done in the community as well as through custody. I am confident that they will make a real difference to my constituents in Hyndburn, who are rightfully frustrated that they see the same people causing the same problems, and no real solutions to the crimes that those people are committing.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

As we return to consideration of this dreadful Bill, we debate amendments and new clauses that are designed to mitigate its worst effects, in particular new clauses 43, 21, 18, 19 and 20, which I have signed, and new clause 1.

[Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)]

On new clause 1, will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

It is early in my speech, but such is my regard for my right hon. Friend that I will.

[Edward Argar]

I am very grateful. As a former sentencing Minister, I can see no logical reason why the Government would oppose new clause 1—tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford), my fellow Leicestershire MP—which simply asks for an assessment and recommendations to be made and for them to be reported back to this House. Can my right hon. Friend, who is himself a former senior Home Office Minister, see any reason why the Government could not simply do the right thing and accept new clause 1?

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his remarks about my experience in government, which are far too flattering. I agree that new clause 1 is precisely the kind of amendment that the Government could accept. He will know from his time in government, as I do, that no Act is the Bill as it began, for Bills metamorphose during their consideration. Wise Governments listen to arguments that are made during scrutiny, either on the Floor of the House or in Committee, and the best Ministers allow the Bill that they introduced to change over time. That is the purpose of Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) has done a service to this House in tabling this new clause, thereby allowing the Minister to improve the Bill in the way he suggests.

As we have debated this Bill over time, a distinct difference has emerged between practicalities and principles. The question remains: is this a Bill built on expediency—a necessary response to the unbearable tension between prison supply and the demand for prison places—or a Bill born of a distaste for incarceration as a means of delivering justice? The first is inexcusable; the second indefensible; but neither is inexorable.

In practice, as the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) said, if remand were treated in a different way—and that, essentially, is about more court sittings and more court time for faster access to justice—fewer prisoners would be kept on remand. If we do not believe that, we would have to assume that every person brought to trial would be found guilty or imprisoned, which cannot be true.

If we dealt with the huge number of foreign national offenders more swiftly—[Interruption.] I know the Government are making those attempts, but it is not enough, any more than what the previous Government did. If we dealt with that issue more swiftly, we would alter the demand for places, for too much of the debate focuses on the supply of prison places and not on the demand-side drivers that absorb places, which could be eased.

When we last debated the Bill, we talked about my ideas for supply-side change. I will not repeat myself, for you would not allow me to do so, Madam Deputy Speaker, in relation to the amendments and new clauses before us today. However, the Minister needs to think more laterally and creatively. I imagine that he is a bright man—or bright-ish, at least. If he did so, he could look at those demand-side drivers and deal with the practicalities.

As for principles, it is time to end the liberal orthodoxy that has perpetuated the pervasive myth that crime is an illness to be treated, and not a destructive, deviant decision that warrants punishment. In the previous debate we heard many times the argument that everyone deserves a second chance, which I have no doubt underpins much of the resistance to the amendments proposed today.

As I listened to the powerful case my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant) made, I asked myself this: can anyone in this place with a heart believe that those who terrorise and torture children persistently and who maim and murder innocent babes—sometimes their own—deserve a second chance? Can anyone with a heart really believe that those who killed two people dedicated to the service of others—Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, Members of this House—deserve a second chance? Does that awful self-deluded Islamist fanatic who plotted and planned and executed little girls at a pop concert deserve a second chance? The only second chance they all deserve is when they stand before their maker and beg for forgiveness. For us to forgive such extreme acts is to play God. Forgiveness at that level and to that degree is beyond any Member in this Chamber, for it is beyond any human being. That is what I think about second chances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Linsey Farnsworth]

Does the right hon. Member realise that the Sentencing Council does not just pluck out of the air its sentencing recommendations? It consults widely with a variety of organisations, people working in the criminal justice system and the public before coming to its conclusions about the right sentences for offences. I would submit that there should be recognition of the work that it does.

[Sir John Hayes]

I simply say to the hon. Lady that when we delegate that kind of authority to those who are unelected and unaccountable, we are no longer doing our job. Her view, which has prevailed for a very long time, is not entirely the fault of Labour; it is a problem with the whole political class. We have created every kind of body imaginable in every aspect of government to do things that should be done by this House and by Ministers of the Crown.

The Sentencing Council is just another of those bodies. Who knows who is on the Sentencing Council? Certainly most of the hon. Lady’s constituents and most of mine would not have a clue, and they certainly would not know how to influence them in any way. Of course, it is working people who are most disadvantaged by that, not the privileged few who occupy the social circles that the Sentencing Council no doubt occupies. It is the hard-working, patriotic and law-abiding majority in my constituency and hers who are frustrated by a criminal justice system that persistently excuses the worst kinds of crimes rather than punishing them as they deserve to be punished.

There is a new future emerging in the post-liberal age as we build a new order. That order will be inspired by time-honoured truths, rooted in the will of the people and powered by a ceaseless determination to recapture our country for our people. Burke said:

“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”

The tyranny of the cruelty of crime and disorder will haunt places and people across our country as the vile and vicious are let loose. I urge the House to accept the variety of amendments that I have mentioned and the many others on the amendment paper that are attempts to rescue the Bill from that horror.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

I rise to speak to the amendments that I have tabled. I am delighted to have another attempt to stop the Government doing something that defies justice as well as common sense and that will make our streets less safe. As I said in Committee, my amendments would mean that some serious offenders would not be given the “get out of jail free” card proposed by the Government.

Since Committee, we have had the ludicrous situation involving Hadush Kebatu, who was released from prison after being jailed for sex offences. Quite rightly, there was a public outcry and widespread condemnation from politicians. The massive irony is that if the Bill had already been passed, he would have qualified for the presumption in favour of a suspended prison sentence and would not have been in prison in the first place.

Under my amendments 15, 16, 24 and 25, foreign offenders and sex offenders would not be included in the presumption in favour of a suspended sentence when an immediate prison sentence was deemed to be the right outcome by the courts, so someone like Kebatu would still be sent to prison. I hope that Labour Members agree with those amendments, especially given that the Health Secretary said:

“This man was behind bars because of serious sex offences…So the idea that he’s loose on the streets is incredibly serious.”

Perhaps the Health Secretary will back my amendments, and perhaps he will have a word with the Justice Secretary to get him to back my amendments as well.

Following the Kebatu debacle, people have blamed the incompetence of prison staff in releasing him, yet if the Government do not accept my amendments we will not need to be concerned about the incompetence or otherwise of our Prison Service, because such offenders will not even go to prison. However, we can be sure of the incompetence of the Government in allowing these sentencing changes to happen and in not sending offenders like Kebatu to prison. Even the Secretary of State for Justice said:

“Let’s be clear, Kebatu committed a nasty sexual assault involving a young child and a woman, and for those reasons this of course is very serious.”

On Monday, he said to the House:

“Mr Kebatu’s victims are rightly outraged about what has happened. I am livid on their behalf, and on behalf of the public.”

He also said:

“He is back where he belongs: behind bars.”—[Official Report, 27 October 2025; Vol. 774, c. 43.]

If it is so serious, and the Justice Secretary really means that Kebatu belongs behind bars, why on his watch will the Bill ensure that the next Kebatu will not be behind bars, and will not be sent to prison in the first place? These are serious questions that need to be answered. It is not too late for the Government to stop this dangerous aspect of the Bill and prove to everyone outside this Chamber that they are not hypocrites, by accepting my amendments.

While they are at it, the Government need to seriously consider accepting my amendments 20 and 29, which would prevent those who commit knife crimes from being eligible for suspended sentences. The Government should hang their head in shame for proposing a non-prison sentence for the offence of carrying a knife on our streets, and even for those who commit the offence more than once. I am sure that many Members will know of cases where someone has been injured or killed by a knife. Everyone who votes for the Bill without amendment will be voting to enable someone who carries a knife or threatens people with a knife, even repeatedly, to avoid prison.

Sentencing Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 21st October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

Rehabilitation is key, but so is prison. Prison for people who have committed crimes is essential. Prisons are about removing a danger from society.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

We hear a lot about rehabilitation from Labour Members, and we hear a lot about recidivism. The most likely spur for recidivism is letting people out who will continue to do harm. We will be told by the Government that those people are being let out on licence, so will my right hon. Friend invite the Minister to predict how many people will be recalled while they are on licence? The Justice Secretary has already described that number as being too high, but will it rise as a result of these measures?

[Esther McVey]

My right hon. Friend makes his point clear. The Minister was listening, and I hope that he will answer that question in his remarks.

People cannot seriously think it is acceptable for those who commit offences involving firearms or ammunition, or even those who commit terror-related offences, to be eligible for a suspended sentence, but as things stand, those offences would be covered by the Bill. My new clauses 51 and 53 would amend that ludicrous position, and new clause 52 would exclude burglars. We do not see nearly enough burglars in court, because of a lack of detection of their crimes, so the ones we do see in court should routinely go to prison, not be spared jail, as they would be under these measures.

New clauses 43 and 45 would mean that those assaulting our dedicated police officers or emergency workers would not be eligible for suspended sentences; they are eligible for them under this Bill, and that is an absolute disgrace. When the Government were in opposition, they made a huge noise about how those who assault emergency workers, police officers and prison officers should be sent to prison. For example, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant) introduced a private Member’s Bill that became the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018, under which the maximum prison sentence for assault on an emergency worker was increased from six months to 1 year.

Part of the problem is that all too often people do not feel that there will be justice at the end of the process. When in opposition, the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) said:

“the attitude…sadly exists across the criminal justice system…that being punched or kicked is somehow to be expected and accepted....we will never accept that people should be assaulted while they are doing their job and we will do everything in our power to protect them.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 1150.]

The hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) said:

“We must put legislation in place to guarantee that a tough line will be taken on anyone who assaults an emergency worker.”—[Official Report, 27 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 1172.]

That is what Government Members said when they were in opposition, but they are ensuring the exact opposite now; these offenders will be let out on a suspended sentence. I cannot believe that Government Members would not join me in voting for new clause 43. I would like to test the will and the temperature of the House on that matter, and I will not back down on that.

The presumption in the Bill against immediate custody will also apply to those committing a host of other nasty, violent and sexual crimes, all of whom will be eligible for these get-out-of-jail-free suspended sentences, if they are sentenced to 12 months or less for their crimes. New clause 50 would mean that offences with a mandatory minimum sentence would not be included in the Bill; that would alleviate the damage in some cases.

New clause 54 would exclude from mandatory suspension sentences that can be appealed for being unduly lenient. The unduly lenient sentence scheme covers sexual offences; stalking; putting someone in fear of violence, serious harm or distress; controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship; and inflicting grievous bodily harm or unlawful wounding, among other offences. It would be nonsense for crimes included among the most serious under the scheme to be dealt with by way of a suspended sentence, instead of immediate custody. How would the measures in the Bill work on appeal? Would all sentences be overturned as being unduly lenient, or would the new law trump that scheme? My new clause would inject a bit of common sense and avoid all these questions.

My other amendments mainly concern the past of the offender. It is bad enough that a first-time offender who has committed a serious crime will avoid prison, but it is outrageous that under the Bill, serial offenders will be rewarded for reoffending. New clause 46 would mean that any offender who has committed three or more offences in the preceding 12 months would not be eligible for a mandatory suspended sentence, and new clause 47 would stop them from qualifying if they had committed 10 or more offences previously. People are committing multiple offences, yet the Government are letting them off with a suspended sentence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter]

I do agree with that, and in a moment I will talk about a new clause that deals specifically with tagging. I am rattling through my speech because I have a lot to get through, but what I am specifically talking about in relation to domestic abuse is simply the need for there to be due process. That is something that I think we all want to see. Amendments 30 and 31 would ensure that the requirements of clause 6, which are important in allowing police and probation services to track perpetrators of domestic abuse, are carried out in a manner that is as thorough and fair as possible.

My next amendment, amendment 32, relates to clause 35, which amends the sentencing code to allow for the publication of the photographs and names of offenders serving community sentences. The explanatory notes say very little about this clause, but the justification in the memorandum on human rights suggests that the Government believe that this measure will have a deterrent effect on criminals, although there is little evidence for that assertion. The measure engages the article 8 right to private and family life for the individual, their victims and their family. Some concerns have been raised about how this measure can be operated safety in the modern social media age, in which photographs and names can be readily and quickly shared.

My amendment would prevent clause 35 from being brought into force until the Secretary of State has issued a code of practice to providers of probation services about how to take and publish photographs lawfully in the light of the Human Rights Act 1998 and data protection legislation. Before issuing a code of practice, the Secretary of State must consult providers of probation services, lay a draft before Parliament, and obtain the approval of both Houses. That would ensure proper parliamentary oversight of this measure.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is indicating his diligence—as though any evidence of that were required—in tabling these technical but important amendments. However, will he deal with the fundamental issue? As he has just said, the Criminal Justice Act 2003—from memory, section 250—allows criminals who are released on licence to be subject to all kinds of conditions, but the truth is that if we let more dangerous people out, more people will be recalled, because they will do immense amounts of harm. Recalls are going to go up as a result of this legislation, and many more people are going to suffer because of those who are let out early.

[Andy Slaughter]

I have quite a lot to say about recall, which I will come to in a moment, but I have reflected on this question. Licence is an established part of the criminal justice system, as indeed is probation. Almost every prisoner, other than a handful of the most serious criminals, comes out of prison at some stage. The issue of public safety when people are released from prison is one that this Bill is trying to address. We may disagree on the means to that objective, but I am sure we agree on the objective itself.

I also tabled new clause 18, which relates to the provision of information to Parliament regarding offenders who are subject to electronic tagging and the operation of the tagging contract. The success of the measures in this Bill will rely heavily on the use of electronic monitoring, primarily through the use of tags. The Justice Committee has continually raised concerns about the performance of Serco, the Government’s current tagging provider. As a reminder, on 7 May, the Prisons Minister revealed to us that at that point, Serco had received financial penalties for poor performance every month since it took on the electronic monitoring contract on 1 May 2024. Ministers have assured us that Serco’s performance is beginning to improve.

New clause 18 would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a report each calendar year on the use of electronic monitoring requirements. That report must include the number of electronic monitoring requirements imposed each year, the rate of compliance, and the cost of administering those requirements each year. The report must be laid before Parliament. This would improve transparency and allow parliamentarians to assess for themselves how successfully Serco or other providers are administering tagging contracts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I rise to speak in support of amendment 24 and the other amendments that I have tabled on behalf of the Opposition. I regret that we have not had the opportunity to hear from important voices on these incredibly important issues through a full Public Bill Committee. Victims groups of all different kinds care deeply about the measures in this Bill. We not only do not get to hear from them as MPs, but the nature of Committee of the whole House means that we do not have the opportunity to put forward for inclusion a whole range of measures that are worthy of our consideration and a vote in support. Anyone reading the amendment paper will see the richness and range of ideas that just will not get the level of detailed consideration they should. It would have been beneficial, and we may well end up giving this incredibly important Bill less than 15 hours of consideration in this House.

I cannot help but feel that the measures related to early release are so unpalatable that the Government are doing their absolute best to rush this Bill through the House to avoid proper scrutiny. I will try, though, to at least give some time and thought to some of the amendments, even if ultimately we will not be able to vote on them. New clause 12 relates to changes to the unduly lenient sentence scheme. At present, the ULS scheme allows anyone to appeal most sentences to the Attorney General’s Office if they consider them to be unduly lenient. I and other Members of this House have made use of this scheme, as have others. It can and does lead to sentences being changed, but there are two major problems with the scheme as it operates.

First, too many victims are unaware of the scheme and do not get long enough to make use of it. At this point, I pay tribute to the amazing campaigners who have done so much to raise this issue. Katie Brett secured thousands of signatures to a petition to change the scheme in memory of her sister Sasha. I pay tribute to Ayse Hussein and other members of the Justice for Victims group. The issue has also been raised for many years by Tracey Hanson, who I had the pleasure of meeting recently, in memory of her son Josh Hanson, who was the victim of an appalling murder. I know that other campaigners are similarly inclined. All of them are clear about the fact that the current scheme does not work. Our amendment will require the Crown Prosecution Service to notify victims, and also extend the time available to appeal to up to a year for victims and their families if the victim is deceased.

[Sir John Hayes]

I pay tribute to that campaign, and in particular to my hon. Friend’s commitment to victims, which I know is outstanding. Will he acknowledge, too, that many of the people who suffer are suffering at the hands of repeat criminals—career criminals? Sometimes people who have been let out on licence breach the licence conditions. For instance, in my constituency a young woman was killed by a dangerous driver, on licence, who had been banned from driving. There are many like her, and my hon. Friend is standing for them. Will he therefore impress on the Government that they are letting out people who cause grief, harm and hurt? That is just not good enough.

[Dr Mullan]

As my right hon. Friend says, we can do what we want when it comes to placing conditions on people and expecting them to behave differently, but the only place where we can be sure they are not out committing further offences is prison. Across the board, this measure will let very many serious offenders out of prison earlier, and I shall say more about that towards the end of my speech.

In respect of the undue lenient sentence scheme, the Government have previously said that they will await the outcome of a review of criminal appeals—a review that has already said that the system is working fine, and for the implementation of whose recommendations we have no timetable or plan. The opportunity to make that change is here, and I urge Ministers to take it.

New clause 8 relates to what are clearly unacceptable restrictions on what people can say in victim personal statements, often described as impact statements. This is a further issue that the Justice for Victims group and others have raised. The parents of Sarah Everard, Susan and Jeremy, have made it very clear that the people advising them on their statements were doing their best to act in their best interests, and to help secure the best possible outcome for justice for Sarah, but the system and the rules around this are leading to too many people, like Susan and Jeremy, being told that they cannot say what they should be allowed to say. Glenn and Becky Youens, also from Justice for Victims, had the same experience when making statements about their feelings towards the vile criminals who had killed their precious daughter Violet-Grace. Our new clause will ensure that the Government can help victims to secure the best possible opportunity to say what it is that they want to say, while recognising that the statement is still being made in a court.

New clause 16 is intended to close a loophole that I think all Members agree needs to be closed. Our current sentencing laws require a whole-life order to be passed for those who murder a police or prison officer in the line of duty. That is an important deterrent, and enables the delivery of justice for people who put themselves in harm’s way, dealing with violent criminals, should the worst happen. However, it is clear to me that the courts have not interpreted the meaning of that legislation as I—and, I think, most other Members—would have wanted them to.

In 2024 a former prison officer, Lenny Scott, was murdered. He was murdered by a seriously violent criminal for doing his job as a prison officer. Lenny had bravely stood up to threats from this criminal while he supervised him in prison, as he had reported that he had contraband. Years later, this despicable person came back for his revenge. He was convicted of Lenny’s murder, but the courts decided that the whole-life order tariff did not apply because he had not been actively on duty when the murder took place. I think that is counter to the spirit of the measure. Our new clause would remove the loophole, so that in future if a prison or police officer is murdered because of something they did in their role, whenever that might be, the sentence will be a whole-life order. I imagine that of all the measures we are proposing, that will secure the greatest amount of cross-party support—not at this stage of the Bill, but during future stages in the Lords.

New clause 10 supports greater transparency in our justice system by ensuring that sentencing remarks in the Crown court are available to everyone, and transparency is also at the heart of new clause 9. For too long, for the wrong reasons, we have not been transparent about criminals’ backgrounds. We know that political correctness led to the vile grooming gangs scandal going unchallenged, which should never have been allowed, for many decades. Part of the issue is that we did not have the data and the information that would have enabled us to understand what was happening and who was committing those offences. Why should we not have basic information about criminals that would enable us to have an honest debate about different patterns of criminal behaviour in different communities and different parts of the country, especially when we know that if we refuse to do this—if we refuse to be transparent—all that we do is give fuel to the wrong people? At best, indifference to the need to share this data is looking more and more like a desire to cover up what it might reveal. That has to stop, and our new clause will ensure that it does.

New clause 11 relates to steps that the courts should take to limit parental responsibility for those convicted of child sex offences. In the last Parliament my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) campaigned on this in support of a constituent who met Ministers in that Government to discuss it. In the current Parliament, the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) has joined the campaign, along with other Members. I understand that yesterday the Government tabled an amendment to the related Victims and Courts Bill, which is due for further consideration, and of course we will look closely at that to consider whether it meets the reasonable expectations of parents seeking to protect their children from child sex offenders. New clauses 13 and 14 also relate to child sex offenders.

--- Later in debate ---

There is often confusion about what is described as the impact of short sentences. Association is not cause, but many people, it seems, do not understand that. Short sentences are frequently imposed on recurrent prolific offenders for whom community measures have been tried and have not worked. By definition, they are a challenging cohort. Comparing their reoffending rate with the reoffending rate for offenders receiving community sentences is very misleading. When we do the more detailed work of comparing like for like in terms of offending history and other characteristics, we see that the difference in reoffending rates falls back dramatically to single figures. Offenders receiving short sentences deserve to receive them. Very many of them are individuals who assault emergency service workers. As was highlighted powerfully by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton, when in opposition Labour Members said that that was intolerable and that dealing with it was a priority. Why should such offenders escape punishment in prison? I am pleased that my right hon. Friend has drawn specific attention to that with her amendments and her speech.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend is now coming to the nub of the issue. There are different views across the House. There are those of us who believe that the justice system should be retributive, that punishment matters and that punishment should fit crime, and there are those who do not. There are those who do not think that the justice system should be punitive, whereas I think that it should be punitive. I think that more people should go to jail and should go for much longer, not just because it is a deterrent but because it signals public outrage at these heinous acts. That is why it matters, and everyone in the House should realise it.

[Dr Mullan]

My right hon. Friend has frequently raised this issue, and we are in violent agreement. In my experience, there is intellectual snobbery towards people who think there is moral value in, and an ethical basis for, punishing people properly. Anyone who talks about that often gets labelled as some bigot who does not understand patterns of criminality and all these other things. Of course they are important to consider, but none of these things means that we should not appropriately punish people. It shocks me that that still remains not part of the statutory purposes of sentencing. Punishing people is important, and we do not consider it enough.

For all the reasons I have set out, this Bill is incredibly important. Today is incredibly important too, because it is the last chance for Back-Bench MPs to decide for themselves which parts of this very significant Bill they will support. Next week we will have Third Reading, where Labour MPs will have no choice but to vote for or against the entire Bill.

We know that a major part of this Bill is the earlier release of nearly all offenders. The Opposition are opposed to the programme as a whole, but it is clear that this Bill is a major part of the Government’s plans to reform sentencing. It would be asking a lot of Labour MPs to ask them to consider voting against the entire programme, but we are not asking them to do that. Our amendment 24 gives Labour MPs the route through which they can most justifiably say to their Whips and the Prime Minister, “No, I can’t support this.” We are asking them to say no and to vote against the early release of rapists, paedophiles, seriously violent criminals, criminals who cause death by dangerous driving and attempted murderers. We are giving Labour MPs a clear route out of doing what would be absolutely unprecedented in the management of offenders in our prisons and a deep insult to the victims of serious violent and sexual crime.

Labour MPs, many of whom I have got to know, work with and respect, will know that I spent the last week trying my utmost to encourage them to avoid being put in a position where the Whips will make them vote to release rapists, paedophiles and serious violent criminals earlier. Most shadow Ministers would happily sit back and watch Labour MPs vote for something that will blight their time in Parliament in the eyes of their constituents, but we have not done that. That is because whatever damage voting for this Bill might do to the electoral prospects of Labour MPs, what is more important to me is that its measures do not go through.

As I have said before, I understand the frustrations that MPs of different parties have had over decades about the resources provided to our justice system and the prison estate. I mentioned on Second Reading that when Labour was last in power, it released more than 80,000 prisoners early because of the capacity issues built up during its time in office. This Government and the last Government have operated similar programmes. I wish that emergency release measures never had to be used, and if—this is a very big “if”—I had ever been Prime Minister or Chancellor during these periods, I would have taken different decisions. But at least these measures have to be announced in the full glare of the public eye, carry a political price and are genuinely legislated for as responses to short-term emergency challenges.

I want Labour MPs to be absolutely clear-eyed about the fact that what we are voting on today is not a short-term response to prison crowding challenges. It is a medium to long-term plan—a decision about how we as a country want to respond to people who commit serious violent and sexual offences. I have never met a victim of a serious violent or sexual offence who thinks that the present system suitably punishes serious offenders. I have never met a victim who thinks that we should let these sorts of people out of prison earlier, but that is what this Bill will do.

On Second Reading, I explained the sorts of offences that are included in these measures. Ministers have said that the very worst offenders will be excluded. Since Second Reading, the Opposition have been able to review sentencing data to try to understand what that means in reality. It highlights a disturbing truth and leaves the Government and any MP who votes for this Bill with a difficult question to answer. Those serving extended determinate sentences and life sentences will be excluded from the early release elements of this Bill, whereas those serving standard determinate sentences will not. Prisoners on standard determinate sentences will have their prison time cut.

Every year, more than 60% of criminals sent to prison for rape are on a standard determinate sentence. Over 90% of criminals sent to prison for child grooming are on a standard determinate sentence. Around half of criminals sent to prison for attempted murder are on a standard determinate sentence. Hundreds of criminals guilty of child rape and sexual assault, including rape of children under 13, are in prison on standard determinate sentences. In total, more than 6,500 criminals sent to prison every year for serious violent, sexual and other offences are given determinate sentences. If Labour MPs vote against our amendment 24, every single one of those criminals will be able to get out of prison earlier. Labour MPs will be voting to let rapists and paedophiles out of prison earlier.

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I pay a tribute to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—I hope I have said her constituency name correctly, and I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion Preseli (Ben Lake) for coaching me in its pronunciation, although it is work in progress—for tabling new clause 4, to which I have added my name. This amendment calls for probation to receive a clean bill of health by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation before any increase in pressure on the service. It also provides a much-needed power to trigger what is called a prioritisation framework, so if there are serious concerns about a particular region’s or unit’s capability, probation officers can focus on high-risk cases instead of non-essential tasks.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is an old friend, and I appreciate his attempt to improve the Bill. The new clauses that he supports are interesting and have merit. Will he acknowledge, though, that it is not just probation services that will be put under extra pressure by this Bill, but that the police will be too? Will he invite the Minister, when he sums up, to talk about the extra resources he can make available to Lincolnshire police and other authorities, as well as to the Probation Service, to implement the provisions of the Bill that he has brought to the Committee?

[Grahame Morris]

I am grateful for that intervention, which I think is quite sensible, and I support the contention. I hope the Minister will respond appropriately when he has the opportunity.

Does the Minister agree that HM Inspectorate of Probation should have the powers outlined in new clause 4? They are just the sort of safeguards we need in the Bill before more pressure is placed on the Probation Service. We are all aware that it is really overstretched, principally as a result of funding cuts implemented by the previous Government and some of the decisions taken before the present Government came into office.

Finally, I am pleased to register my support for new clause 3, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who is my good friend. I echo the concerns that he expressed at length on Second Reading about the potential for exploitation by private companies, such as when unpaid work in London was privatised in 2013. Indeed, that was criticised by the International Labour Organisation as an abuse. Does the Minister agree with the probation union, Napo, that unpaid work orders should always be about payback to the community, that they should be run for public good, not for private profit, and that this safeguard should be placed in the Bill?

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[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Last week, I met one of my constituents, Tracey Hanson, in Parliament to honour the 10-year anniversary of the tragic loss of her son Josh, who was murdered in an unprovoked knife attack in Hillingdon, west London, in October 2015. We spoke about the tireless work that she has put into campaigning for victims’ rights, and I heard more about how the law that she wants to introduce—Josh’s law—would ensure that the rights of victims and their families to appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme are clear and equal to the rights of offenders.

I will speak specifically to new clause 12, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for the beautiful Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan). After cruelly taking the life of Josh Hanson, Shane O’Brien absconded and evaded police for three and a half years before he was finally caught. Dubbed Britain’s most wanted man at the time, O’Brien was sentenced to at least 26 years in prison, just one year above the minimum sentence. After just missing the deadline to appeal the sentence as a result of unclear information about victims’ families’ rights under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, Tracey has spent years campaigning to ensure that no other victims face what her family did. Unfortunately, far too many victims and their families face the same problems, simply because they are not being made aware of their right to appeal sentences.

There are also concerning numbers of cases in which clerical errors—in one case I heard of, it was an email stuck in a barrister’s outbox—lead to the Attorney General running out of time and missing the deadline to appeal a sentence. While appeals from offenders will still be considered by the Attorney General outside the 28-day window in exceptional circumstances, appeals from victims or their families will not. Historically, victims were at the centre of the justice system. Victims were the driving force in bringing criminal cases, and played a central role throughout the process. It was not until the 19th century that there was a significant shift towards state-led prosecutions, with the victims, rather than criminal cases, significantly diminished. The focus only started to shift back towards the victim with the very recent introduction of the first victim’s charter in 1990. I believe that we must recapture more of the focus from the state, and divert it back to those who are most directly impacted by crime.

The lives of Tracey and her family will never be the same again. They should have been a central focus in the criminal case, and should have received the same rights, and information about their right to appeal against the sentencing decision, as the offender did. It is vital that victims and their families are clearly informed about their right to appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme. New clause 12 would require the Crown Prosecution Service to write to victims, or their next of kin, within 10 working days of a sentence being passed, providing details of the unduly lenient sentence scheme, the application process for the scheme and the deadlines, which would also be extended, giving victims a better chance of benefiting from the scheme.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend is making a bold case on behalf of victims. I hope that he will agree that the more we agonise about the circumstances of the guilty, the more we displace consideration of the effects on the innocent. Over the whole of my lifetime, the focus on the circumstances of wicked people has had exactly that effect, and unfortunately it has permeated so much of the establishment, including the judiciary; sentences are sometimes inadequate for that very reason.

[Blake Stephenson]

I think that the justification for not changing that approach over many years has been an argument about finality of sentence, and giving the offenders that finality. I do not think that stacks up today; we need to afford victims more rights and more sensitivity within the system.

New clause 12 is total common sense, and should be supported by Members on both sides of the Committee. It puts victims at the heart of sentencing, and does not compromise the need for finality in sentencing. It pushes the date back, but it does not change the status of that finality.

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Finally, I was interested to hear about new clause 38, tabled by the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), on screening for traumatic brain injury. I worked with brain injury researchers on their early research on screening, and hope that the Minister looks closely at this vital new clause.

[Sir John Hayes]

I had not intended to start this way but I will do so, following the last remarks by the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) about acquired brain injury. I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for acquired brain injury, and we recently held a session specifically on the relationship between acquired brain injury and the criminal justice system. She is quite right to emphasise that. I will say no more in detail about it, except to refer the Minister to the report that we published, which includes a section on criminal justice and acquired brain injury.

Beyond that, in talking about the fundamental consideration of this Bill, I want to speak about the facts, the reasons for them, their effects and the alternative, very much in the spirit that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) spoke in when moving her amendment. I recommend her amendments, almost without reservation. They are a bold attempt to rescue the Bill from the damage it might do. I do not claim that that damage is intentional, because I do not think that anyone in this House intends to do harm—we would not be here if we did. None the less, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) said, harm, whether unintended or otherwise, will be the result of this legislation.

It is undeniable, I am afraid, that the Government present to the House a paradox. On one hand, they say that this Bill is necessary because of practicalities, including the inadequate number of prison places. That is a plausible argument, because the prison population has grown, as we heard earlier in the debate, and we simply do not have enough places to accommodate all those who might be sent to prison. On the other hand, they say that it is a matter of principle, and they tell us that short sentences do not work. In doing so, they are conceding to the rehabilitationist argument that has pervaded criminal justice thinking and criminology more generally for the whole of my lifetime. I remember that when I was studying criminology at university, there was exactly that narrative. Other academics challenged it: Philip Bean, the criminologist, wrote a definitive book called “Rehabilitation and Deviance”, in which he made the case for just retribution. The public certainly believe that the criminal justice system should be retributive.

[Dr Mullan]

My right hon. Friend is talking about a contradiction in the Government’s position, but is there not another one? Labour Members and Ministers in particular talk about the volume of people who are going to be released as a result of their measures, but whenever they are confronted with examples of actual offences committed by the sorts of offenders they will be letting go, they always say, “Well, it wouldn’t apply to them.” The Government cannot have it both ways: either a lot of people are getting out of prison, including some of these people, or they are not. They have to make up their mind.

[Sir John Hayes]

It is certainly true that a very significant proportion of criminals are repeat offenders, and there are people who choose to live a life of crime. This is not an illness to be treated; it is a malevolent choice to be dealt with through punishment, because we need to punish people for doing harm. That is not complicated—it is what all our constituents would take as read—yet, as I say, we seem to agonise about it perpetually.

[Anna Dixon]

Referring to my earlier comments, the data show that one in four prisoners are drug users and have a drug and alcohol problem, and they constitute many of the reoffenders. Given that data, does the right hon. Member not agree with me that we should be rehabilitating and medically treating those addictions, so that they are not caught up in the criminal justice system?

[Sir John Hayes]

It is certainly true that one perverse choice leads to other consequences, and when people become involved in drugs, it often leads to all kinds of horrors. The key thing is therefore to stop people getting involved in drugs, and successive Governments, including this one, have intended to do that. Through a series of measures, we try to deter people from involvement in drugs, to deal with drug dealers and to do all the other things that you will not allow me to speak about at length, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I would be deviating from the content of the amendments if I did—

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. You should learn that one tempers oneself, Sir John.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful, Madam Chairman.

[Dr Mullan]

This is very much still on topic. The challenge with the argument that Labour Members put forward on rehabilitation is that it presupposes that all we need to do is put someone on a drug rehabilitation course once, and they will stop offending and it is all fantastic. The evidence shows the complete opposite. Even the very best drug rehabilitation courses that money can buy at the Priory have a long-term success rate of about 50%. In reality, whatever we do, some of these offenders are going down a path from which they will not be turned for a significant length of time, and that is when we have to put them in prison.

[Sir John Hayes]

I do agree with my hon. Friend.

Just stepping back a moment, Ms Ghani, I am mindful that the only female Speaker we have ever had once famously declared, “Call me Madam”, so I will from now on call you Madam Chairman rather than anything else.

It is certainly true that we need a war against drugs, drug dealing and all the effects of drugs, but it would be quite wrong to separate that from the public desire to see people who do bad things dealt with appropriately. When those bad things are at their extreme, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton pointed out, we are speaking of extremes—acts of violence against women, minors and, let us face it, men—they need to be dealt with with severity. There is nothing wrong with saying that because it is what most people intuitively feel, and it is right that they do. Grotius, the jurist, once said that criminal justice was about

“the infliction of an ill suffered for an ill done”,

and that sense that the punishment must fit the crime rings true now, as it did when he made that observation.

The Minister needs to explain whether the Bill is about practicalities or principle. I have yet to determine which position the Government have taken.

[Sally Jameson]

I just want to highlight the fact that it is possible to believe that offenders need to be punished, as I do—when I was an officer, I was part of delivering that punishment—and simultaneously that rehabilitation should be a part of the prison system. While I agree with the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) that some offenders are not ready to begin the rehabilitation journey, that does not mean that we should not stand ready to provide it for those who are ready, as it ultimately drives down reoffending and reduces the number of victims, which should be at the heart of everything we do. Punishment and rehabilitation need to work hand in hand.

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[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. While I attack the rehabilitationist dogma, I do of course believe that we should try to save souls, and the best way of doing that is to address people’s fundamental problems, as many Members across the Committee have said in the course of this debate. That might be about ensuring that people have adequate learning, or it might be about the acquisition of a particular skill. The hon. Lady will know from her rich experience in these matters that if someone can get a job when they leave prison, they are much less likely to reoffend. When someone in those circumstances is unable to get a job, it is usually a result of the fact that they do not have core skills, in terms of basic competencies, or specialist skills. Where those can be provided through learning in prison, that undoubtedly has beneficial results—I have seen that myself in prison, where I have met both the people who run such services and the people receiving them. The hon. Lady is therefore right.

However, I am really speaking about something more fundamental than that, which is a willingness to recognise —as the hon. Lady did, by the way, in her brief intervention —that punishment matters. The reticence or unwillingness to declare that as openly as I have, or the attempt to ignore or avoid it, is at odds with the instincts of the vast majority of our constituents. It is, perhaps, a product of a society that has lost its moral compass, where right and wrong have been eroded through a kind of moral relativism. Perhaps it is because of some quasi-Freudian need to explain crime in more complex terms than it may warrant—for it is simply a question of someone wanting something they cannot get and using force, violence or some other means to get it.

[Anna Dixon]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a passionate and principled speech about punishment, but we are dealing here with practicalities. The Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, has looked at the prison estate capacity. There was a pledge under the previous Government for 20,000 additional prison places; just 6,518 of those were actually built. If the right hon. Gentleman were to pursue this line of saying that everybody needs to have a punishment without rehabilitation, I do not understand where, in practical terms, he is going to put people.

[Sir John Hayes]

I agree with the hon. Lady, actually. I remember visiting the former Justice Secretary—the former Member for Cheltenham, Alex Chalk—with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), to tell him that we would not vote for it if that Government brought forward a measure to let people out early. My position on this matter has been entirely consistent; I would not have voted for a Conservative measure that let people out of prison early any more than I will vote for this measure tonight.

I suggested three things to the then Justice Secretary: first, that we deal more robustly with foreign national offenders; again, our constituents would be astounded and appalled if they realised just how many foreign national offenders are in our prisons. Secondly, I suggested taking emergency measures to provide prison places. After all, during covid, we built Nightingale hospitals; I suggested that we build Fry prisons, named after the Tory prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, which will not be lost on the historians here in the Chamber. I do not see why that could not be done.

Thirdly, we should certainly explore prisons that have been closed in recent times, under Conservative and Labour Governments, and see which could be used, either temporarily or on a permanent basis. There is a whole range of measures that we could take. It is not easy, and I say that knowing what it is like being a Government Minister. None of those things are easy, but they are all worthy of further exploration because of the effects that the legislation will have.

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[Esther McVey]

My right hon. Friend talks about the number of people who will be released from prison. I spoke earlier about the number of people who will not even be going to prison. All in all it will be tens of thousands of people not in prison. Does my right hon. Friend agree that when the public find this out, they will want that Government gone?

[Sir John Hayes]

As my right hon. Friend says with her typical clarity and passion, it may be that the Government bow to public pressure—and there will undoubtedly be public pressure of a kind she describes. We are speaking about people who have done serious harm, including sex offenders of the most extreme kind and violent repeat offenders. These are not people who have committed minor indiscretions; they are very serious criminals. The public will resist their release and protest about it, and the Minister may well feel obliged, as I am sure he is a man of principle, to return to the House and amend the legislation when its effects are truly and fully seen.

My judgment would be that the facts speak for themselves: thousands of people will be let out of prison who certainly should not be. The reasons are as I described them; they are practical, but there is an underlying sentiment that I tried to articulate: it is a fear of punishment and an unwillingness to recognise the retributive nature of criminal justice. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) set out far more eloquently than I ever could, the effects are likely to be devastating for our constituents and communities across the country—and bear in mind that it will happen in every part of this country, every constituency will suffer as a result of the legislation. Each one of us will, as good constituency MPs, have to cope with some of these effects.

The alternative is, as I described when responding to an earlier intervention, to look at every possible means of accommodating people in prison who deserve to be incarcerated—

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

I am coming to my exciting finale, but I will happy give way on the way to it.

[Ben Maguire]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. Does he agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) that the Conservative Government’s record on prison building was shameful? The former “Minister for Common Sense”, the hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), has been nodding along when Members have said that we need to build more prisons. It certainly sounds like common sense, but why on earth did the Conservative Government not do that?

[Sir John Hayes]

On a purely technical point, I am right hon. and so are my right hon. Friends the Members for Tatton and for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), but let us put that to one side. It is a matter of public record that I almost never disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville. The truth is, she is right: we should have built more prisons much earlier. We could have anticipated these things—they can be modelled, after all. By the way, Governments are often surprisingly poor at modelling—I saw that throughout my time in government—but we should have modelled this, given the trend change in the prison population.

[Esther McVey]

It might be helpful to give some of the numbers. Three prisons were built, with 8,500 places—they were delayed because of lockdown—and another three prisons are on the way.

[Sir John Hayes]

I noted those figures earlier. My right hon. Friend is right—we also rarely disagree, and I did not disagree with a word she said earlier—that more prison places were added, but there are two things about that. What we did not really take necessary account of was the effect of sentencing policy. If more people are sentenced to incarceration, perfectly properly, that changes the trend. We certainly could have dealt more effectively with foreign national offenders than we did, which was another growing problem. Furthermore, over a long period of time, while we were adding places we took some prison places out. We need to think about the number of prisons that closed. She is therefore right. [Interruption.] It is not that we did nothing—far from it; we did many good things of the kind she described—but, unfortunately, not enough account was taken over a long enough period.

It is not largely about the immediate policy of the previous Government. It goes back much further than that to a series of Governments of both major parties over a long time indeed. The modelling that I described is decade-long modelling.

It is an extremely difficult business to get planning permission to build a prison. The last Government often struggled with resistance to having a prison built or expanded in a locality. It is usually local constituency MPs—we can imagine such people: Liberal Democrat types—who come here and say one thing—[Interruption.] Notice that I said “types” rather than just Liberal Democrats. They say one thing but go back to their constituencies and campaign against opening a prison.

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

With that, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Kohler]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman and many hon. Members that the prison population is a supply-led industry. If we build more prisons, we will just get more prisoners. It does not address the issue. All history tells us that—look at America. We imprison more people in this country than is done in Europe, yet we have a higher rate of criminality. More people are imprisoned in America than here, yet America has a higher rate of criminality. Building prisons is a fool’s errand.

[Sir John Hayes]

The thing that I most admire about the hon. Gentleman is his sartorial style—I glanced across towards him earlier, and I was going to say to him as I left the Chamber, “I love your suit”—but I rarely agree with what he says. We come from very different perspectives. In a sense—I do not mean to be unkind—his view is part of the problem. The problem is the persistent idea that putting people in prison is cruel and nasty. Of course, it is pretty nasty, and most of our constituents think it should be—in fact, they probably think it should be nastier than it is. Our difference of opinion will never be reconciled in a few brief exchanges, but it is important to note that a range of sentences are available to the courts—not just prison—and the key thing, about which I am sure we agree, is that those sentences need to be fitting to the events, fitting to the effects of the crime and fitting to the interests of the victims, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) said in moving his new clause.

[Josh Babarinde]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his sartorial appreciation some time ago of my green suit, when he went on to ask whether I won it at a village fête.

[Josh Babarinde]

I did not, but maybe the right hon. Gentleman can agree on the point that I want to make. He spoke about the challenges that Governments have had when modelling prisoner numbers and the prison population. Does he therefore agree with David Gauke, who recommended in his report that there should be an independent body that does that modelling, and is he disappointed that there is not a feature of that in the Bill?

[Sir John Hayes]

No, I do not. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on using the word “appreciated” exactly as in its dictionary definition. I did appreciate his sartorial style, but that is not to say that I either admired or approved it. [Laughter.]

In respect of David Gauke, who is a former colleague and was commissioned to produce that report, I do not agree in essence with it. I am more inclined to agree with the analysis of the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle. There is a huge mistake in assuming that incarceration is not of itself beneficial—to deal with the simple issue of recidivism, people cannot do harm when they are locked up. By far the best and most straightforward way of dealing with recidivism is to take people out of harm’s way, and by that I mean taking them out of doing harm.

If someone has committed a very serious crime, such as rape, murder or very violent assault, locking them up means they will not do it again. Releasing them means, too often, that they will; the statistics speak for themselves. If the Government want to really deal with recidivism, they should do three things: increase the number of whole-life sentences, raise the minimum sentence for a whole range of crimes and raise maximum sentences. To do that, they have to build more prisons. The mission I give to the Government is that they jettison the Bill before it does harm, think about how they can devise and deliver alternatives to that and be bold in making a case for a retributive system of criminal justice in a way that so few people have for so long.

[Warinder Juss]

As a member of the Justice Committee, it is a privilege to speak in support of the Bill. I welcome the much-needed reform that it will bring to our courts and prisons system. I wish to speak in support of clause 1 and amendment 36, relating to sentences of 12 months or less, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Pam Cox).

We are well aware in this House of the disastrous situation our prison system was left in by the previous Government and I am proud that this Government are now confronting the crisis head on. We are committed to not just short-term fixes, but long-term reform. The Bill will tackle the root causes of the issues that lead to the crisis in the first place and rebuild a justice system that delivers fairness, safety and accountability to all in society. Amendment 36 will do more than just reduce the pressure on our prison system; it will represent a vital cultural shift, placing rehabilitation and reintegration at the heart of our sentencing system.

Since becoming an MP, I have visited several prisons and one thing that has become clear is how easy it is to fall into the reoffending cycle, especially for those who are serving short sentences. A minor offence can lead to a short prison sentence that can affect a prisoner’s entire life. They leave prison and they have no home, no connections and no job. When they are released from prison, they have no option but to fall back into the same behaviours that put them in prison in the first place.

Sentencing Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady perhaps does not remember the last years of the last Labour Government. They let out 80,000 criminals on to our streets. That is how they emptied the prisons—not by building more, but by opening the doors. We did not do that.

There is a better way. Another way is possible. A third of all those in our prisons are either foreign national offenders or individuals on remand. The first answer to this challenge is to get the foreign national offenders out of our prisons and out of our country. The number of foreign prisoners in our prisons has gone up under Labour. The second answer is to fix the remand problem by getting the courts sitting around the clock to get the court backlog down. What has happened to the court backlog? It has gone up. If the hon. Lady is looking for someone to blame, she should look no further than those on her Front Bench.

Behind the many thousands of criminals who will walk free because of this Bill are thousands of victims, and each has a harrowing story. Daniel Tweed launched a vicious attack on his partner in their home in Northampton. He punched her multiple times. He dragged her by her hair. He kicked her and stamped on her. She was subsequently taken to hospital. He was sentenced to 12 months. [Interruption.] Someone said that is not enough, and I agree. Most people in this country would say that is not enough. That disgusting man should be in jail for far longer, but under the Bill, violent domestic abusers like Daniel will walk free. I say to Members, “Be under no illusions about what you are voting for this evening: Daniel Tweed and men like him will walk free.” There is no specific domestic abuse carve-out from the presumption against short sentences. That is what we are voting on tonight.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The truth that dare not speak its name, at least on the other side of the Chamber, is that the public know what many on this side know too: that many more people should be imprisoned for much, much longer. Successive Governments have failed to grasp that nettle, because they have given in to what the Justice Secretary, who, by the way, is a personal friend of mine—[Interruption.] He is desperate to avoid that description. They have given in to what the Justice Secretary amplified today, namely the foolish idea that crime is an illness to be treated rather than a malevolent choice to be punished. We need a retributive justice system that recognises what the public recognise: that people like the thug whom my right hon. Friend described need to be punished, and punished severely.

[Robert Jenrick]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. The truth is this: most people in this country are already raging at the fact that prisoners get let out of prison early. They were sick of that happening under the last Government, and what are this Government doing in response? They are letting out more, and they are asking them to serve even shorter sentences. That is not justice. That is not what the people of this country want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

Prisons in England and Wales are almost at capacity. The prison population currently stands at 87,578, with a current operational capacity of 89,664. The latest prison population projections estimate that the population will rise to between 95,700 and 105,200 by March 2029. This troubling picture means that reform is essential if we are to reduce the prison population and return to a functional criminal justice system. I welcome the reforms suggested in the Bill; they are both a necessity and the right direction of travel for an effective prison system. The Government have taken up most of the recommendations made in David Gauke’s independent sentencing review, which if taken together will reduce the numbers in custody by almost 10,000.

The prison system is in a unique place. It will be accommodating the highest number of inmates in history while working hard to find non-custodial punishments for a growing number of offenders. This is necessary following the irresponsible neglect of the criminal justice system under successive Tory Governments. It is also the first step to a prison and probation system that puts rehabilitation alongside punishment as an objective—that objective being a reduction in reoffending, with beneficial outcomes for offenders, victims and the taxpayer alike. I have no issue with the strategy, but I have serious concerns about the specific measures needed to achieve its purpose.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way; he is always courteous in the Chamber. Let us be clear: is the Bill a result of too few prison places —I acknowledge, by the way, that successive Governments have built too few prisons—or is it driven by a certain ideology? Is it about rehabilitation, which I describe as the treatmentist approach to crime? There is a confused message emanating from this Chamber. On the one hand we are told that it is a matter of convenience, because we do not have the places, but on the other hand we are told it is a matter of principle, because we do not believe in prison. Where does the hon. Member stand on that?

[Andy Slaughter]

The right hon. Member is not easily confused. I will turn to exactly that point later, but in brief it is both, and there is a contradiction in it being both. There is going to be a massive expansion in prison places, and there are going to be more people in prison. However, at the same time, partly to reduce the need for even more prisons to be built and partly because there are alternatives to custody, there will be people leaving prison as well. It is a difficult trick to pull off, I appreciate, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is up to the task.

The Sentencing Bill shifts the focus from custodial sentences to dealing with offenders in the community. It is paramount, therefore, that probation services are adequately funded to manage the substantial increase in workload and that supporting resources, such as electronic monitoring, are available and reliable. There are several measures in the Bill that will increase the pressure on probation services. These include a statutory presumption to suspend custodial sentences of 12 months or less; an extension of the availability of suspended sentences to three years rather than two; and new community orders, including those that ban offenders from public events and drinking establishments, prohibit offenders from driving and impose restriction zones on them.

In the 2023-24 annual report and accounts for the Prison and Probation Service, the overall annual leaving rate for Probation Service staff was over 10%. His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation said:

“High workloads and a lack of support are critical factors in driving practitioners away from their roles”.

A report leaked to the BBC estimated that there is currently a shortfall of around 10,000 probation staff, which is four or five times the number being recruited. I welcome the extra £700 million pledged during the spending review period to assist the Probation Service in dealing with the increased pressures. It will be vital in filling the shortfall and increasing staff retention. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State acknowledged that in response to me during Justice questions today.

The success of the measures in the Bill relies heavily on the use of electronic monitoring, primarily through the use of tags. The Justice Committee has continually raised its concerns about the performance of Serco, the Government’s current tagging provider. In correspondence with the Committee dated 7 May this year, the Prisons Minister revealed to us the shocking fact that Serco had received financial penalties for poor performance every month since it took on the electronic monitoring contract a year earlier.

In oral evidence given to the Committee, Ministers have recognised that Serco’s performance has been unacceptable and that stronger punishments for Serco are possible, should it continue to fail. Those should include possible debarment and exclusion from bidding for public contracts. Indeed, some of us wondered how Serco was ever awarded that contract by the previous Government after the appalling fraud it committed during its previous tenure as contractor. Ministers have reassured us that Serco’s performance is beginning to improve. It is difficult to see how the Government can continue to have faith in Serco, but it is also evident that they cannot easily shift to another contractor as there appears to be no viable alternative.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh Babarinde]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but should he look at the figures for 2015, he will see that all the things that I have described surged under the last Conservative Government. It is chaos and it cannot go on.

The Bill contains a number of measures that Lib Dems have proposed to help fix our pummelled prisons and crashed courts, but it also contains some problematic provisions that will need to be addressed if the Bill is properly to deliver justice for victims and survivors. The Liberal Democrats therefore cautiously support the Bill on Second Reading, but unless considerable changes are made throughout the remainder of the legislative process, the Government cannot expect our support any further.

Following a long campaign on one of the measures in the Bill, working with fellow victims and survivors of domestic abuse, I am heartened that the Government are honouring the commitment they made to them and to me to create a formal domestic abuse identifier in the criminal law for the first time. Convicted abusers will fly under the radar no longer. I thank the survivors who campaigned on this alongside us, including Elizabeth Hudson, as well as Women’s Aid, Refuge, Victim Support, ManKind and the 50,000 people who signed my petition in favour of greater identification of domestic abuse in the law.

[Sir John Hayes]

I did not know that the hon. Gentleman had done that, so may I congratulate him on that? What he says is absolutely right and will, I think, be widely welcomed across the House. However, I must press him on one point. Does he, like me, believe that such people, once caught and convicted, should spend much longer in prison? Does he agree that they should be incarcerated because punishment is the right thing for people who have done wicked things, spoiled lives, and hurt families, hurt women and hurt children?

[Josh Babarinde]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Speaking as a survivor of domestic and child abuse myself, and as someone who has been hurt in those very contexts, I have significant sympathy and alignment with a lot of what he describes. When I come to the domestic abuse identifier later, I will talk about how I think that should play out when it comes to the presumption against short sentences.

We will be closely monitoring the force of the new identifier through its implementation, and we will continue to make the case for a full aggravated offence of domestic abuse to strengthen the identifier.

Can the Government confirm that they will work with organisations such as Fair Hearing to provide domestic abuse training for judges and magistrates, so that the domestic abuse determinations that they make under clause 6 of the Bill can be informed by domestic abuse survivors’ experiences?

We also welcome measures to introduce a presumption against short sentences, which we know are failing to reduce reoffending. According to Ministry of Justice figures, 62% of people receiving a sentence of 12 months or less go on to reoffend. This compares with a 24% reoffending rate for equivalent suspended sentences. However, there must be an exclusion for domestic abuse offences. For domestic abuse victims and survivors, the respite period—as it is often referred to—represented by a custodial sentence for their abuser is critical. Will the Government commit to excluding any offender convicted of a crime where the new domestic abuse identifier is applied from the presumption against short sentences?

We welcome the reasonable and proportionate use of robust community sentences and licence conditions in the context of the earned progression model, but the Probation Service must have the tools it needs to manage this. I am sure we will hear again that the Government have pledged £700 million to the Probation Service to help enhance its capacity, but how will they resolve the 2,315 full-time equivalent shortfall in probation officers by next spring when those measures are set to be enacted?

On some of the new conditions, the income reduction orders and the additional driving prohibition powers may disincentivise or even inhibit employment, which is a key factor when it comes to rehabilitation and reducing reoffending. How will the Government militate against that unintended consequence of potentially driving up reoffending through those measures?

The recall provisions need to change. It cannot be the case that offenders can benefit from an automatic “get out of jail free” card after 56 days, with no assessment by the Parole Board before re-release. The Bill also threatens the independence of the judiciary from the Government by granting the Lord Chancellor a veto over judge-made sentencing guidelines. That looks like textbook Executive overreach, and it must be reviewed.

On foreign national offenders, the Bill offers placeholders for secondary legislation, which will evade scrutiny by the whole House. Our constituents instead deserve clarity and full parliamentary scrutiny of that matter, and I hope the Minister will commit to providing that.

Beyond that, there is lots missing from this legislation. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) said, where is the reform on IPP sentences? Where is David Gauke’s recommendation of an independent advisory body on prison capacity? Where are the measures to prevent offending in the first instance and not just to increase the supply of prison places? Where is the statutory footing for the publication of sentencing remarks for those victims of sex offences in perpetuity?

I will ask many more questions throughout the process, but I hope the Government will work with us and with the victims and survivors whose concerns we have all been platforming this evening to make significant improvements in the Bill which fix the criminal justice system that the Conservatives broke, while affording victims the freedom, dignity and welfare they need.

Decriminalising Abortion

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I apologise for arriving late, Mr Dowd, and it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair. My hon. Friend makes a salient point about the ethical issues around extinguishing the life of the unborn. There is another salient matter: the assumption on the part of the advocates of this move that individual autonomy—we see the same with the debate about the end of life—trumps all else and that personal interests, dressed up as rights, are more important than the obligations to others and society along with duties to the country and those greater duties to God. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on the philosophical rather than the theological aspect of that?

[Dr Mullan]

Although my right hon. Friend and I might not agree on where we draw the line on each of those very complex issues in different circumstances, I absolutely sympathise with the view that individuals sit within society and we have a wider obligation. Sometimes, laws and our customs are not there just for the benefit of individuals; they are there because of wider considerations.

Independent Sentencing Review

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The Lord Chancellor will know that for a very long time in this country, the prejudices of the establishment, poisoned by liberal thinking, have been at odds with the preoccupations of the vast majority of law-abiding people. Will she acknowledge now that the principal purpose of prison is retributive? It has other purposes, too, but its principal purpose is punishment. In that spirit, will she confirm when she will bring forward the further legislation on sentencing that she promised? Given what she has announced today, will she also confirm that violent sexual offenders will be excluded from early release?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I have no truck with anyone else’s prejudices and they certainly do not decide what I do in office. I believe in prison. This Government are going to build more prison places, and we will fill them. I believe in prison for the reasons of punishment, primarily; I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that. I will not let this country run out of prison places, because I know what will happen if we do. I am not willing to put anyone through the breakdown of law and order in our country—I am not willing to take that risk. It means that harder choices are in front of me and this House as we get ourselves out of this crisis, and I am making those choices today.

I will work at pace to bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity, so that the House can consider the proposals in full. Those on extended determinate sentences —the most dangerous offenders, as judged by a judge in a court—will be excluded from these measures. For all other offenders, earlier release will have to be earned, and there will be intensive supervision afterwards. That is the earned progression model, and I am sure we will debate it at length in the weeks and months ahead.