Sentencing Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)]

To respond to the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin), in 1997—I do not know if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was with us then—we were concerned that the prison population was 40,000; it is now 80,000 and it is predicted to go up to 112,000 if we continue on the current flightpath. I just say to the hon. Lady that we are all straining to do our best to make sure that all our constituents are safe and that there is a just and effective system in our society to deal with crime and injustices. However, based on what I heard of her understanding of the Bill, I suggest it would be worth her while to sit down with Justice Ministers so that they can take her through some of the detail of the Bill, because I genuinely think there are elements of it that she has completely misconstrued. I say that not in any party knockabout way; I just think that would be worth while, because we want, particularly with this Bill, to build as much consensus as possible to reassure people out there that this House cares about their concerns.

I declare an interest in that I am an honorary life member of the Prison Officers Association. There is no financial relationship or nexus to that and, as I have said before, the POA has made it clear that there is no benefit to me whatsoever—I would not get a south-facing cell, an extra pillow or anything like that; it is a privilege. I want to make four or five points very briefly, because I know that others want to speak, and they will to a certain extent echo those of my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter).

On the sentence management process, all the advice we get from Napo, which represents probation officers, shows that there is a shortfall of about 10,000 staff, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick said. The morale in the service itself—remember that probation officers have gone through privatisation, and then been brought back as a public service—is pretty low. They are very committed professionals, but having wages stagnate for a long period has had its effect, and recruitment and retention is a real issue that we need to address. I would not underestimate the stress they are under at the moment. We welcome the additional resource, but realistically there is a demand for more that we need to take on board.

One issue with resettlement that has been raised with us by probation officers and others is that because of the cutbacks in local government and other funding regimes, a lot of the voluntary sector bodies that they relied on to refer their clients to are no longer operating or have been starved of resources for a long period. A lot of those voluntary sector bodies were specialists in their own way, in particular with regard to drug abuse.

The second issue is about prison. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick that we need a lot more detail about earned progression, but prison officers tell us that the reality is that rehabilitation is almost impossible at the moment. Prisoners cannot access the courses that are needed. We do not even have the staff who will go to their cells to accompany them to rehabilitation and education courses. Again, the pressure staff are under is immense.

One specific issue with the skilled worker visa system has been raised by the Prison Officers Association. It has had an impact on the number of staff working in our prisons. I was not aware of this to be honest, but there were recruitment campaigns in Africa and elsewhere. Staff have been brought here and now we are at risk of losing them because they fall foul of the new visa regime. It does not just affect prisons—it affects a whole range of services—but it needs to be looked at again.

Another issue that has been discussed is the supervision of unpaid work. I am really worried that there are discussions about privatising that again. In London, we had the experience of Serco a number of years ago when it was privatised. To be frank, it was an absolute disaster. I am worried that it could be interpreted as simply exploiting prisoners for private profit in some instances.

There is not much reference in the Bill to children and I wonder whether we will come back to that, because unless we look at the regime for children as well, we could be in a situation where children will be serving longer sentences than some adults. One other point in relation to children that has been raised by a number of organisations, such as the Howard League, is the publication of a prisoner’s or convicted person’s photo. I can understand the motivation behind that, but I believe the family often serves the sentence just as much as the prisoner. As a result, stigma is attached to the whole family. What we have found from our experience is that children have suffered because of crimes perpetrated by the parent. We need to be very careful about how we use the identification process. We need to do it wisely and look at the implications for the whole family.

I will make two final points. On race, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been goaded by the Opposition, but the work he did on an exploration of the justice system highlighted discrimination in the system—we have to admit that. It is not about two-tier justice; it is about trying to get fair justice for everybody. The reality is that all the statistics demonstrate that for the same crime, those who are black or Asian will get a harsher sentence and will almost certainly have a harsher regime when in prison than others. We need to follow up the work done by my right hon. Friend. We need to be open and transparent, and get all the information out there again and re-examine it on intersectionality and the implications for the justice system.

Finally, I share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick on IPP. We have been at this for a number of years and the Select Committee made its recommendation on re-sentencing. The Government rejected it, because they were worried about being branded as releasing prisoners into the community and worried that there would be risks. The re-sentencing exercise was about how to manage and minimise those risks.

Every time we have this debate and we do not move forward, what happens? We have had suicides of those IPP prisoners. I am worried that unless we speed up the resolution of this problem, we will have an injustice. Lord Blunkett, who introduced the system, has subsequently absolutely condemned it, saying it was one of the worst mistakes he ever made in politics. We will render those injustices continuing ones and do more harm to both the prisoners themselves and—as those who have had constituents who have endured this will know—their families. As I say, the families serve the sentence as much as the individuals concerned. Although there has been progress on this, I do think we need to revisit it in some legislative form in the near future.

Sentencing Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

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

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

I call Catherine Atkinson. [Interruption.] I call John McDonnell.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Ms Ghani; it is nice to be a substitute.

Like others in the Chamber, I am a member of the justice unions parliamentary group, and I will speak very briefly to new clause 3. As many Members know, the justice unions group comprises the probation officers’ union, Napo, as well as the Prison Officers Association and the PCS. It acts as the voice of the frontline workers in Parliament from those particular unions. There is an overall welcoming of the Bill by the unions themselves, which is good, but a specific concern has been raised with us with regard to the development of unpaid work and community service, and how that is managed in the future.

Many Members will also know about the history of community service; in fact, in the past we have had a few Members in this House who did a bit of community service—but that is another issue all together. Historically, it has been a way in which people have been able to avoid prison sentences: by working in the community and making reparation for the damage that they have often caused in it. I think we can report that it has been relatively successful in most of our constituencies.

Unfortunately, though, there have been experiments with privatisation, including of the management of the service; and there has been debate about whether this could be unpaid labour for private companies. In London, in 2013, community service was privatised to Serco. It was an absolute disaster. There was a lack of supervision on site, a lack of workers, and a lack of tools being delivered. It was also exposed that offenders were sometimes being crammed into vehicles that were unsuitable and unsafe. As a result, that privatisation collapsed. The last Government then engaged in a wholesale privatisation of probation, under the title, “transformation of rehabilitation”. That included unpaid work and community service. Again, even the last Government had to accept that probation would have to be brought back in house because of a combination of incompetence and profiteering, alongside a failure to go for realistically effective rehabilitation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Dixon]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s clarification that charities would still be able to provide these placements. I have a fantastic charity in my constituency, upCYCLE, which teaches bike maintenance skills to help rehabilitate people. Currently, that is done in prisons, but when there are more community sentences, that sort of charity will want to give people skills and meaningful work in the community. I just want to clarify that this is not about excluding charities.

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly in the tradition of community service as it was founded and developed over the years, but the experiments with privatisation have been a disaster. There is an argument that once a system starts using the private sector, as in America, offenders become economic units for exploitation and profiteering. The Justice Unions Parliamentary Group warns that we should not venture down that path, both as a result of historical failures, and given what has happened in other countries when the private sector has been able to use offenders in that way. The new clause is about returning to the traditional community service approach in this country. It was relatively effective, but in this new Sentencing Bill, which we welcome, it will be expanded on a scale perhaps not envisaged in the past. It is as simple as that.

[Dr Mullan]

The right hon. Member is well known for his long-term support for the Prison Officers Association. While he is on his feet, will he commit to supporting our new clause 16, which would close the loophole relating to whole life orders for the murder of prison officers?

[John McDonnell]

I declare an interest as an honorary life member of the Prison Officers Association. This is about the only time I have disagreed with it. I will not support that measure, although I understand where it is coming from, and I understand that there may well be a review of sentencing, and what is taken into account, when these actions tragically occur. To have a mandatory sentence like that would most probably not be appropriate, although the shadow Minister is right that the Prison Officers Association has argued strongly for the measure, and I respect that.

My final point relates not to new clause 3, but to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) on the naming and shaming of offenders and the idea that offenders’ photographs will be publicised locally. He suggests in his amendments that there should be much wider consultation on the issue, and probation officers are saying exactly the same thing. A lot of their role in rehabilitation is about ensuring that people have a connection with their families once again. They are concerned about the effect that naming and shaming has on the family, and in particular the children. Sometimes, the family serves the sentence alongside the offender, and we would not want any actions taken that increase the stigma for family members of offenders. If the Government are going down this path, there is a need for more detailed and widespread consultation and discussion.

[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.

Sentencing Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Then I call John McDonnell.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I have only a couple of sentences, Madam Deputy Speaker.

To remind the Minister, in last week’s Committee, my new clause—which is effectively new clause 26 today—represented the views of a number of organisations, including the National Association of Probation Officers, recalling the problems that we faced with privatisation, particularly in relation to community service and unpaid work. In London in 2013, the supervision of unpaid work was privatised to Serco, and it was a catastrophic failure in providing both effective work and security for the community overall. It left a stain on the old process of managing community work. That was reflected when the previous Government totally privatised probation, which then had to be brought back in-house.

New clause 26 simply asks for an assurance from the Government that, although we will want to engage with voluntary organisations, charities and non-profit bodies, we will not seek the privatisation of community service and unpaid work, in particular the placement of former prisoners in work in which they could be exploited.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who I am sure will join me in supporting my new clauses 27 and 28, and new clause 25 in the name of the hon. Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson). My new clauses relate to probation capacity and the devolution of probation services to Wales, but in Committee we had no feedback whatsoever from the Minister at the close of the day. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that those four new clauses, including his own, warrant a response from the Minister?

[John McDonnell]

That is why I tabled my new clause in Committee. I did not want to be a pain in the neck; I just wanted the Minister to acknowledge our understanding of the implications of the measures and the Probation Service’s overall concerns about these matters. I have re-tabled the new clause simply to get the Minister’s view and to hear the Government’s attitude on those issues. A range of amendments have come from the justice unions parliamentary group, which the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) chairs.

Let me be absolutely clear: community service has always been state-supervised work with charities and non-profit organisations. At no stage do we want to allow private sector organisations to profiteer in that area of service. No matter what attitude the Minister takes, I hope that he can give us an assurance on that. If there is a need for further discussion and dialogue, I am sure that the justice unions parliamentary group will be willing to meet him to go through those issues in more detail.

[Andy Slaughter]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. Although commercial organisations may well be able to run community schemes, it is clear that the ambition of voluntary organisations is rehabilitation and the prevention of reoffending, and that really must be the goal of community sentencing, which is at the heart of the Bill.

[John McDonnell]

I can only draw on the experience that my hon. Friend and I had when Serco was in charge, which was about profiteering and reducing costs, largely through a reduction in staff. He might recall that on occasion we had reports that community service volunteers were turning up, and the tools were not available for them to do their work. There was a lack of supervision, and in a few instances we discovered that some of the vehicles that they used had been forced into and were unsafe.

We do not want to go back to that profiteering. That is why an assurance that this provision will be managed and orientated by the state, using non-profit-making voluntary organisations and charities, would reassure those professionals who have unfortunately experienced the privatisation that has taken place in the past, to the detriment of us all.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.