Draft Home Detention Curfew and Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods (Amendment) Order 2024

Josh Babarinde Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 General Committees

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell.

I thank the Minister for his remarks. I also thank him and the Government for taking seriously and addressing the issue of overcrowding in our prisons. They inherited a completely unsustainable position, whereby our prisons were driven to the brink by the last Government. It is clear that urgent action was needed. I am concerned, though, and so are Liberal Democrats, about the implications of the SDS40 scheme—and the administration of it thus far—for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The Minister will be aware of this because I have mentioned it in the Chamber many times, as well as in private meetings.

It is welcome that this order seeks to tighten up loopholes in the scheme, excluding from early release perpetrators of six different offences, including breaches of restraining orders, sexual harm prevention orders and stalking protection orders, revenge porn, and indeed murderers who were convicted in other jurisdictions. But a key concern is that the order is coming in now, after the release of several thousand individuals, some of whom may fall into those categories. What I want to know, and what survivors of domestic abuse need to know, is: how many people who have breached those various orders—how many perpetrators—have already been released?

Secondly, of those who have already been released, if the number is more than zero—and my assumption is that it may well be—how many do the Government intend to recall if they are now saying that these people should be not on our streets but behind bars, continuing their punishment and robust rehabilitation?

How did the Minister and the Government come to the conclusion that these six offences, and no further ones, were to be considered as further exclusions? What consultation have they done with groups in the sector, including the likes of Refuge and Women’s Aid—I have been engaging with so many more—to understand the effectiveness of the additional six offences and whether there ought to be any more? Does the Minister have plans to further consult those groups, which are incredibly concerned about this situation?

In addition, a key concern of many victims and survivors groups is over the interaction between the SDS40 scheme and the victim contact scheme. If and when an abuser is to be let out—whether early or not—it is critical for victims and survivors to know that that has happened. It is important for them to be able to prepare for what life will be like after that moment. As it stands, the victim contact scheme only kicks in if a perpetrator has been sentenced for 12 months or longer, but we know that there are many abusers, including those convicted of common assault, who are in prison for less than that amount of time and therefore do not fall under the victim contact scheme. Refuge, and many other organisations like it that I have engaged with, have been pushing the Government to expand the victim contact scheme to include victims and survivors of all abusers, no matter how long the abuser’s sentence, and I want to push the Minister and the Government on that again today.

In the Chamber and beyond, this Government, and the Secretary of State in particular, have given assurances to victims and survivors of domestic abuse that they will keep them safe, but unfortunately that has not been the case so far. We have seen that through the loopholes that the Government left the first and second time round. More assurances are required from this Government in order for survivors of domestic abuse to feel safe in the context of the scheme, which has been brought about as a result of the last Government’s maladministration of our prison system. I will leave it there.