Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments and it is a pleasure to follow noble Lords and benefit from their considerable wisdom—I am in awe of the learning and wisdom on display this evening. I do not want to repeat a lot of what has been said, so I will keep my speech very short.

I have one or two reflections on Amendments 165 and 166, to which my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester has added her name. She is a regular visitor to prisons across the country and supports the network of chaplains in our prisons who have direct evidence in relation to the mental health of prisoners.

As others have said, we know that many IPP prisoners are stuck in the system and that appropriate psychiatric care in the community is not in place to manage their high-support needs. IPP prisoners suffer greater mental distress and disorders than the wider prison population and, in many cases, it can be said that the sentence itself is the cause of the distress. It disrupts relationships and inspires hopelessness, anxiety, despair and alienation.

I welcome the changes proposed through this Bill, but, for the sake of the prisoners in question and the wider community, we need to ensure that they are getting the appropriate aftercare that they are entitled to and that it is extended in the way proposed in Amendment 166.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I am not a lawyer but I do have some experience of visiting prisons, thanks to the Koestler Trust, which takes art into prisons. I was quite a close friend of the late, much- lamented and learned Lord Brown, so I feel quite strongly about what I have heard. I have been very moved by this discussion and the toing and froing between quite considerable legal minds.

What I took from my time visiting prisons was that essential ingredient of hope. The arts sometimes gave hope but, of course, there were instances, which we have been hearing about with IPP, where hope had been vanquished. I want to make only one simple point. No greater tribute could be paid to the late Lord Brown than that the Government acknowledge the point he made, and that other noble Lords are making, and come to some arrangement to bring to a close this system, which is not only iniquitous but almost cruel. People need to know at the end of the day that there is some chance of once again leading a normal life.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, on the first group of amendments my noble and learned friend the Minister said that there was a cohort of IPP prisoners who had never been released and he suggested that it was because they did not meet the tests of the Parole Board. My concern is that the prison system has not been able to offer the rehabilitation necessary for these prisoners to demonstrate that they could safely be released. That is why I strongly support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan.

I also have strong support for the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, particularly because it refers to prisoners whom the Secretary of State would release if he was able to but cannot. There must be a great cost to keeping those prisoners in prison who are there because the Secretary of State does not have the power to release them.