Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bishop of Gloucester Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

110: After Clause 43, insert the following new Clause—
“Bail and primary carers
(1) Section 4 of the Bail Act 1976 is amended as follows.(2) After subsection (9), insert—“(10) Where a court determines whether to grant bail in criminal proceedings to a person to whom this section applies who is a primary carer for a child or pregnant, the court must—(a) consider the impact of not granting bail on the child or unborn child; and(b) presume (subject to victim impact or other relevant considerations) that it is in the best interests of the child or unborn child for bail to be granted.(11) In this section—(a) “child” means a person under the age of 18, and(b) “primary carer” means a person who has primary or substantial care responsibilities for a child.””Member’s explanatory statement
This Clause reflects the requirement for judge to consider the impact of not granting bail on a child when determining, in criminal proceedings, whether to grant bail to a primary carer of a dependent child.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I am pleased to move this amendment, which has the support of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. I am grateful for the knowledge and wisdom they will bring to the debate. I declare an interest as Anglican Bishop for Her Majesty’s Prisons in England and Wales and president of the Nelson Trust.

The sentencing of a primary carer can have a serious detrimental impact on the rights of a child and their life chances, yet the fact that they are a primary carer is not consistently considered by the court making the sentencing decision. Amendment 110 would require judges to consider the impact on a child of the decision of not granting bail when determining in criminal proceedings whether to grant bail to a primary carer of that dependent child. Amendments 215 to 217 aim to address inconsistencies in sentencing by requiring judges and magistrates to give due regard to the impact of a sentence on any dependent children and their welfare when sentencing a primary carer. The intention of Amendment 218 is to gather the relevant data about the number of prisoners who are primary carers and the number of children who have a primary carer in custody. Given that there are five amendments here, I hope noble Lords will bear with me.

I know other noble Lords will cover in greater detail the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that the rights of children whose primary carer is in prison be upheld. In the vast majority of cases, the primary carer is the mother, and this will be my point of reference today. However, I acknowledge that for some children the primary carer may be someone else. My starting point with these amendments is not that primary carers—mothers in the most part—should never be given a custodial sentence. It is instead that we must find a way for the least harm to be caused as a consequence of sentencing. Custodial sentences for mothers punish children, including the unborn, and that is not justice.

I believe not only that every person is created precious and with unique potential but that we are created as people of relationships and that perfect wholeness and harmony—shalom—is about everything in a perfect interdependent relationship: humanity and all creation; of course, I would add, rooted in God. If we want a criminal justice system which is about justice, safety, transformation and the flourishing of individuals, communities and society, we have to attend to the whole picture of relationships—the whole system, and indeed, the long term. If we are to strengthen family ties, reduce reoffending and disrupt intergenerational cycles of abuse, trauma and offending, there must be consideration of where and how a mother serves her sentence.

So often prison is not able to meet the rehabilitative needs of the people who are sent there and will also not be about enabling the better safety of the public or strengthening communities and society. Many women are often in prison for only a few weeks. The majority of women are there for less than six months and, according to the Prison Reform Trust:

“72% of women who entered prison under sentence in 2020 have committed a non-violent offence.”


Alternative community-based provision must be available, well funded and trusted by those making sentencing decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

For those reasons, I hope that the right reverend Prelate will be persuaded to withdraw the amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate this afternoon; it is now getting on for this evening. I am very aware of time and where we are in this group of amendments. There have been some thoughtful contributions and plenty to think about.

We have talked a lot about what is, and about the numbers of women in prison, but we must look at the reality. There might be things which are theoretically there, but we still have so many primary carers in prison, and while the amendment is about primary carers, it is also about the rights of the child. We were in danger in our debate of not keeping the child at the centre. I have heard what people have said about other dependants. I take that on board, but it does not take away from us focusing on children and the long-term intergenerational impact. We could have a good theological discussion later, but I used “Shalom” because we cannot have any of this discussion without looking at the whole picture.

I have respect for all that has been said about judges and I give them credit for what I have heard in the very powerful speeches today. One problem is that there is not always enough information about what else is available. We will be talking about community sentencing another time, but I have had judges and magistrates say to me, “We don’t know exactly what is available in this area that could be offered to this person.” We must keep this all in the round.

Data has come up again and again, and that is crucial. I am grateful to all those who have talked about its importance. We have been talking about the number of women in prison and what happens at sentencing, but, with due respect, it is not happening. If it were, we would not have the number of women in prison that we have and the number of children who are being adversely impacted by this. We must be careful about the theory, what is happening and why it is happening. Therefore, data is really important.

We talked a lot about pre-sentencing reports. They are crucial, but it is not just about a pre-sentencing report—it is the information it contains. Again, we know that lots of primary carers, particularly mothers, do not always want to say that they are mothers. We must look at why that is. Again, it is that bigger picture—it is not just the PSR but the information it contains.

I do not want to replay all the arguments that we have heard, and I thank noble Lords. There is something I still want to hold on to about the rights of the child, and about inconsistency. I have heard what the Minister has said, yet that issue of inconsistency is really important because of the reality of what we have in our prisons at the moment and the number of children being impacted.

While I am willing to withdraw the amendment at this stage, I hope that there will be further discussion about the rights of children and all that we must do to continue achieving the aims of the Female Offender Strategy, which is not where we are in reality. I pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for their support. We want further discussion going forward but for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 110 withdrawn.