Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a genuine privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. I was privileged to work with her as the Home Secretary who brought in what was then the original Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill. I am painfully aware of how little progress we have been able to make and how important this legislation is today. I would also like to commend the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on his forthcoming maiden speech and to reconnect with him—I am sure he will make an enormous contribution—and share with my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti the sadness that we are not joined this afternoon by the late and much-lamented Igor Judge and Simon Brown, whom I personally miss greatly.

I will say just a word in following up what the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, said. If there is a sense of commitment and duty, it is embodied in her decision to come back to take on this role. I share what she just said about the issues relating to mental health and what amounts to considerable and persistent anti-social behaviour and abuse by people who, of course, need treatment and support, but we also need to support those who are the victims of it. I have received many letters over the years—and still do—from people who have found their lives as neighbours simply made a misery. So I hope we can find a way of including persistent anti-social behaviour in this legislation.

I also hope—and perhaps the Minister might reflect on this—that we might help those who do not get support from the police; the victims of offences who contest the police’s failure to act and get caught up in internal reviews for which there is no appeal. The reviews by some forces in this country are excellent, and people are informed clearly as to why action has not been taken. But I will give just one example this afternoon: that of the Warwickshire Police force, which, frankly, in my view is an absolute disgrace, and the chief constable cannot even be bothered to write personally to a former Home Secretary. I will take that up another day.

I move now to Clause 48. I welcome very strongly the decision taken by the current Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, and commend the Minister in this House. It is really nice to have people who are prepared to listen and, even close to an election, take decisive decisions. The reduction in the licence period for IPPs is very welcome indeed. I commend everything that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said on this, and I am very glad that he has taken up the cudgel and is leading on these matters.

It surely must be possible to be able to distinguish IPPs from DPPs, and the young people who were sentenced under that particular clause when they were juveniles, as opposed to those who were sentenced as adults, even if the Government are not prepared to take up the challenge of the sentencing. It surely must be possible to provide mentoring and advocates on behalf of those who are caught up in this, as has been described this afternoon. It surely must be possible to pick up the excellent thematic inspection report of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation. I spent the weekend reading it—Christmas is coming late in the Blunkett household this year. The 11 recommendations and its conclusions are excellent, but they need implementation. It is incumbent on all of us to press the Government to make the action plan statutory; to include the recommendations in any iterations of the probation action plan; to take up the challenge, which has already been mentioned this afternoon, of what happens when prisoners are preparing for their appeal to the Parole Board and for release, where the inspection report indicates that there is a woeful lack of support and help for those who are preparing. There is a complete disconnect with offender managers, both inside the service and when people are on licence, partly because of the massive turnover and strange management practices within the service. I commend those to the Minister, and hope that he will be able to respond positively later this evening on those matters.

Finally, it is crucial we understand that, if we are to prevent victims of the future, we need to ensure that the rehabilitation of those who have committed offences is taken as seriously as it is in the debate this afternoon. In seven minutes, I have not really been able to cover the field. There is so much to be done and so much to come together, but in the spirit of what the current Lord Chancellor and the Minister in this House are doing, we might just be able, in the months ahead, to get this right. I sincerely hope so.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I may be as underinformed as anyone but my understanding is that the classic case of restorative justice is that once there has been a prosecution and a conviction, there is a process for some kind of reconciliatory interaction between the victim and the offender—for example, of the kind that my noble friend Lord Hodgson so eloquently described—in a way which enables both parties to process and come to terms with what has happened. It is not typically an alternative to having a prosecution in the first place, as I understand it, although that might arise.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I know there is an unwritten convention that noble Lords should not intervene when they were not able to be here at the beginning of a group, which in this case was last week, but I do not think that convention prevents me asking a question. Is it not really important that people in the prison system are able to understand what they can do for themselves, and for the victim, by engaging with restorative justice? That is one of the reasons I put my name to Amendment 14. The right honourable Stephen Timms in the other place is an excellent example: he has corresponded with, and is arranging to meet, the perpetrator of the attack on him many years ago. That will, I hope, assist them both—the perpetrator in her release and her future—and give some consolation through her coming together with the victim, who in this case was Stephen Timms.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for his question. I would obviously not dream of making any procedural point, as it is a very fair question. I do not think it is clearly envisaged in the Bill or the code, as it stands at the moment, that it should be the perpetrator who is seeking some sort of restorative justice, rather than it being something that the victim is entitled to. The noble Lord’s point is well made and we should think further about it.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

The last of my amendments, Amendment 139, is a simple, technical amendment. I hope there is no risk that anyone will try to do it, but it is to stop the statutory power to alter the minimum period of the licence being moved up as opposed to down. But those are not the critical amendments: Amendment 149A is, and on that, as I have said, I will wish to seek the opinion of the House in due course.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I know that we have had extensive debates on the range of issues on IPP and DPP. I will try to be brief, because everyone will want to reach the Statement on the infected blood scandal.

I want to pay tribute to those on my own Front Bench for their support in some difficult and tricky issues, and for their understanding, and to Peers from every corner of this House who have worked tirelessly together to work out how we can make progress and how we can help both those caught up in prison, those on licence and in fear of recall, and of course the families and campaigners. I too pay tribute to UNGRIPP and those who have been campaigning tirelessly alongside them. It has at last reached the public ear—in broadcast, print and online media there is now real attention to this issue, and a sympathetic hearing. That is a very good thing.

I want to say thank you to the Minister. Thank you for being prepared to engage with those committed, and for the concessions that have been outlined this afternoon in terms of my amendments. Government Amendments 133B, 138ZB, 139A, 139B and 139C deal substantially with my Amendments 41, 42, 134, 138A and 144. I am very grateful for both the sensitivity and understanding, and the ability to give, in a period leading up to a General Election, which is difficult for any Government to do on issues such as these, which are often toxic in the public arena. Together with the current Under-Secretary of State and his equivalent in the Commons, some progress—not as much as we, or those campaigning, would like, but some—has now been made on the Bill.

My Amendment 149—I have agreed with the Minister that we might come back to this when we debate the Criminal Justice Bill—is about a technical readjustment of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act so that IPP and DPP prisoners are not disadvantaged. This afternoon we have made progress on the action plan and how it will be updated and implemented; the progression board and its transparency and reporting; the challenge group that will be overseeing and, as it says, challenging what is happening administratively; and the commitments in relation to parole.

I just want to make one comment about probation. There is a new head of Probation—Martin Jones—who was the chief executive of the Parole Board. He understands these issues very well. I have real confidence in him, as I do in the head of the progression board, Chris Jennings; they get what we have been talking about and will move heaven and earth to make the system work. But the Probation Service has to change its outlook and risk aversion, because we have a situation at the moment, because of the enormous pressure on the Prison Service and the lack of rehabilitation that that brings, where the Government have felt it right to release people early and to slow down prosecutions, while the Probation Service recalls people on licence all the time, filling the places that the Government are unfilling. It is like having a washbasin with the tap on and the plug out.

We have to make urgent progress in both getting release, making those spaces available, and not returning people to prison—not least because Ian Acheson, a former prison governor who has been working with the Government over a number of years, said recently that 50% of those currently in prison are taking illegal substances. When they are adjudged to have taken an illegal substance, their likelihood of being able to get parole is immediately reduced. Should they revert when they are on licence, having been subject to illegal substances while they were in prison, they are brought back into a place where illegal substances are readily available. We have got to stop the cycle and we can do it only with the good will of Ministers, future Ministers and those working in the service, who need to be brave —so thank you for what has been done so far.

I turn to Amendment 149A, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, who has just spoken. I want to draw attention to a court case that took place on 9 May this year, overseen by Lord Justice Popplewell. This was the case of Leighton Williams, who was sentenced in 2008 and who, until 9 May, was in prison under an IPP because he was at the time 19, not 18 or younger. It was judged in that case—and these are all technically difficult cases—that the original judge had misunderstood and applied an IPP inappropriately when the sentence should have been for five years in a young offender institution. That having been decided, Lord Justice Popplewell released Leighton Williams immediately. This cannot be a precedent, but it indicates that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, is right in relation to the test of what is appropriate and proportionate in the work of the Parole Board. I hope that the task force that is now going to be established within the Parole Board will help provide focus. While understanding entirely the position of my own Front Bench and Whips, I feel obliged to vote for this amendment, having added my name to it, believing that it is right that there should be a better proportional test.

I repeat that the campaigns have made a difference to the work that has gone on in relation to worries about mental health and who deals with mental health provision in the service. Is it the provider or the NHS? How do we get it right for individual prisoners who really need intensive support? The campaigners have raised all those issues with all of us, and they deserve credit for it. We are not entirely there yet, but we have made some progress. I am very grateful to the Minister for his understanding and collaboration in making that possible.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and in particular to follow him in expressing a very large degree of gratitude to the Government. Although one is going to end up disagreeing with them on certain narrow points in the course of this short debate, the Government have introduced amendments in the Commons which are extremely helpful to IPP prisoners who are out on licence, and today amendments have been introduced which deal with the very good points made by the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Carter of Haslemere, allowing them to withdraw their amendments.

I do not think it is at all an exaggeration to say that more has been achieved, both operationally and legally, for IPP prisoners in the past few months than in the preceding 12 years. I am sure that a great deal of that is due to the personal efforts of the Lord Chancellor and my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy on the Front Bench. I wish to express my gratitude and a degree of congratulation.

I also want to say—here I find myself again echoing the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—that I am very impressed with the effort and determination of the officials charged with taking responsibility for clearing up this scandal; they really wish to do something. I wish them well, and I hope that that continues for as long as it needs to, whatever the character of the Government in power.

Before I turn to Amendment 145 in my name, I wish to say that there are some amendments in this group tabled by Back-Bench Peers which have not found favour with the Government. My Amendment 145 is one of them, and so is Amendment 140, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, and Amendment 147, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. It is not for me to make their speeches advocating their amendments; I simply wish to say in advance of their doing so that I am very supportive of what they are trying to do in those amendments and of their aims.

Amendment 145 in my name was not actually drafted by me. As noble Lords who were present in Committee will remember, it was in fact drafted by the late Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who felt passionately about this and, coincidentally, whose memorial service is happening later this week. On social media, it has been dubbed the “Simon Brown Memorial Amendment”, as testament to the passion that he brought to this topic and the efforts that he made.