Non-custodial Sentences: Public Confidence

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that the key to public confidence in community sentences is rigorous offender management. We are investing £155 million a year in the Probation Service, which is in recovery mode. We have over 4,000 new trainees and even in London there has been a 10% increase in recruitment. The Community Payback programme, which is targeted specifically at community sentences, involves a further £93 million, and an increase in staff and resources for that programme.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I note my interests in the register. A community sentence that has public and judicial support, particularly for women offenders, is one with a mental health treatment requirement, which is often combined with a drug rehabilitation and alcohol treatment requirement. A national rollout is well under way, but these sentences will be fully successful only if there is increased capacity in each of these services, especially mental health. Will the Minister therefore ensure that there is such capacity across the country to enable the successful completion of these community sentences and to reinforce judicial and public confidence in them?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of the Government, I entirely accept the value of the various outcomes that the noble Lord just mentioned. We should celebrate success stories, particularly in relation to female offenders—mentioned by the right reverend Prelate a moment ago—and youth offenders. As the noble Lord just indicated, there are far more options for community sentences available now than there used to be. There is tagging, alcohol tagging, alcohol treatment and drug treatment. Quite a range of possibilities are therefore open to the court, combined with the national drug strategy being run by the Department of Health to get people off drugs. I cannot promise to ensure increased capacity, but the Government are certainly working to that end.

Prison Capacity

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I am not in a position today to comment specifically on Berwyn. I had understood that there are many aspects of Berwyn that have been outstandingly successful. I will write to the noble Lord with more detail in response to his question.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of NHS England’s non-custodial advisory board. I welcome the plan to significantly reduce short-term sentences and replace them with community sentences. Currently, a rollout of community sentences with mental health treatment orders is under way across the country into every court. However, to give further confidence to the judiciary, will the Minister ensure that there is a significant increase in capacity not only in the Probation Service, about which we have heard, but in mental health provision, both primary and secondary, as well as alcohol and substance misuse services, to ensure that people can successfully complete their community sentence?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, it is undoubtedly the case that there are many offenders in the criminal justice system who have severe mental health problems. I very much welcome the noble Lord’s reference to the national programme in relation to mental health treatments and I fully agree that this is a matter to which we need to pay the closest attention. I will certainly discuss with colleagues in the DHSC how we increase capacity to give judges the necessary confidence.

Parole Board (Amendment) Rules 2022

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak extremely briefly. I declare my interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. I fully support the views expressed in the excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, in introducing this regret Motion.

I want to ask the Minister one question. Has guidance now been issued on the interpretation of the public confidence test and if not, when will it be issued? Who will be consulted on it, so that there is absolute clarity as to what public confidence means?

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I rise somewhat nervously to speak, because I am not an expert in this field. I am not a lawyer. There are clearly many noble Lords in your Lordships’ Chamber tonight who are experts. Unlike some of my dafter colleagues in another place, I rather value experts. I listen carefully to what they have to say.

Whatever disagreements there may be tonight, I think we can all agree that public service on the Parole Board is one of the most challenging tasks imaginable: balancing the paramount need for public safety with the hopes of eventual reform and re-entry into society for some offenders.

It is often said that nothing seems to work in the UK criminal justice system. I do not think this is right. It is a mistake. An awful lot works pretty well. The record shows that this most specialised part of the criminal justice system, in respect of which I am an amateur—a layman is perhaps a better way of putting it—generally works quite well. But because of human nature, it does not work all the time, alas; sometimes it fails, whatever the statistics show.

While I agree with noble Lords that a bit more consultation in drawing up these regulations would not be a bad thing, I must respectfully disagree with the regret Motion, for two reasons. First, the Secretary of State, like Parole Boards, has a very challenging task regarding public safety. On reflection—again, I stress, I speak as a layman—it is surely right that he or she should be able to produce a single view in a small number of the most serious cases. In all other cases, whole dossiers of reports can be obtained from those who are experts—psychologists, psychiatrists and, of course, lawyers. I am content with that, and I want my noble friend the Minister to know that I strongly support it.

Secondly and lastly, I strongly support our manifesto commitment to have more public hearings, where possible, at the request of victims and their families, the media and the general public. This is to the public good. As a layman, I feel strongly that the parole system must be as open and transparent as possible—not some experts’ secret garden where the generality of the public should not go. As I said before, I do greatly value expertise.

It is interesting to see what happens in other jurisdictions, which are not often spoken of well in this country, such as the United States. In some states, though not all, the system is very open indeed. Some have parole boards on which ex-convicts, as they call them, serve as full members. We must not shut our eyes to trying to make our system as transparent as possible. This is a second reason why I strongly support our manifesto commitment being followed up.

Prisoners: Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, they have neither been overlooked nor forgotten. The vast majority of the IPP prisoners who have never been released received their IPP either for a serious sexual offence or for violence against the person. However, progress is being made. In December 2020, there were 1,849 IPP prisoners who had never been released. In December last year there were 1,602. That is a 13% fall in one year.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. While we are waiting for the action plan, will the Minister say what steps the Government are taking to assist IPP prisoners with access to courses, to open conditions and to ROTL, which have been seriously affected by the pandemic but may be crucial to the IPP prisoner’s release?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. It is imperative that prisoners get that sort of support to make sure that they are in the best position they can be to be released, if they have never been released before, or to have their licence terminated. We are working with each prisoner to make sure that they have a proper pathway. The House will recall that one of the government amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was to ensure the automatic referral of offenders on licence to help them terminate their licence as soon as possible after the 10-year period.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

This is the Government’s position, as outlined in 2020. This amendment makes reforms based on the length of sentence, by clarifying the principles for opposing imprisonment. For this reason, I commend it to the Minister. It would help reduce reoffending. It would help people rehabilitate. It would remove the great problem, as expressed by the Government, that short sentences punish those who receive them but fail to rehabilitate the offender or to stop reoffending.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to this group of amendments. In particular, I support Amendment 82A in the names of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby and the noble Lord, Lord German. I declare my interest as a trustee and vice-chair of the Prison Reform Trust.

In Committee, I tried to make the arguments, both social and economic, against the use of short custodial sentences and in favour of robust community sentences, where appropriate. I will not repeat those arguments this afternoon. Suffice it to say that, in 2020, over 40,000 people were sent to prison, the majority of whom had committed a non-violent offence. Almost half were sentenced to serve six months or fewer.

As many voluntary and charitable organisations have pointed out, and as we have just heard, short prison sentences have proven less effective than community sentences at reducing reoffending. Short-term prison sentences have a particularly harmful effect on women, who often have primary care responsibilities. We will debate that later today. In 2020, the National Audit Office estimated that the annual cost per prison place was £44,640, whereas for a community sentence it was, on average, £4,305.

I support the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord German. I have two quick examples which show why Amendment 82A is totally in line with the Government’s own recent policy statements. First, the Ministry of Justice’s Female Offender Strategy clearly states:

“We will support a greater proportion of women to serve their sentence in the community successfully and reduce the numbers serving short custodial sentences by … Ensuring that courts have better and more comprehensive information about female offenders to inform sentencing decisions”.


The Government support community sentences. As a committed member of the Minister’s Advisory Board on Female Offenders, I fully endorse this strategy. I believe it is totally consistent with Amendment 82A.

Secondly, there is the Government’s recently published From Harm to Hope: A 10-Year Drugs Plan to Cut Crime and Save Lives. They have committed £780 million to this programme, £120 million of which will be used to increase the number of offenders and ex-offenders engaged in the treatment they need to turn their lives around. The plan goes on to say that this enhanced spending on drug treatment and recovery will also drive down crime by cutting levels of drug-related offending.

I agree, and I believe these programmes will be successful if they are clearly linked to community sentences, not short-term prison sentences. Such community sentences, with treatment requirements—whether for drugs, alcohol, mental health conditions or a combination of all those requirements—properly funded and overseen by the reconstituted National Probation Service, will give the judiciary the confidence to administer them, as opposed to the expensive and futile experience of a short prison sentence.

I therefore believe that recent government policy announcements are totally in line with our proposals in Amendment 82A, and I feel sure that the Minister will give a very positive response to the proposal.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I have no objection to short prison sentences per se. The problem I have is that our current prison system is so hopelessly ineffective at rehabilitation. That is why in Committee I tabled my Amendment 241, a proposal for drastic reform. I am grateful for the response I got from the Committee, and indeed from my noble friend the Minister, and that is why I saw no need to table it on Report.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak—briefly at this hour—to this group of amendments and declare my interest in the register, particularly as a trustee and vice-chair of the Prison Reform Trust.

I strongly support these amendments, which have been so effectively moved by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. I support everything she said. It is essential that the courts fully take into account primary caring responsibilities, especially for a child, in their sentencing decisions and recognise the consequences of not doing so on the impact on the child and the family.

I will not repeat all the arguments that I made in Committee, but, as we have heard, the key document before the courts at sentencing is the pre-sentence report. However, as the charity Women in Prison has pointed out in its supplementary evidence to the Justice Select Committee, the information from Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service shows a real decline in proper pre-sentence reports over the past decade. In 2010, for example, pre-sentence reports were available for 62% of all court disposals, reducing to only 53% in 2018. Almost half of the sentences that result in a custodial or community order have no new pre-sentence report prepared to inform the sentence. We have heard—and I support—the improvements that are being looked at in this area but that is the current situation and it must be urgently addressed.

Further, there is a lack of data to disaggregate those figures according to gender. In answer to a Parliamentary Question in 2019, the Government could not say how many women who are likely to be the primary carer had been imprisoned without a pre-sentence report. This remains totally unacceptable. Even where a pre-sentence report is available, it does not routinely provide information to the court about caring responsibilities. As I said in Committee, and it is worth repeating, in January 2021 I asked a Parliamentary Written Question about how many children in each of the past five years were taken into care because their mother was given a custodial sentence. Extraordinarily, the Answer was that the data requested was not something that Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service recorded. I am pleased to hear that it is now addressing that issue, but I again ask the Minister with what action and over what timescale will this matter be addressed.

Or course, prisons collect information on caring responsibility, but at the point of prison reception. That is simply too late. The damage to the child and the family has been done, especially for those sentenced to a short prison sentence. We can and must do better. The pre-sentence report must include information about primary care responsibility. Data from various sources must be brought together. They include: the local authority, which currently has responsibility for safeguarding children; the health service, because of the impact on the family and individual; and particularly liaison and diversion services. There must be agreed information-sharing protocols.

We must invest further in technology to ensure that information can flow seamlessly across the criminal justice pathway so that there are no barriers to the information being available to the judiciary in a timely way, ideally at first court appearance. Delaying getting that information can mean that the woman in the example I am giving is put on remand while that information is collected. Again, damage to the child and the family flows from that decision. We must try to reduce the number of people put on remand who have primary carer responsibilities. These amendments would underpin this ambition, and will be a significant step forward in limiting the damage, both social and economic, of imposing a custodial sentence—often a short one—which has the impact on the family, instead of administering a robust community sentence.

Ensuring a clear understanding of primary carer responsibilities will mitigate against the often-irreversible consequences for children of being taken into care, and the primary carer losing their home and employment. I am sure that the Government can see the overriding benefits of this, and will, like me, support these amendments tonight.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to offer Green support to the right reverend Prelate, who so powerfully introduced these amendments. Indeed, the stress on the need for information is absolutely crucial.

I want to make a very specific point on how the damage of a prison sentence can be magnified where a prisoner who has primary carer responsibilities—most likely a woman—is then subject to recall to prison for a further time. I am drawing here on a report from the Centre for Women’s Justice, which notes:

“The Transforming Rehabilitation Act 2014 provided that all offenders who had served prison sentences of more than one day should be compelled to attend probation supervision for one year. They can be recalled to prison if probation staff find they have failed to comply satisfactorily. Women on licence recall now make up 8% of women in custody.”


That is a truly shocking and surprising figure. This reports notes that the main reason for recall is

“failure to keep in touch with the supervising officer”,

rather than some more serious offence.

A report by the Prison Reform Trust noted that, of 24 women recalled, three had been pregnant at the time of recall. One said that the reason why she failed to attend an appointment was due to a hospital visit for a pregnancy scan. She was then separated from her other children and put back into prison, with further massive disruption obviously resulting. Will the Minister look into this situation? This is part of the sentencing guidelines, but there is a particular issue here in respect of probation and the way in which women—or anyone with caring responsibilities—are treated in this situation.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 208D in my name. I am grateful to the noble Lords who have lent it their support.

At Second Reading, I said that I considered it a shame to this country that there were still prisoners serving indeterminate sentences for the public protection. I do not propose to elaborate on this today, although I associate myself with the remarks made by noble Lords in the debate so far.

Some amendments in this group are probing amendments, but Amendment 208D seeks to change the law in a way which is helpful to the Government. It does not concern those in prison under an IPP, only those living in the community on licence; that is, those who have already been found by the Parole Board to be safe for release without presenting a threat to public safety. As noble Lords have described, currently these persons are potentially subject to a lifelong licence. They can be recalled to prison for a breach of the licence conditions at any point while the licence is in force. The only way in which the licence can be terminated is for the individual to apply to the Parole Board for a licence review after the expiry of the qualifying period. This is currently set at 10 years. The Government have stated that, in future, they wish these reviews to be automatic, and not to require an application from the prisoner.

On 21 July, in response to a Question for Written Answer from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar said:

“From September this year, officials will refer automatically to the Parole Board the case of every offender serving the IPP sentence who has become eligible to apply for termination of his/her IPP licence.”


There is a problem. Close examination of the current legislation makes it clear that the review can be undertaken only on the prisoner’s application. Therefore, the Government cannot make an automatic referral to the Parole Board without the prisoner’s active co-operation. This somewhat holes the policy of automaticity. Amendment 208D addresses this deficiency by amending the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 to require the Secretary of State to make an automatic referral to the Parole Board at the end of the qualifying period. If the application is dismissed, it can be made annually thereafter. The referral does not depend on the acquiescence or collaboration of the prisoner. It allows the Government to do what they have said they want to do. I hope the amendment will command their support. It does not prejudge in any way the decision of the Parole Board on that referral. The decision as to whether or not to terminate the licence remains entirely in its hands.

Noble Lords may wonder why a prisoner entitled to a review at the end of the qualifying period should be slow to make one on his or her own initiative; in other words, why is there a need for automaticity? It certainly seems strange not to apply for a termination of the licence. As noble Lords have explained, a person on licence under an IPP and who commits an offence for which an ordinary criminal might receive a short determinate sentence can be recalled to prison for an indeterminate term.

None the less, there are reasons why IPP prisoners do not apply for a termination of their licence. First, many do not know what the qualifying period is, nor what it means. Nobody is obliged to contact them to tell them. There is evidence of confusion, even among probation officers, as to the rules. In any event, many prisoners out on licence will not be in regular contact with a probation officer, since, although the licence lasts for a minimum of 10 years under the current system, supervision can be terminated after five. Many IPP prisoners out on licence after that many years simply do not want to take the risk of re-engaging voluntarily with a criminal justice system which they believe has treated them so unfairly. Automaticity is good and necessary. The Government agree and I hope this amendment will pass.

There is one more part to the amendment which is easily missed. I referred earlier to a qualifying period after which a review of the licence can be applied for. If this amendment passes, it will take place automatically. The qualifying period is set by law at 10 years. The very last words of the amendment would have the effect of reducing it to five years. As far as I know, this is not government policy. It is, of course, open to my noble friend to accept the part of the amendment dealing with automaticity, while rejecting the reduction in the qualifying period.

I hope that noble Lords will support me in pressing this on the Government. For those IPP prisoners who receive a short minimum term, the 10-year licence period is wholly disproportionate to the term that would have been attached to the equivalent determinate sentence, had one been imposed instead of an IPP. It can hardly be argued that it is necessary for public protection. As I said earlier, under this amendment, the decision whether or not to terminate a licence would remain with the Parole Board. Reducing the qualifying period to five years would simply reduce the length of time after which an individual out on licence would be entitled to a review. These people would be out on licence with the approval of the Parole Board and would have shown themselves to be safe in the community for five years. The number of IPP prisoners out on licence who are recalled after five years is, in any case, very small. Furthermore, the latest available data show that no IPP prisoner committed a serious further offence five years or more post release. Their supervision can be—and often is—terminated after five years.

I believe that everything argues in favour of a reduction in the qualifying period to five years. I hope that the Government will accept this part of the amendment as well. A person in this position—with a track record of living safely in the community for five years—needs the opportunity that we wish for all prisoners: to serve their sentence and return to the community to make a useful contribution to their own and to others’ lives.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall contribute very briefly to this group of amendments. I fully support the views already expressed. I will not repeat them. I strongly commend the opening speech by my noble friend Lord Blunkett. He set out clearly the direction of travel which this House wishes to take.

I will speak briefly on Amendment 208B, particularly proposed new subsection (2)(b), which the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, has already eloquently described. It states the need for

“an assessment of the welfare and mental health support available to prisoners”—

still serving an IPP sentence—

“including measures to reduce the risk of self-harm and self-inflicted death”.

I declare my interests in the register as trustee and vice-chair of the Prison Reform Trust. Again, I thank it for the excellent work it has done over a number of years in this area, culminating in the report by Edgar, Harris and Webster, entitled No Life, No Freedom, No Future. I think this sums up the mood of the House this evening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, for moving his amendment, and to the noble Lords, Lord Dubs and Lord Beith, for speaking to theirs. Those noble Lords have far more experience in these matters than me, but I have something to say that might assist the Committee.

In September 2017, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, initiated a debate on prison numbers. That stimulated me to take a very close look at our penal system. It is fair to say that the increase in the prison population is caused by sentence inflation and might have little to do with short sentences.

I believe that the effectiveness of a prison sentence is inversely proportional to the appropriate length of the sentence. Thus, very long sentences to protect the public are effective in terms of incapacitation. On the other hand, very short sentences are extremely poor at rehabilitation and reducing reoffending.

The reason short sentences are so ineffective is surely that the current prison system and its regime do so little to address offenders’ weaknesses. The chief inspector’s reports have been telling us this for years. By definition, these are minor offenders and very often prolific ones. They leave prison after a short sentence with the same weaknesses in terms of education, training and conduct they arrived with. Therefore, there should be no surprise that we have a reoffending rate of about 65% within 12 months of release. The Committee should recognise that these figures are flattered by those who were never going to reoffend for one reason or another.

I am sure that the Committee will understand that most prolific minor offenders stop offending by the age of 26 or possibly 30. Moreover, this is despite a terrible start in life, the fact that rarely has anybody ever loved them, and the lack of a positive male role model. Therefore, these offenders cannot be hopeless, something can be done with them; some improvement in education, training and conduct must be achievable. The difficulty is that these improvements will not be secured through the current prison system.

Amendment 241, which we will debate later, seeks to create a system to address the problem of the ineffectiveness of short sentences. I do not have a view on which is the superior amendment of the two that we are debating—both are commendable—but I take on board the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I slightly worry about the inflation risk with Amendment 213, and I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Beith, acknowledges that. However, I feel very strongly that if the state does decide to take a minor offender into custody, it must be certain that it is going to improve matters and do no harm.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

I rise to speak briefly to this group of amendments, which I strongly support. I declare my interest again in the register as a trustee and vice-chair of the Prison Reform Trust. We have already debated Amendments 215 to 218, principally regarding primary carers, which I believe are closely related to today’s amendments on short sentences, so I will not delay the Committee by repeating the arguments.

However, by way of further background, it should be noted that the prison population, as we have heard, has risen by 74% in the last 30 years and is currently projected to rise by a further 20,000 by 2026, with millions being spent on providing additional prison places. Yet there appears to be no link between the prison population and levels of crime, according to the National Audit Office.

More than 40,000 people were sent to prison to serve a sentence in 2020, the majority of whom had committed a non-violent offence, and almost half were sentenced to serve six months or less. Crucially, as many organisations have pointed out, including Revolving Doors and Women in Prison, short prison sentences are proven to be less effective than community sentences at reducing reoffending.

Of course, short-term prison sentences have a particularly harmful effect on women and primary carers, as we have debated. It is important to note that in a Parliamentary Written Answer on 30 June 2021, more than 500 women were in prison on a sentence of less than two years. We have already heard from my noble friend Lord Dubs the economic case against short sentences. In addition, the National Audit Office estimated that the cost of looking after short-sentence prisoners, not including education and healthcare, was £286 million a year.

It is also interesting to note, as we have heard tonight, public attitudes to prison sentences, particularly short sentences. I know that the Government take an interest in this. In a survey conducted in 2018 by Crest Advisory, fewer than one in 10 people said that having more people in prison was the most effective way to deal with crime. Early intervention, better parenting, discipline in schools and better rehabilitation were all cited as more effective responses.

Similarly, Revolving Doors undertook a survey which found that 80% of the public think that the theft of daily essentials such as food, sanitary products and nappies does not warrant a prison sentence, and that 74% of the public think that people with drug and alcohol addictions should receive treatment programmes not prison sentences.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bradley Excerpts

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

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to make a short contribution to fully and strongly support the amendments. I declare my interests in the register, particularly as a trustee and vice-chair of the Prison Reform Trust. I first compliment the opening address by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and fully associate myself with the arguments she made in opening this debate.

I will briefly give some background to these amendments. Following the publication in 2009 of my independent report to government on mental health, learning disabilities and the criminal justice system, a programme to establish liaison and diversion services across the country was commenced. This has continued to this day, supported by all Governments, with 100% geographical coverage of the country now achieved.

These services are based in police stations and courts and are made up of multidisciplinary teams comprising mental health nurses, learning disability nurses, speech and language therapists and other disciplines working together with drug and alcohol staff to assess the needs of the arrested person to determine whether it is appropriate to divert them away from the criminal justice system, depending on the nature of the offence, or to help and support the police in determining whether they should be charged. If they are charged, this assessment information passes through to the courts and, in partnership with the court staff and probation staff, they try to ensure that a more comprehensive picture of the often complex needs of the individual is available in the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court at first appearance.

However, one crucial piece of information that is not necessarily available—for a variety of reasons that we have already heard in this debate—is whether the offender, most often when it is a woman offender, is a primary carer. In January 2021, I asked a Parliamentary Written Question about

“how many children were taken into care because their mother was given a custodial sentence in each of the last five years”.

Extraordinarily, the answer was that the data requested is not something that Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service records. It went on to say:

“In practice, it is Local Authorities overseen by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government … who are responsible for delivering operational support to families on child safeguarding, including for children affected by parental imprisonment.”


It further stated that the Ministry of Justice

“acknowledges that parental separation due to imprisonment disproportionately affects women. Individual women’s prisons”—

I have visited all of them over the recent past—

“collect information on caring responsibilities at the point of reception”

into prison.

There are many problems with this reply, but it essentially confirms the siloing of the information on primary carers away from the criminal justice system, and that first knowledge of such caring responsibilities is at prison reception. That is simply too late, as the damage to the family is already in train; we know that about a third of women in the prison population are on remand, and that, on 2019 figures, 33% of women remanded by magistrates’ courts and 40% by Crown Courts, did not receive a custodial sentence. We also know that about 50% of women were sentenced as we have already heard this evening, to fewer than six months in prison. Surely, therefore, as this group of amendments makes clear, by collecting this information on whether the offender is a primary carer—predominantly women, but also sometimes men—and ensuring that the judiciary properly considers this information and the best interests of the child, the damage to the family that remand and short custodial sentences inflict can be mitigated against.

Each of these five amendments contributes to this outcome, particularly pre-sentence reports, but it is important to stress that it is essential that pre-sentence reports are available to the court for all offenders, as this is a primary means through which sentencers can be informed of dependent children. This is clearly not the case at the moment, but sentencing legislation directs that sentencers must obtain a pre-sentence report for all cases unless they deem it to be unnecessary and are transparent in that decision.

As the charity Women in Prison identified in its supplementary evidence to the Justice Select Committee, the evidence from Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service showed that there was a decline in pre-sentence report volumes over the past decade. For example:

“In 2010, pre-sentence reports were received for 62% of all court disposals reducing to 53% in 2018. Therefore, almost half (47%) of sentences which result in a custodial or community order have no new PSR prepared to inform the sentence.”


Furthermore:

“There is a lack of data to disaggregate these figures according to gender and in answer to a parliamentary question in 2019, the Government could not say how many women in England and Wales had been imprisoned without a PSR.”


This is totally unacceptable. I hope that the new focus on this issue by the reconstituted national probation service will quickly achieve better results.

As a committed member of the Government’s advisory board on female offenders, I am pleased that the agreed strategy, which we have heard something about already today, includes strongly advocating for effective community sentences with continued investment in local women’s centres, as recommended by my noble friend Lady Corston in her groundbreaking report some years ago. Such an approach would help to ensure the successful completion of the community sentences and, crucially, would also ensure that children are not unnecessarily taken into care, that the primary carer does not lose their home or their employment, and that family responsibilities and commitments are protected.

I believe that the role of the liaison and diversion services can play a real part in helping to collect this information about primary carers, with agreed protocols on information sharing and confidentiality. Its timely presentation at first appearance in the courts will facilitate the reduction in the use of remand, the better use of bail and an increase in the use of community sentences, with the interests of the child and the role of the primary carer transparently considered by the judiciary. I therefore ask the Minister if he would clearly explain the Government’s position regarding primary carers and their children, and I urge the Minister to accept these invaluable amendments.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my fellow trustee of the Prison Reform Trust, the noble Lord, Lord Bradley. The whole House could agree with everything that he said. I thank the right reverend Prelate for introducing these amendments because, again, I do not think that they are, in their thrust, controversial at all.

I have stopped being a sentencer. I was a Crown Court recorder from 1998 until 2015, with a short gap when I was a Minister, and it became an increasingly difficult part of my judicial life. With the greatest respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, I suspect that he may once have been a recorder, but he spent most of his judicial life as a High Court judge, a Court of Appeal judge and the Lord Chief Justice. Essentially, when you get to that great height within the judicial system, you are dealing with life sentences and trying to work out the tariff that a murderer should get. You are not dealing with what a woman, probably in her late teens or early twenties, with a child should receive for her 10th offence of shoplifting—unless, of course, it came to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division. I have absolutely no doubt that the noble and learned Lord will have dealt with those sorts of cases on appeal with the attention, intellectual rigour and humanity that we would all have expected of him.

It may only be the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and possibly the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who, like me, have sentenced what I might call “ordinary” criminals in the Crown Court. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is of course too modest to mention that his wife, Judge Levitt, now deals with these matters on a daily basis in the Crown Court. But one of the things that recorders and amateur judges like me, who perhaps do four or five weeks in a Crown Court during the course of a year, have to cope with is the sad people—be they men, women, young teenagers or adults—who come before us for repeated low-level but very annoying criminal offences, such as shoplifting in order to fund a drug habit and so forth.

The one thing that we were determined to do—I do not think that this is controversial—is not send people to prison when it would cause more damage than benefit, both to them, as individual defendants, and their children. Remarkably, the older teenagers and young people in their early twenties who had not just one but two or three children were our daily bread and butter, and we were anxious not to send them to prison if we could possibly help it because of the effect that it would have on their children.

I hugely thank two people, one of whom is in this Chamber, for their influence on my coming to understand the difficulties of sentencing and putting people in custody, particularly women. One was James Jones, the former Bishop of Liverpool, who was the right reverend Prelate’s predecessor but one—perhaps her immediate predecessor. The other is the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who, for me, is the source of information about the prison system. If you read his book about it, and the opening chapter, which concentrates on Holloway—now shut, thank God—you will begin to understand just a bit of the difficulties that amateur sentencers, magistrates and Crown Court recorders, but also the equivalent of Judge Levitt, have to cope with, day in, day out. These are anxious decisions about what to do with women and children whose offences are sufficient to cross the threshold for custody—but, if they are sentenced to prison, what collateral damage does that cause to others?

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con) (V)]

It is a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. I shall speak to Amendment 140 and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, on introducing it so ably and eloquently. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester for speaking so strongly in support of it.

At Second Reading and in Committee, we have heard powerful speeches about dreadful personal experiences. They are stark reminders of the horrific impact that domestic abuse has not just on the individual, but, through the ripple effect, into the family across the generations and then on into the wider community. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, has rightly highlighted the fact that domestic abuse can lead to desperate events where victims who were seeking to defend themselves end up in the dock, having been accused of committing a crime.

Research by the Ministry of Justice suggests that many prisoners have experienced or witnessed domestic abuse as children, and that these prisoners are more likely to be reconvicted within one year of release. The 2019 report of the Prison Reform Trust, There’s a Reason We’re in Trouble, cites domestic abuse as a driver of women’s offending. It sets out that 57% of women in prison report having been victims of domestic violence. More than half, at 53%, report having experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse as a child, compared with 27% of men.

I can well remember visiting Holloway prison and talking to some of the women about their experiences. The report goes on to highlight the fact that women often encounter a culture of disbelief in the criminal justice system about the violence and exploitation to which they have been exposed. Alternatively, they may not be able to reveal what they have been through, and many women feel that they cannot support criminal proceedings against their abuser. As one woman commented in a discussion, “You’re too scared to charge him because you know you’ll get a worse time when he comes out.” All this means that women can become trapped in a vicious cycle of victimisation and criminal activity. Their situation is often worsened by poverty, substance dependency or poor mental health.

My noble friend the Minister argued at Second Reading that a number of defences are already potentially available in law to those who commit offences in circumstances connected with their involvement in an abusive relationship. I hope that this debate will make the Minister pause and think again, because the present situation is very unclear. In the meantime, we are told that it is being monitored. Can he advise the Committee of when an assessment was last made, and will he make the report of the results available in the Library of the House?

[Lord Bradley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, declaring my interest in the register as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust, I will make a brief contribution to wholeheartedly support Amendments 139 and 140, proposed my noble friend Lady Kennedy and other noble Lords. She introduced them expertly and I will not attempt to replicate any of that excellent material. As the Committee heard, the amendments would provide essential new protection for survivors involved in alleged offending which results from their experience of domestic abuse.

Members of this House will be aware, as I am from my 2009 report on mental health, learning disabilities and the criminal justice system, of the particularly high prevalence of mental health need among women in prison. It is getting worse. Ministry of Justice safety in custody statistics tell us that the annual rate of self-harm incidents for women in prison nearly doubled between 2012 and 2019, from 1,558 to 3,130 incidents per 1,000 women. This compares to an increase among male prisoners from 201 self-harm incidents per 1,000 men in 2012 to 650 in 2019. As we know and the Committee has heard tonight, the majority of these women are likely to be victims of domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women.

Further, women with a learning disability are more likely than those without to experience domestic abuse. Too little is still known about women with learning disabilities in prison, but they are likely to be far more over-represented compared to those in the community. A recent research report, published in 2018 by the Prison Reform Trust and KeyRing, entitled Out of the Shadows found that, of 24 women with learning disabilities who were in contact with or on the edge of the criminal justice system, most were driven into offending as a result of abuse by men. For example, this included one woman who had been repeatedly drugged and abused by her partner before retaliating and finding herself sentenced to prison. For some of the women, their learning disabilities may have been the result of traumatic brain injury, which is not always assessed and identified successfully.

The Government have acknowledged the strong links which often exist between women’s offending and their experience of abuse. However, I do not feel confident that the strong links are properly taken into account in criminal proceedings. The evidence presented by the Centre for Women’s Justice, the Prison Reform Trust and others suggests that practice on the ground is, at best, inconsistent and that many women do not even feel confident to disclose the abuse until they reach the relative safety of prison after they have been convicted. This is surely not good enough. It is certainly not clear to me why these survivors should not be entitled to the same level of protection as, for example, trafficking victims who are forced to offend as part of their exploitation, or householders facing an intruder in their home, as in the Tony Martin case, referred to so eloquently by my noble friend Lady Kennedy.

We have heard from the Government that they want to strike the right balance in dealing with these women as suspects and defendants. I therefore urge the Government to afford them the legal protection that they deserve from our justice system. It may well be a complex task, but it is surely not beyond us or our justice system.