Sentencing Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

I am enormously grateful to the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for meeting me last week to discuss all these issues. I know that they recognise the problems that I have raised, which my amendments in this group seek to resolve. I hope that discussions can continue before Report, so I am very much looking forward to the Minister’s response. I know that he is well aware of the problem that currently is not being addressed within criminal justice system, and I hope together we can find a way forward. I beg to move.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for not having spoken at Second Reading; I was not present due to domestic circumstances. Had I been present, I would have spoken on the importance—following on from the remarks of noble Lord, Lord Foster—of addressing the problems that we have with those who are sentenced with addiction problems. Here, I have written down “whether it be drink, drugs, gambling, sex, sugar, smoking”, and so on—we find new addictions coming along all the time these days.

In this group, I speak to Amendments 97 and 107. The purpose behind these probing amendments is fairly simple: to ensure that, for addicted prisoners who are released before they can be classed as well on the way to sobriety—this can cover gambling as well as drink and drugs—the Ministry of Justice will be prepared to provide funding, maybe from the prison education budget, to fund the admission of these prisoners into residential recovery and rehabilitation centres so that they can continue with their recovery.

We saw with the recent early release programme that a number of prisoners released then who were in prison undertaking recovery courses—in particular, 12-step recovery courses—were then just simply released, and there was little follow-up in the maintenance of their recovery afterwards. Some of those prisoners, however, did find their way into some residential centres; it was only a small number, and they were funded mainly by charities or by the generosity of the centres that took them in.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned in the earlier debate, many of these centres are struggling. We have seen a reduction in the number of rehabs around the country by a half over the last 10 years; we have far fewer than we ever used to have. Many of the problems that they are encountering are, obviously, financial. Many of the patients they now take in are funded primarily by the major insurance companies; alternatively, they get support from charities. This really means that, increasingly, we are finding that those who are at the bottom end, who are not working and do not have insurance, or who have little funds themselves or do not have contact with charities, including prisoners, are finding it so difficult these days to get into residential recovery.

What I am suggesting with these rather modest little amendments is that, when prisoners are released, if they are in recovery and have not completed their course, they should be permitted to go into residential centres if they are able to find those that are willing to take them, and that, in turn, the cost of their residential accommodation and treatment would be met out of a budget to be provided by the Ministry of Justice—I would suggest it should come out of its education fund as a way of finding the means. This would be money well invested. Hopefully, it would ensure people found sobriety and would break the cycle that we see so often of people going into prison due to their addiction, coming out, getting back in old company, drinking and drugging and gambling again, going around the circle and going back into prison again, which is extraordinarily costly to society.

There is an opportunity, if we get people into a residential recovery, that not only do the prisoners benefit, but it benefits their family and the wider community in the best possible way. I hope the Minister is prepared to give some favourable consideration to these ideas.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I spoke at Second Reading and declared my interests. I cannot start my short amendment without saying how personally delighted I am with the Minister’s department today for having raised legal aid rates in a number of very important areas such as crime, immigration and housing.

My amendment would introduce an express right for those being made subject to licence conditions to make representations about the necessity or the proportionality of the conditions. This amendment has the support of the Prison Reform Trust, which has been very helpful in its advice.

Of course, those of us who enthusiastically support the Bill agree that, in order for prisons not to be overused, tough new measures are sensibly proposed to restrain the behaviour and activities of offenders on release from prison—a suite of new and tough licence conditions. I think the Committee will agree that licence conditions must, as a matter of law, be both necessary and proportionate.

This amendment gives offenders an express opportunity to make representations without disturbing—this is the important part of the amendment—the Secretary of State’s, or, in reality, the probation officer’s ultimate decision as to which conditions to impose. There is no question of overriding the probation officer because you do not like it; the request is that the offender should be able to make some representation about the suitability or otherwise as far as their individual case is concerned.

This can be a safeguard against disproportionate and inappropriate use of conditions, which can, of course, lead to increased recalls if the conditions are wrong or not suitable, and thus increased pressure, leading to even more pressure on our prison system, which is under a lot of pressure already.

An unintended consequence would be where conditions might impact on, for example, resettlement or other matters such as employment and health care.

The idea behind this amendment is, of course, to prevent unnecessary recalls to prison. There is a slight irony at present: only for the most serious offences, where releasing is the decision of the Parole Board, is there a formal avenue for the offender to make representations, but there is not one for offenders who do not have to go through the Parole Board process.

This is a quick and a modest amendment, and an attempt to find a way of ensuring that all offenders who may be subject to these measures—whether they are the new, tough measures or not—can at least make representations before they are imposed.

Education in Prisons

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I was clear when I started in this role that it is going to take time to fix what is a complex and troublesome system. Therefore, I cannot say exactly what I can achieve in the next six months. However, I am very clear that we need stability, and staff who are trained to deliver a safe and secure environment. From a position of education, it is important that staff have enough prisoners in their classrooms to teach. All too often, due to regime issues, security issues and so on, we have too many examples—as I saw on my prison visit to Hindley on Thursday—where people are locked up 22 hours a day. That is part of our inheritance but something I am having to deal with. I am addressing it in exactly the same way I addressed how I ran my business: focus, delivery and making sure I get accountability from the teams that are passionately engaged in what we are trying to do.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the omissions from the report from the group of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is that there is no mention of AI. AI provides us with an opportunity for low-cost training, education and rehabilitation. Could the Minister say that, within the next six months, action will be taken to advance AI in prisons? You can engage prisoners more with AI than with traditional means. Maybe we could try to get some of the tech companies that are not paying tax to come in, working on a joint basis, and do some work in prisons to achieve the kind of objectives the Minister is seeking.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. In over 70% of the meetings I have, AI is mentioned. Often, it is mentioned as a way that will solve problems much further down the line, but it is about how we can embrace it now to get the advantage of it. Digital learning is important in prisons and something that we need to push further on. There is a product called Launchpad, which is in people’s cells. It is basically an iPad-type device that they can learn, read and educate themselves on. There is a business called Coracle Inside that supplies lots of iPads and laptops to prisons. I recently was part of a “Dragons’ Den”, where a number of tech companies came to present some really interesting ideas, and a number of them mentioned AI in their presentation.

Prisoners: Reoffending

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I believe that everybody who leaves prison should have the opportunity for a full life after they have served their punishment. We need to run prisons well, and it is difficult to run them well when they are 99.9% full. That is why our focus in the Sentencing Bill is on a sustainable justice system, so that prisons and probation can work hand in hand with the courts, the DWP and housing teams to make sure that, when people leave, they leave with confidence. We do not want people, in the lead-up to being released, to be concerned about having nowhere to live and all the other anxieties about coming out. That is one of the reasons why recall rates are still far too high.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

I know the Minister is interested in particular in those prisoners with drink and drug problems. Is he aware that many of the recovery centres that operate around the country state that funding to try to keep prisoners in recovery from drink and drug problems is drying up? This is principally coming from the health service side, but the Minister has an equal interest in this. Could he explore it and try to find some assistance around these continuing problems with funding?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right; this is absolutely vital for a number of people who leave prison. Some 49% of people go into prison with drug and alcohol problems. I have set up a drug and alcohol advisory panel with Dame Carol Black and others. I have also taken it one step further: I have been to an AA meeting to see how it works, and in the next two weeks I am going to my first NA meeting. I believe that the more of those types of meetings we have in prisons, the more opportunity people will have to overcome their addictions.

Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods) Order 2024

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I am intervening just to ask a question. The Minister used the word “stabilised” twice, I think, during his presentation of this instrument—he is looking forward to a stage when the Government can feel that the prison crisis has stabilised. Can the Minister explain a little more of what he means by the word “stabilised”? The point is this, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, made clear: we are sending too many people to prison, and therefore one of the ways of stabilising the problem is by addressing rigorously the overuse of prison as a means of punishing crime. I am sure the Minister is well-equipped to carry out that campaign.

The other feature of our present treatment of offenders, particularly serious offenders, is the length of the prison term. I was Lord Justice General in Scotland some years ago, when I had the task of reviewing the tariffs to be imposed on discretionary life prisoners. These are people who, unlike murderers, were sentenced to life imprisonment because of the gravity of the crime they had committed. The average tariff I was imposing in line with what was the current practice then—this was about 20 or 30 years ago—was something like 11 years; now, it is way above that, at 17 or 18 years, or more, and lengths of sentences are going up into the 30s. In my time as Lord Justice General, such lengths of sentences were quite unimaginable, and I am not sure it is doing any good except to keep people in prison longer than ever before. That is why the crisis has grown. There is a fundamental problem that has to be addressed, and I urge the Minister to explain what he means by “stabilise”. Perhaps the Minister could also address more closely—not today, and not even in writing to me, but later, in discussion with officials—how the problem can be corrected, so that we do not find ourselves in two years’ time facing the same crisis we are facing today.

Beyond that, I commend the drafting of the regulation. I think a great deal of thought has gone into the measure. It has been carefully thought through and, as a means of dealing with the crisis, it is exemplary. However, it is the underlying problem that must be addressed, not the particular crisis itself.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his appointment and wish him well. I assure him that many people in the House will be anxious to assist him, so that we can move away from the inevitable decade-on-decade increase in the number of people in prison. When the last Government went out, we had 87,000 people in jail, and we now have 97,000 people in jail. I do not think there is any point in pointing to any party-political basis; we should be seeking to come together to take a longer view. I share precisely the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Deben: when we look at what is happening in Europe, why are we so different?

If the Netherlands has got empty spaces in its jails, why are we not sending some prisoners there? If Denmark has got empty spaces in its jails, why are we not sending some prisoners there? That is not to say that I think we should be about sending prisoners elsewhere; we should be about trying to get to the fundamentals behind what happens with criminal acts, and looking then at how we deal with people. We need to try to find a more civilised way of handling many of the cases in which people need not go to jail.

In particular, I get increasingly concerned about the problems we encounter with mental health within jails. I know a number of people working in jails from different angles, and the constant complaint is that there are so many people there who should not be in jail but who should in fact be cared for on a mental health basis rather than being incarcerated.

I have a couple of questions there, including on whether we can export people temporarily. I support the statutory instrument, but I hope that the Minister might be able to say that it is high time that we did not just have a review of the reasons why we have our current problems but that we in fact have an all-party approach to try to get a longer-term analysis of our fundamental difficulties, and of what new and more civilised steps can be taken. Then at least, stability could come from not increasing from the present numbers when we review this in 10 years’ time, and within the Government’s five-year period we might have a proper analysis of the underlying causes and a real strategy devised where we could all come together to work for a better life in the future.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I first thank the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, for explaining the purpose of these regulations. As the House recalls, we had a repeat of the Statement on prison capacity that my noble and learned friend Lord Stewart of Dirleton responded to on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. This has been a fascinating debate, with, in fact, some great and fascinating contributions from all around the House, including from the Conservative Benches.

There are a number of matters that I would like to raise with the noble Lord. In the repeat of the Statement last week, his noble friend Lord Blunkett raised a very important point relating to the pressures being put on local communities. As he said, it poses for local communities

“the very real challenge of additional large numbers being released”.—[Official Report, 24/7/24; col. 513.]

As the Minister said himself, he had seen for himself people leaving prison with no one to meet them and nowhere to live. If this policy is to work, this will put further pressure on the system, so the funds must be made available to ensure that a decent start can be given to these individuals. Without doubt, there will be a demand for more funding through DWP and MHCLG. I wondered if the Minister has anything more to add on this subject.

Until when will the new 40% release point be applied? To say that it will apply until it is no longer needed, or until it is reversed, says nothing. The Ministry of Justice has projections of how many prisoners would be released earlier under this measure; we are told about 5,000 in September and October, and also an estimate of the incoming flow of prisoners. The department must have a working assumption of how long the measure will be needed. It would be good if the Minister could tell me what that estimate is.

We were told last week that there will be a review at the 18-month point. Will the Minister confirm that the current plan is for the release point to go back to 50% at that time? Will he confirm that he will be able to report to Parliament immediately if that plan changes? Notwithstanding what the Minister said on the criteria to be set for ending the policy, would it not be better that a sunset clause to the regulation was used, such that the Government would have to come back to report to Parliament to explain why a further period of release at the 40% mark is required?

As the Minister said, offenders will be subject to strict licensing conditions. Will these be more onerous than the licence conditions to which they would have been subject if released at the 50% mark? If so, how will they be different? Or will they be the same licence conditions but just imposed at the 40% mark?

The Minister also noted that tags would be used where required. We are told that the offenders can be ordered to wear electronic tags and that curfews will be imposed where appropriate. Will all prisoners released at the 40% mark be required to wear a tag, at least until they reach the 50% mark? Will such prisoners also be subject to a curfew for that period, or are we being told that tags and curfews are available, which we know, but will not be routinely imposed on this cohort?

Will the Minister be able to report to Parliament if any serious crimes are committed for those released at the 40% mark? Will His Majesty’s Government confirm that there are no plans for any further or earlier release of any other cohorts of prisoners?

This debate has been very useful. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response.