Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people still serving sentences of imprisonment for public protection have been detained for longer than the maximum term of imprisonment otherwise statutorily prescribed for their offence, and what plans they have for the release of those people.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

The required detailed data are not routinely collected. However, an exercise to estimate the number of current prisoners sentenced to an IPP who have served beyond the maximum term available for their offence indicates that there are around 200 such prisoners. The independent Parole Board directs the release of a prisoner serving an IPP sentence who has completed his tariff only when it is no longer necessary on the grounds of public protection for the prisoner to be detained.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that somewhat sobering Answer. Given that statistic, given that the whole IPP scheme was abolished four years ago in 2012 as being inherently unjust, given that there are 600 to 700 prisoners serving years beyond their tariff terms—sometimes eight to 10 times as long—given that more than half of IPP prisoners self-harm, and given the recent excoriation of the system by an ex-Lord Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke, in a radio programme as being a “stain” on the system and its condemnation by the three last Lord Chief Justices, does the Minister agree that it is high time that steps were taken to bring this continuing scandal to an end?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

Steps are being taken to reduce the population of IPP prisoners. Indeed, in the last year the largest number did in fact qualify for release. The parole service carries out independent examinations for this purpose, and where IPP prisoners fail to respond at these parole hearings the National Offender Management Service has now brought in psychologists and policy experts to undertake a central case review of those IPP prisoners, in the hope that they can complete their tariffs and then progress to open conditions.