Prisoners: Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I have those figures: as at the end of September 2021, there were 19 women in custody who had never been released and 115 women in the community on licence. A qualified psychologist has reviewed the sentence plan of every woman serving an IPP sentence in custody to ensure that the plan identifies the right courses and work she needs to complete in order to demonstrate a reduction in risk.

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

Responding recently to the Atkin Lecture of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, on prisons, Mr Raab referred to the growing proportion of unreleased IPP prisoners who had committed “more serious offences”. May he perhaps have overlooked the 570 unreleased IPPs who have served more than 10 years beyond their tariff terms, fewer than 50 of whom had tariff terms of over four years, 200 of whom had tariff terms of less than two years—hardly sentences reflecting serious offences? Does the Minister think that they have been overlooked or merely forgotten?

[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.