King’s Speech

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust, since I will focus yet further, I am afraid, on our failing prison system. My emphasis will be on the need for a new sentencing policy.

I congratulate the Minister on his outstanding maiden speech. He has had the ordeal of having to combine his maiden speech with a maiden Statement and a speech outlining the Government’s ambitious agenda for justice and home affairs—no mean feat, given that he was introduced only a couple of days ago. The Big Issue magazine of 29 April this year carried an article about the noble Lord, and it starts with the intriguing line:

“James Timpson wears Doc Martens”.


What many people may not know is that when customers go to his shops for theirs to be mended, they are apparently sent to a prison in Warrington—that is the shoes, not the customers—whose prisoners handle the expert yellow stitching required. This tells your Lordships everything about his commitment to give offenders the expertise they need to find a job after release. He comes to his new role with a deep understanding of why our prisons are failing and a burning desire to make things better. He is warmly welcome.

The gracious Speech referred to planning reform, and the Lord Chancellor has subsequently indicated that the Government will ensure that the planning system does not prevent more prisons being built. Prisons are apparently to be classified as being of national importance. My question is whether building more prisons is purely to deal with the capacity crisis or to continue a policy of sending more and more people to prison for longer and longer sentences.

Everyone knows that our prison population is the highest in western Europe; the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, made that point earlier. Ministers often justify longer and longer sentences by saying they maintain confidence in the criminal justice system, but are the public really more confident in a criminal justice system that costs £50,000 per prisoner per year and results in such huge levels of reoffending? As we have heard, nearly 80% of crime is reoffending—a staggering figure—so the truth is that long sentences do not help to prevent crime in society.

The Lord Chancellor’s Statement contained encouraging words about improving rehabilitation of offenders who are in prison, but many of these people should never have been sent to prison in the first place. Of course dangerous people should be locked up for as long as necessary, but 58% of those sent to prison in the year to June 2023 had committed a non-violent offence. They are there because they made bad choices, but the reality is that these were often the result of poor mental health, drug addiction and dysfunctional backgrounds.

If we are to address this prisons crisis, not just today but for years to come, we need to take a long, hard look at sentencing policy. The Government have encouragingly said that they will have a review; I hope it will look at bold and innovative alternatives to prison, with a wider range of disposals, which in appropriate cases can avoid the criminal justice system altogether. Radical reform of sentencing like this, with more non-custodial options, will work only if it is combined with a highly trained, properly resourced and effective Probation Service, not a Probation Service that is failing in 97% of areas.

In conclusion, the Labour manifesto correctly said that

“prisons are a breeding ground for more crime”.

Building more prisons may be necessary as a short-term measure to cope with a capacity crisis, but let us have a long-term strategy of gradually closing quite a lot of prisons. Sorting out sentencing policy would be an excellent start.