Prisons and Probation

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Philip Davies

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) said that some of the dire descriptions of the state of affairs in the prison system could have been given in the House several times in the past few decades. Twenty-five years ago, when I was Home Secretary, and responsible for the prison system, we had debates such as this one, and we have not made enough progress since then, I quite agree.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor has provided a new impetus with positive new ideas, and the tone of his speech—and the tone of his speeches since he began to address the issue after, as he said, studying the subject and propounding the way he meant to go on—has been extremely reassuring. The prison system is what we are all rightly concentrating on, as that is where the problems are. I agree with what has been said: the prison system serves two purposes. One is just retribution and punishment, both for serious crime where people have deliberately decided for personal advantage to defy the law, and for people who commit dangerous and violent acts when they lose, or fail to keep, self-control.

The second principal purpose of prison is to try to reform prisoners and to try to ensure that as many of them as possible are cured of their former behaviour when they leave prison so that they find a new purpose in life and do not offend again. Every prisoner reformed means fewer crimes and fewer victims in future. I am delighted that in his approach to his task the Lord Chancellor has put rehabilitation of offenders, where offenders are prepared to take advantage of the opportunities, at the forefront of his aims.

I made speeches in the last Parliament when I was Lord Chancellor covering much of this ground, but I will not repeat any of that. Those fascinated by my ancient views can go back and read them again. My right hon. Friend has spoken about raising the standard of education in prison. Far too many prisoners do not attain any basic standards of literacy or numeracy. Raising skills levels for outside employment is important, as far too many prisoners have never had a job in their life, and we should bring yet more businesses in to join the existing excellent businesses that give proper skills training to prisoners in prison.

We need to tackle drug abuse, which remains scandalously high in prison. We must deal with mental health problems, which are the biggest single issue in raising the healthcare standards of people in prison. I agree with all of that, and I support my right hon. Friend’s enlightened policies. Rehabilitation has been the Government’s agenda ever since we were first elected. Looking back at our performance, I concede that I am disappointed by the progress we have made. Prison management in the Ministry of Justice is infinitely better than it was 25 years ago, and some things have improved. Staff are keen to see the progress described by my right hon. Friend, and there are successes in the treatment of women offenders and young offenders, despite the problems in some institutions, as has been said.

The test that I apply is on the success that we have achieved in rehabilitation. No one shrinks from the fact that we still have to confess that 45% of adult offenders reoffend within 12 months of release. For offenders who serve sentences of less than 12 months, the figure, I believe, is 58%, which means that the prison system is not working as effectively as it should to protect honest citizens outside.

No one knows exactly why that problem is so persistent, but I remain strongly of the view that part of the trouble, if we look at enlightened policies not delivering the results—that is the test we should consider—is the fact that there are too many prisoners in prison. We cannot deliver these policies in squalid overcrowded slums where we do not have the space or the resources to deliver education, training, proper healthcare and better attitudes of the kind we wish to give.

A few years ago when I was Lord Chancellor I complained that the prison population had doubled since I was Home Secretary, despite the fact that the level of crime in the country had markedly dropped. I do not think there was any relation between the two because crime has dropped across the entire western world, in those countries that have shortened their incarceration rate and in those that have extended it. We now have the highest incarceration rate in democratic Europe. We are second only to the United States, where many states now are making determined efforts with even right-wing leadership to get the incarceration rate down and get out of the prisons the people who should not be there.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Mr Clarke]

No. I am sorry. I know my hon. Friend’s views. That is not the reason that I am not giving way. I look forward to hearing them in the short time available, but I do not want to cut anybody out of this debate.

I believe that we should set out as one of our objectives reducing the prison population. I say to my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor, who is still in his place, that I set out to do that, not only because I believed that there were people in prison who should not be there, but because that reduction underpinned the bold spending commitments that I offered to the Treasury and which it gratefully accepted. I proposed a 30% cut in the budget of the Department that I had walked into, partly based—there were other savings as well—on getting down the ridiculously excessive prison population. I got it sagging, but it has gone up again, and it is about where it was when we came into office.

My right hon. Friend should not shrink from sentencing reform. He should consult my friend Lord Justice Treacy, who is in charge of the Sentencing Council, face up to the fact that mandatory minimum levels of all kinds do not match the reality of the varied circumstances of cases, develop better non-custodial sentences and so on. There is a whole speech to be made on that.

Finally, I shall concentrate on one positive suggestion, on which I think my right hon. Friend could proceed, serving the cause of justice, which above all we have to follow, and also meeting the needs of the moment by reducing unnecessary overcrowding. I urge him to get rid of the last vestiges of indeterminate sentences and those who are still serving such sentences in prison. Those sentences were introduced in 2003, they took off surprisingly, and I abolished them in 2012. They were sentences where a minimum tariff was given to reflect the crime but the prisoner would be held in prison indefinitely until he was able to satisfy the Parole Board that he was no longer a risk, or rather that the risks were manageable. I assumed that once we abolished those sentences so that no more would receive them, we would not keep for long those who were already serving such sentences as they steadily earned their release. That has not happened.

When I was Lord Chancellor, there were over 6,000 prisoners serving indeterminate sentences. The forecast was that there would be 8,000 or 9,000 by 2015. We have over 4,000 still there. Of those, three quarters have now exceeded the tariff—the sentence that the judge gave them for their offence—and 392 prisoners have already served five times the sentence imposed on them. Some of them will never be released unless we change the sentencing system. My right hon. Friend has the power to do so.

I wanted to get rid of those sentences altogether and let people out as they reached the tariff. Senior colleagues were understandably nervous and cautious about that and I was not allowed to take the step I wanted to take to achieve that. I took the power in the Bill. If my right hon. Friend studies the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, he will see that he has the power to alter the terms of reference for the Parole Board. At the moment, the individual prisoner has to prove to the Parole Board that he poses no risk. Of course, no prisoner could make any of us certain that he will not reoffend when released; we just hope that most of them will not. The burden should be the other way around: we should only keep a prisoner indefinitely—some of them will stay for life if we are not careful—when there is reason to believe that he would pose a risk if released.

There are 4,000 prisoners that my right hon. Friend could steadily and more rapidly get rid of. I think that easing the pressures on the Prison Service would help him achieve all his goals. I very much hope that he achieves them. If he can deliver what he has decided to try to deliver, he will indeed be a great reforming Lord Chancellor.