Covid-19: Prisons and Offender Rehabilitation

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I give my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord German. I must differ from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra; he will not be surprised if I say that.

Over a month ago, the Prison Governors Association warned the Government that there was a high risk of Covid-19 because of overcrowding in our prisons and an ageing prison population. It is a risk both to the prisoners and to the prison officers and other staff working there. Half of all prisons in England and Wales have confirmed cases of the virus. We have already heard that, to achieve single-cell occupancy, between 10,000 and 15,000 prisoners would have to be released.

What has happened so far? The Government announced plans to release 4,000 people, but only a handful have been released to date. I think that only 17 of the 70 pregnant women and mothers have been released. For others in prison who have children at home, visiting is now impossible, which is an additional punishment to being in prison, never anticipated when the sentence was first imposed.

We need to increase the scope of the temporary release scheme. We should release pregnant women and mothers, and prisoners who are not a threat to the public—mainly category D prisoners who have already been risk-assessed —should be able to go home on extended release on temporary licence. Of course, immigration detention should be applied similarly.

There is concern that the public would not accept the early release of prisoners, but bear in mind that we are talking about prisoners who would not be deemed a threat to the community. When the courts initially sentenced a lot of the people in our prisons, there was no knowledge of the virus or that being in prison might be a death sentence. There was no knowledge that there would be a breach of family relationships because visiting would be impossible. Had the courts known that, I think they would have approached some of the sentences differently. That is why the Government should approach some of these sentences differently and release some of these people.