Imprisonment for Public Protection (Re-sentencing) Bill [HL]

Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

My Lords, so far we are all in agreement, and we thank the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, for proposing this Bill. Earlier this year, around April, I met a man called Mike at a Harrow youth centre that I had been asked to open. Mike sat me down to remind me that I had met him in autumn last year when he was in a category C prison, and he was delighted to remind me of the details. Last year he had spent nearly 10 months on recall, having been released from an IPP sentence 17 years earlier, as he had forgotten to inform a probation officer that he was taking his wife on holiday in August 2022. As a result of that simple lapse of information, the Probation Service had him recalled to prison. What a waste of public money. What a scandalous destruction of a marriage opportunity. What a pernicious persecution of an individual’s hard-earned freedom for a simple act many decades earlier.

That is exactly why the IPP sentence is so evil and pernicious, and we thank God that the last Government had the guts in their earlier iterations to remove it—albeit not the stamina to deal with the stain of those who remain in prison, nor to end the permanent persecution of those who are outside wondering when the doorbell will ring or a tap on the shoulder will come for some suggestion that they have forgotten an aspect of their sentencing duty. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said, this is simply psychological torture. It is unacceptable, it is evil and it should not be in our justice system. In fact, it shows us as having an injustice system.

I am wholly supportive of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Woodley. As he suggests, it could be amended on one or two minor points but, frankly, we have gone round this circus too many times. The Government would show guts by simply accepting the Bill. I say to my friend the noble Lord, Lord Timpson: accept the Bill, and then we can deal with amendments brought forward by the Government, if necessary. Let us get the process through and then we can all be proud of the fact that Members both in the other place and here have resolved this painful and unnecessary persecution of people who deserve better than all this.

I noticed some months ago that the previous Government were happy to announce in the other place that there should be simple legislation to end the Post Office postmasters’ scandalous sentencing—in one swoop, which we also accepted. Watching the announcement by the Minister in the other place at the time, I noted that he stated that some postmasters deserved sentencing and imprisonment because they had stolen, but the simple legislation dealt with eradicating all sentences. He admitted that this would of course mean setting free those who had stolen. Why then do we continue to persecute those who have done their time, holding them on the inside and then threatening them for the rest of their lives?

Simply, Minister, accept the Bill.

Prison Capacities

Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

My Lords, if we are to cut prison numbers we need to cut reoffending. If we are to cut reoffending, prisoners need jobs, housing and hope. If they are to get jobs, housing and hope, they need to be seen in a different light.

I have visited 50 prisons in the last seven months, and 170 prisons in the last eight years. I have visited 12 different types of prisons—category B and C—and have been surrounded by hundreds of men. I have never once had an act of violence, threat or intimidation shown to me, or even a hint of one.

That scandalously bad scaremongering BBC report last Monday, which highlighted terrible travesties inside Pentonville, did not reflect the visit to Pentonville that I had made just two weeks earlier, when I was surrounded by multitudes of men of different ages, all of whom were positively looking forward to the graduations that they will receive on 23 September, when I will graduate over 100 of them on the Time4Change programme. In other words, we need to change our attitude to how we see prisoners: we perceive them to be a perpetual risk. This week’s headlines have been nothing but appalling, scandalous and destructive; they do not reflect the reality. I wonder whether the very good governor at Pentonville, Simon Drysdale, was happy with that distorted view of his prison, or whether the chaplain, Jonathan Aitken, previously of another place, was happy with that distorted view of the prison in which he serves so effectively.

I wonder whether we could take account of the fact that many prisoners who have gone through reform and renewal are fantastic role models for others who follow behind them. At the moment, through the group that I lead, we have a man called Anton who served a sentence in Swaleside and then in The Mount. With still four years left to go before the end of his sentence, he moved to HMP Isis to act as a father figure to the young men up to age 27—he is 40. He leads responsible training programmes inside the prison to change mindsets. Another prisoner from Ranby prison will move in three weeks’ time. We need to change the perspective on prisoners so that they can get jobs and housing.