Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Lloyd of Berwick Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick (CB)]

My Lords, I do not know whether the Minister’s amendment has been called. I rise just to say that I certainly support the Government’s view, subject to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. Anything that we can do to relieve the burden on the Parole Board is worth doing. I confirm, incidentally, that the Minister was quite right to say that this would not have been possible until the recent decision of the Supreme Court at the end of July. To that extent, I certainly support the Government.

I hope that I may be permitted to add one comment. We shall shortly be coming to Amendment 39 in my name, which would do far more to relieve the burden on the Parole Board than this proposal could ever do. Furthermore, it could be done without any cost at all, it could be done at once and it has been calculated that it would save the Government some £25 million a year. I hope that those who are interested in relieving the burden on the Parole Board will stay behind and take part on that amendment when it is called.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, we have had something of a trailer from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and I do not propose to respond in detail at this stage. For the sake of clarity, I might say that these amendments are about determinate sentence prisoners as opposed to indeterminate sentence prisoners, into which category IPP prisoners fall.

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Moved by

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

39: Clause 10, page 11, line 2, after “(prisoners)” insert—
“(a) after subsection (2) insert—“(2A) Without prejudice to the powers of the Secretary of State to change the release test under this section, the Parole Board shall direct the release on licence of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences with a tariff of less than 2 years imposed before 2008 when the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was amended.”;”

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[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, this amendment relates to a group of 650 prisoners serving indeterminate sentences for the protection of the public under Section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. They are part of a much larger group of over 5,000 prisoners serving indeterminate sentences under that section. However, this amendment does not affect the larger group.

As your Lordships know, the IPP sentence has now been abolished. Mr Blunkett, who introduced the sentence in 2003, has accepted that although the idea was sound the implementation was disastrous—for which, I believe, he has apologised, a rare thing in politics. The problems became apparent very early on. As a result, Section 225 was amended in 2008. The amendment affected in two ways the group of prisoners with whom I am particularly concerned. First, the indeterminate sentence ceased to be available for those with a tariff of less than two years. Secondly, whereas the court was bound to assume under the provisions of the Act that the defendant was dangerous before 2008, that assumption ceased to apply after 2008. It was for the judge thereafter to decide in each case whether or not to impose an indeterminate sentence.

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[Lord Faulks]

I accept that there have been certain delays in providing all the courses that might have been provided. Indeed, that has been the subject of quite widespread litigation, when individual prisoners have received compensation. Sometimes the compensation has been a higher figure if the court has thought that it would have made a difference and sometimes a lower figure if the court has thought that it would have made no difference. However, the test remains the same, regardless of cases, as I said a little earlier. The Parole Board has of course had a number of pressures, as I described earlier, not least caused by the Osborn, Booth and Reilly case. As I also indicated, increased resources have been provided financially, and there is a general awareness in the Parole Board—an arm’s-length body but under the Ministry of Justice—of the need to provide hearings as soon as practicable. However, I have responded by pointing out the fact that all these prisoners have had their cases reviewed by the Parole Board, and we believe that the system is working satisfactorily.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, I regret to say that I do not find the Minister’s reply satisfactory in any way, no more than it was on the previous occasion. I do not intend to deal with any of his arguments, save just to mention one. He criticised the amendment on the grounds that we would be bypassing the discretion of the Lord Chancellor, but that is the whole point of the amendment. The Lord Chancellor has declined to exercise that discretion, so it is up to us now to exercise it in place of him. That is the purpose of this amendment.

The amendment has been supported in the strongest possible terms—indeed, some of the strongest terms that I have ever heard in this House—by lawyers and non-lawyers alike. I particularly value the support of the non-lawyers. The official position of the Opposition is that they cannot support the amendment but they are not opposing it. I hope that a great number of those who are sitting on the Opposition Benches will support the amendment for the reasons that have been so clearly explained by others. Nevertheless, I must express my gratitude for the fact that the Official Opposition are not opposing it.

There is just one other thing that needs to be said. From the many letters that I and others have received, both from prisoners and from their families, I know that this debate is being followed by those who will be most affected by the result. They will carefully read what we have said. They are looking to us in this House to do something for them, and I hope that we will not let them down. I wish to test the opinion of the House.