King’s Speech

Lord McNally Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I give congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, on his maiden speech, and to what is now a very formidable Front Bench, with the noble Lords, Lord Timpson, Lord Hanson and Lord Ponsonby, answering on these issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Timpson, has the great advantage of being appointed by a Prime Minister who himself has a deep knowledge and experience of the working of the criminal justice system, so I am sure that his appointment is not some window-dressing but a commitment from the very top to give priority to prison reform. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, was quite right: any reforming Prisons Minister must have the clear and unequivocal support of No. 10 if he is to make progress. Believe me: there will be other voices whispering in the ear of the Prime Minister about what damage this rampant liberalism is doing in constituency X or constituency Y, so make sure that your lines to No. 10 are good, open and constant.

Along with expressing general good will to the Ministers, I will use my short time to make three short points. First, my noble friend Lady Burt and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, among others, have talked about violence against women. It would be worth the Minister asking his colleague Jess Phillips MP to look at the recommendations of the Corston report. It is nearly 20 years since our colleague Jean Corston suggested that the problems that have led to women offending are more likely to be resolved through casework, support and treatment than by imprisonment. Is it not time to revisit the Corston recommendations and update them as a basis for a concerted programme to reduce the number of women in prison? This could go hand in hand with the promises of action against an upsurge in violence against women.

Secondly, the Minister could look at the success of the Youth Justice Board and its holistic, interdisciplinary approach to youth offending. He could bring in the chair of the YJB, Keith Fraser, and his predecessor, Charlie Taylor, now His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, to see how the best practices of the youth justice services can be developed and expanded.

Thirdly, when the Minister meets the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, he should ask his advice on dealing with those imprisoned for public protection. I was the Minister in the Lords who thought that I had abolished IPP sentences. It still puzzles me that we have not been able to find an equitable formula to deal with those trapped in the system. As has been said many times, it remains a stain on our penal system and breaking this logjam must be a major priority for the Minister.

I wish the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, a long and successful term of office. Prison reform is not a task for an ever-changing whirligig of short-service Prison Ministers. It can be a bed of nails, with an often hostile press pillorying even the most sensible reforms as being soft on crime. He has already experienced hearing the truths he has spoken

“Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools”.


My word of encouragement to him is that the good will he has now has a momentum that he should seize. It will not last for ever, but it will, in this House, be strong in what he is trying to do. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, slightly stole my thunder by quoting Winston Churchill’s memoirs, but it was that great Liberal Home Secretary, Churchill, who said that one can judge a society by how it treats its prisoners. That is still something worth keeping in mind.