Parole Board Recommendations: Open Conditions Debate
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Lord Pannick
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Parole Board Recommendations: Open Conditions
Lord Pannick Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, in March, the High Court held that the previous Secretary of State, Dominic Raab, had acted unlawfully by instructing probation officers not to give the Parole Board their view of the risks of release of particular prisoners if that conflicted with his views. Can the Minister assure me that the new Secretary of State for Justice, Alex Chalk, who I warmly welcome to his post, has a better understanding of the importance of the independence of the Parole Board and its processes?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
The Secretary of State will of course abide by the recent decision of the High Court and will entirely respect the constitutional position of the Parole Board. I should add that what we are talking about today in relation to the 76 decisions is 32 prisoners serving a mandatory life sentence for murder, 11 serving a discretionary life sentence for rape and various other sexual offences, eight on an IPP sentence for serious sexual offences and another 25 for serious offences, all involving violence against the person.