Prison Sentences

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I am not in a position to judge the happiness or unhappiness of the Prison Service, whether in this context or any other. However, clearly, where the independent judiciary finds it appropriate to impose a prison sentence of 12 months or less, we know that the Prison Service will respond positively and deal with that.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the vast majority of short-term prison sentences are given to people who have been on community sentences, sometimes a number of times? How do the Government propose to make community sentences more robust, because surely the key is for the judiciary and the general public to have greater faith in them?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. Of adults sentenced to six months custody or less, about 84% have previously received a community order, and, indeed, a very large proportion of those have received repeated community orders before finally the court has imposed a custodial sentence. I also acknowledge the noble Lord’s point regarding community sentences. That is one of the things our imminent White Paper is going to do, and we will seek to make community sentences tougher, for example through longer curfews and more hours of unpaid work. We are also, of course, developing the whole area of GPS monitoring with regard to community sentences.