Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether I could detain the Committee for one minute on Amendments 156 and 157. The background to this is my time as chairman of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, when, with my noble friend Lord Blencathra, we drew attention to the creeping growth in the power of the Executive at the expense of the legislature in our reports Government by Diktat and Democracy Denied?. Therefore, when amendments present changes to be effected or not effected by secondary legislation, my ears prick up.

First, we have to recognise that there has to be secondary legislation. The SLSC looks at between 600 and 800 regulations per year. To think that those can be put through by primary legislation is fanciful. The Government’s system would be completely gummed up, so something has to be done.

Secondly, we all know that the system for scrutinising secondary legislation is weak, to say the least. There is no chance to amend, even if the House were to agree that one particular provision in a regulation was inadequate or wrong; it is all or nothing. There is no room for ping- pong or other things we see in primary legislation. All those things are important. This House has decided to stand in the way of secondary legislation only six times since 1968. The last time, in 2015, led to a full-scale constitutional crisis, the Strathclyde review, et cetera.

With great respect to my noble friend Lord Attlee, it seems that Amendment 156 would lock us into the structure we currently have. He says that a criminal justice Bill will be along in no time at all; maybe, but we would be locked into the structure we have because the Secretary of State has no power at all. By contrast, Amendment 157, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, would give the Secretary of State some powers, but only to loosen, not to tighten. It seems to me that, in so far as we are seeking a balance between the Executive and the legislature, between moving too quickly and not moving at all, Amendment 157 is to be preferred, and I hope the Committee would not accept Amendment 156.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting and relatively short debate. We have four groups of amendments covering IPP sentences, and this first group is perhaps the easiest and most benign to agree with. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that we in the Opposition have no problem with this group. I acknowledge the interesting point that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, just made regarding the differences between Amendments 156 and 157. Nevertheless, we have no problem agreeing with the generality of amendments in this group. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his crystal-clear description, quoting my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, when he introduced the amendments.

We agree with the general thrust of these amendments and, if it comes to it at a later stage, will support any amendments that may be pushed further. I would like to do the Minister’s job and say what the problems might be. I acknowledge that, with a reducing cohort of IPP prisoners in prison, you are dealing with very difficult and potentially dangerous people. As this number reduces, the problem gets greater. I think that is a fair point to make. It is a point the Minister usually makes, but I want to make it from this side of the Chamber.

We will come to more ambitious proposals in subsequent groups, but here we are just dealing with various amendments to licence conditions and fairly imaginative ways of reducing them overall. We support them in the generality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this too has been a wide-ranging debate and more wide-ranging than that on the first group. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken because there are a number of amendments in this group, all of which push in the right direction. They are helping the Government to do what they say that they want to do.

The noble Lord, Lord Carter, moved Amendment 154, which is consequential on Amendment 168. That addresses what he called a lacuna and creates a power that mirrors the powers that the Secretary of State has to release prisoners serving a fixed-term licence. This is a very practical way of proceeding, and we support his amendment. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, in her characteristic way, asked why, if the Executive have the authority to recall, they cannot be given the authority to release—a very succinct way of summing up the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Carter.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in his Amendment 161, is effectively reversing the burden of proof for IPP prisoners. He described it as a nudge to the Parole Board and discussed how significant that nudge would be, but it is a welcome nudge, none the less. It has the historic credentials of being supported originally by Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. It is a welcome amendment.

We then had the very interesting intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, reflecting on the 2012 LASPO Act and that the provision was already in that Act and had just not been enacted by the Government. I remember the 2012 Act and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, taking it through the House as part of the coalition Government. I would be very interested to hear the Minister’s response to those points because it would be very difficult not to acknowledge the power of the arguments that have been put forward by noble Lords on Amendment 161.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, spoke to Amendments 159 and 160. He made interesting points about the independent scrutiny panel and other ways of pushing this in the same direction. We would support those amendments as well.

Perhaps the most moving speech was given by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, when she read the email from the man who eventually killed himself. That amendment was about aftercare. As she said, we have damaged these people and we owe it to them to give them the extra support.

It was in that spirit that my noble friend Lady Blower, on her Amendment 164, spoke powerfully in favour of independent mentors, a pilot scheme and extra support in various ways. She was very powerfully supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Hamwee. This seems to be a very practical way of supporting people. We have heard that the level of recall is increasing. This should be a mechanism of getting recall down, with people who are coming out of custody less likely to be recalled if they are properly supported.

This has been a wide-ranging debate. There have been a lot of practical suggestions and amendments. We want to encourage all of them, to get out of this Bill a package of measures to protect the public as appropriate and to move away from this sentencing regime, which has been so unfortunate for the last decade.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said, the Government agree entirely that our joint objective is to arrive at a package of measures that sufficiently protects the public while dealing with the problems of this existing sentencing regime. That is our overall objective.

My noble and learned friend Lord Garnier invited us to be bold. I suggest that the Government are already being bold in reducing the licence period to three years in circumstances where even the JSC recommended five years. We have already gone further than that very distinguished committee suggested. I do not think that anyone could accuse the present Lord Chancellor of a lack of determination or hard work. To continue the analogy used by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier of us plodding through treacle, we are really trying to find sensible answers to very difficult questions.

In addition, on the general point of hope and certainty and the very tragic case of Matthew, who committed suicide after he had been in the community for 10 years, as I said earlier these government amendments deal with that point. The “three plus two years” have an automatic determination that gives hope and certainty. That is a very large step forward. It is not a total answer to the problem, but I invite noble Lords to take account of the substantial progress that we are making.