Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and privilege to follow the excellent maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate—the Bishop of, and from, Manchester—so soon after his introduction. Before being consecrated as Bishop of Manchester, he was suffragan Bishop of Dudley, being responsible for the interregnum between two Bishops of Worcester: Bishop Peter Selby—our most distinguished Bishop to Her Majesty’s Prisons—and the present incumbent, Bishop John Inge, who takes such a keen interest in justice issues. As the right reverend Prelate has given early evidence of his intention to play an active part in the proceedings of the House, I look forward to many more contributions from him, particularly on justice issues.

Any legislation forged in the white heat following a dramatic offence risks the likelihood of being flawed because there has not been enough time to think through all the implications. The Prison Reform Trust, in its written evidence to the other place on the Bill, pointed out:

“The government has not published the serious case reviews into the Fishmongers Hall and Streatham attacks despite these forming a substantive part of the policy and political justification for the measures in the bill”.


The Minister confirmed this in his introduction.

I will focus on three issues: the current availability of deradicalisation programmes in prisons, the assertion that longer prison sentences protect the public and the removal of Parole Board hearings prior to release. Earlier this year, the Government made a commitment to double the number of counterterrorism specialist probation staff and increase the numbers of specialist psychologists, specially trained imams and the resources dedicated to training front-line prison and probation staff.

Currently, there are only two deradicalisation programmes used in prisons, neither of which has been evaluated. One is called the Healthy Identity Intervention, and this is supplemented by the Desistance and Disengagement Programme, which is designed to be on offer to both prisoners and those released on licence. As programmes have very long waiting lists and delivery is limited by the significant cuts to both staff and resources over the last 10 years, their effectiveness is questionable, at best. In view of this, I ask the Minister whether the other government commitments that I mentioned have been implemented?

On longer sentences, my experience as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons leads me to believe that the Minister in the other place, Chris Philp MP, was wrong when he said that keeping the most serious offenders off the streets for the duration of their sentences is the only way to be certain that the public are protected. It is true that people cannot commit crimes against the public while they are in prison, but all will be released and what matters is their state of mind when that happens. Treat them like animals and you will get animals. So little is done with, and for, long-term prisoners that it is small wonder that so many reoffend.

Finally, I am horrified that, because of the removal of early release, the Parole Board should not be required to carry out reviews of serious terrorist sentences and extended determinate sentences before release. Over the years, the Parole Board has made remarkably few mistakes and reviews are very much built into the system for releasing long-term prisoners. Parole Board panels are used to addressing up-to-date risk to the public as they interrogate staff who are in daily contact with a prisoner. My noble friend Lady Prashar, a former chairman of the Parole Board, who will speak later, knows far more about this subject than me. I assure her that I will strongly support any amendment that she may table to reverse this decision.