Release of Prisoners (Alteration of Relevant Proportion of Sentence) Order 2019

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, this order is a populist response to perceived public concern and uninformed press comment. Lacking any genuine evidence base, it is, I regret, one among several policies for putting more people in prison, for longer, without any proven justification. The only possible argument in its favour is the simplistic one that individual offenders will be in prison for longer and so personally unable to commit further crimes during their extra time inside.

The impact assessment contains this core justification for the Government’s proposal. Referring to the serious offenders affected, it states:

“They have been given a lengthy sentence to reflect the seriousness of their offence, and, because these are the most serious types of offences with the gravest of consequences, they should therefore serve a greater proportion of their sentence in custody.”


That is a complete non-sequitur, because it attempts to justify counting the seriousness of the offence twice over: once when the judge passes sentence for the serious offence, and again when increasing by a third the proportion of the sentence to be spent in custody. Put simply, you get more time for committing the serious offence—and then even more time for precisely the same reason.

Members of this House and across Parliament, and clear majorities among academics in the field and legal professionals, have long argued, as did the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that we imprison too many people in this country and for too long, and that we must reduce the prison population to improve rehabilitation. For serious offenders we have argued for a reformed and functioning probation system; more through-the-gate supervision prior to and following release; more, and more effective, supervision of prisoners after their release; more use of early release, through release on temporary licence and home detention curfew schemes; and reducing sentence inflation in the courts. All these steps would help former offenders turn their lives around.

We have regularly debated overcrowding. Our prison estate is still both packed and dilapidated, with degrading and inhumane conditions in many prisons. Overcrowding has been matched by understaffing, so prisoners have spent far too long cooped up in cells that are too small because staff have been unable to manage or provide adequate education, vocational training, meaningful work or sport and leisure activities—a point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. As if these failures of our present regime were not enough, issues of mental health and drug and alcohol addiction are addressed inadequately or not at all—and these problems are often worse for women in custody.

It is hardly surprising, then, that this toxic cocktail of neglect and underresourcing has led to a crisis of ever-increasing violence in our prisons, with appalling records set nearly every year for assaults by prisoners on other prisoners and staff, incidents of self-harm, suicides and homicides. It is a tragedy that good work done by prison governors and staff who seek to implement best practice conscientiously and selflessly is undermined by a pervasive bad atmosphere, low morale and failure of rehabilitation across the prison estate. Yet, against this background the Government introduce a measure, with no hard evidence to support it, that will increase the prison population by around 2,000 in a decade, at an annual expected cost of £70 million, with a capital building cost at present rates of £440 million. That is on top of an expected increase flowing from the recruitment of 20,000 more police officers.

The impact assessment accepts that there is a risk that delay in providing the new places may mean that the extra capacity required will be too late or simply insufficient to meet demand. Will the noble and learned Lord say what evidence the Government have taken into account of the risk of overcrowding getting worse, pending the provision of extra prison places? Are the Government to provide extra staff to improve prison staffing levels for the greater number of serious violent and sexual offenders in custody for longer?

Furthermore, the impact assessment takes into account an expected reduction in the cost of probation for 2,000 former offenders, who will have a reduced period on licence post-release, down from half sentences to one-third, representing a reduction of 34% in the time spent on licence. This will lead to an estimated saving of £8 million in reduced case load, but what it does not take into account is all the evidence that supervision for longer periods on licence helps to get former offenders reintegrated into their communities and back into jobs, housing and their families. That reduces reoffending and cuts not only the cost of crime but the number of future victims of crime. A policy intended to help the victims of past offences risks increasing the number of future victims.

The impact assessment recognises this danger and makes two valid points. The first is that longer periods in prison mean longer separations from prisoners’ families. Successful return to family life protects against reoffending and longer separations increase family breakdown. The social and financial costs of family breakdown in human misery, risks to children, risk of homelessness and increased calls on social services, taxation and benefits are considerable.

The second point made in the impact assessment is that the Government acknowledge that shorter periods on licence support former offenders’ transition into the community, a point again made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. The impact assessment claims that this is an “unknown” but accepts that there is a risk that this could increase demand on prisons to provide offending behaviour interventions in custody and reduce the probation capacity to provide the full range of rehabilitative services. One wonders how the Government could claim that this is an unknown, when all the evidence is that these risks are clear and real.

This is a bad instrument, and I regret that it reflects badly on the instincts of the Government who introduced it.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, as has already been said, this order implements a commitment made by the Prime Minister in the summer of 2019. That commitment was made as part of a review, conducted not after a public consultation—which might have been expected on an issue with such major implications—but merely as an internal Ministry of Justice exercise.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in its report of 30 October 2019, drew the House’s attention to the fact that the order represents

“one piece of a large and complicated jigsaw.”

Among the other pieces are: the announced sentencing Bill, to be preceded by a White Paper on sentencing more generally; the programme to build 10,000 additional prison places, announced in 2016 and repeated by the Prime Minister in 2019; the announced recruitment of 20,000 more police officers; and the royal commission on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of criminal justice system processes, announced in the 2019 Queen’s Speech. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee suggested that this House may wish to ask the Minister—which I now do—for more information about how all these pieces fit together.

Last week, the Ministry of Justice released the horrifying statistic that 58% of UK prisons—68 in total —were overcrowded, nine of them by more than 50%. This is not a situation that is likely to be rectified quickly yet, by this order, the Government are knowingly adding another 2,000 prisoners. The Chief Inspector of Prisons is continually drawing attention to the lack of purposeful activity in prison and the number of prisoners who spend all day locked up in their cell doing nothing. One factor leading to this situation is the lack of staff, not least because the Government wilfully dispensed with 80,000 years of operational experience. It is all very well to talk of recruiting additional numbers, but in addition to being inadequately trained, inevitably new recruits are inexperienced and, being frequently subject to horrifying assaults, too many are leaving early.

Frequently in this House I have commented on the poor quality of impact assessments. The one accompanying this order is no exception to that stricture, because only two options are examined: take it or leave it. However, there is what I might describe as a common-sense third option: I urge the Minister to defer until the issue can be properly examined in the context of the “large and complicated jigsaw”.

I have already mentioned the lack of any public consultation about what should be, to quote Erskine May’s definition of the affirmative procedure,

“a substantial and important piece of delegated legislation”.

There has been only an internal review at the Ministry of Justice. The wide implications of the issue, and my suspicion that the proposal results from a confusion about what should be done with terrorist prisoners—highlighted by the tragic events at the Fishmongers’ Hall—reinforce my plea for implementation of the order to be deferred until it has been considered in the context of all related and relevant issues.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, my contribution can be brief. Having heard the speeches of noble Lords who spoke before me, and anticipating who will speak after me, I am not sure that I have a huge amount to add.

I begin by declaring my interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. I thank it for providing me with the same briefing that assisted the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in his remarks. There is much to be gained from what it has told us, much of which the noble Lord faithfully recited. I also put in a preliminary plea to the Government—with some diffidence, seeing the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, in his place—to bring in swiftly the sentencing consolidation measures of the Joint Committee which the noble and learned Lord chaired at the end of the last Session.

I say that not only because what we achieved in that committee is worth getting on with but because, as a former Crown Court recorder—that is, a part-time judge—I know that sentencing is probably the most complicated thing that a Crown Court judge has to cope with. It is all very well if you are a High Court judge dealing predominantly with life sentences, but if you are a more junior member of the judiciary you deal with far more complicated sentencing arrangements. Therefore, the sooner we get what I call the “Judge Bill” into law, the better.