Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. My name is on this amendment, and indeed, I spoke to similar amendments in Committee. It was a great pleasure to do so, but I regarded myself, as I said at the time, as a substitute for my noble friend Lady Royall, who indeed has the most tireless record of championing this cause and taking every opportunity to remedy the problem. We are presented with an opportunity here. Guidance is not working. That is the problem. We have to put these modest amendments into the Bill because we know that guidance is not working. It is not good enough, and it means that it is a postcode lottery as to whether action is taken in the way that is necessary, and it makes a hit and miss system for whether or not women’s lives are saved. That is not good enough. It is time. We need to put both these amendments in the Bill. We owe it to the victims of stalking to ensure that the police everywhere will see stalking for what it is: often a stepping stone to something worse. It is time we did that.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, for her amendments relating to the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements —MAPPA. Before addressing the amendments, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Newlove, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, for making the time to meet me and my officials on this matter.

The Government agree that robust management of perpetrators of domestic abuse and stalking is crucial to help keep the public safe. We are in agreement with the spirit of these amendments. However, we believe that the objectives can already be met through current provision and policy and through separate legislation that we are taking forward. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, kindly commented, that remains our view.

I will address Amendment 132 first. Under existing legislation, individuals who are convicted of specified violent and sexual offences and are subject to notification requirements and/or sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment or more are automatically eligible for management under MAPPA. These offences include offences which are committed in the context of domestic abuse, such as threats to kill, actual and grievous bodily harm, and attempted strangulation, as well as stalking, including fear of violence. The list of offences is kept under review and, in recognition of the seriousness of the offence, we are legislating in the Criminal Justice Bill to ensure that offenders convicted of controlling or coercive behaviour and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment or more will automatically be managed under MAPPA. This will mean that many of the most serious domestic abuse offenders will be subject to stringent multi-agency management.

MAPPA in the 42 police force areas of England and Wales are delivered by independent strategic management boards. As well as representatives from the police, probation and prison services, SMBs will have representatives from other agencies, such as local authorities and health providers. To encourage consistency, SMBs must have due regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State pursuant to his permissive power under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, while also responding to local needs.

As we committed to do during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill, we strengthened the Secretary of State's MAPPA guidance to include a chapter dedicated to domestic abuse and stalking. This mandates that all domestic abuse and stalking offenders who do not qualify for automatic MAPPA management must be considered for discretionary management, known as category 3. We have also worked with MAPPA agencies to improve practice, including the publication of additional guidance setting out the thresholds to be met for the various levels of MAPPA management to assist practitioners making these decisions, and, if we find that cases of domestic violence and stalking that need to be managed under MAPPA are still not being identified and referred for MAPPA management, to take further remedial action.

In response to the six harrowing cases that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, mentioned earlier, while we cannot comment on individual cases, I express my and the Government’s sincere condolences to all individuals and families who have been impacted by domestic abuse or stalking. The MAPPA framework is available only for convicted offenders. All individuals with convictions for domestic abuse and stalking behaviour, where not automatically eligible, must already be considered by the responsible authorities for management under MAPPA. The statutory guidance makes this clear. MAPPA is not available in cases where individuals do not have convictions, but there are other measures that are either already in place or are due to be piloted shortly that serve to protect a victim; for example, the statutory domestic violence disclosure scheme, often referred to as Clare’s law, which provides a mechanism for the police to disclose information about an individual’s past abusive or violent behaviour, or civil orders, such as stalking protection orders and, later this year, domestic abuse protection orders.

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Moved by

[Lord Roborough]

133A: Clause 48, page 50, line 31, leave out from beginning to “is” and insert “Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 (life sentences)”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies that the amendments made by Clause 48 all relate to Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 (life sentences).

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Moved by

[Lord Roborough]

138ZA: Clause 48, page 52, line 13, after “(5)” insert “—
(i) for the definition of “preventive sentence” substitute—““preventive sentence” means—(a) a sentence of imprisonment or detention in a young offender institution for public protection under section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (including one passed as a result of section 219 of the Armed Forces Act 2006), or(b) a sentence of detention for public protection under section 226 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (including one passed as a result of section 221 of the Armed Forces Act 2006);”;”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment amends the definition of “preventive sentence” in section 31A(5) of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 to clarify the effect of previous amendments.

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Moved by

[Lord Roborough]

139C: After Clause 48, insert the following new Clause—
“Imprisonment or detention for public protection: annual report(1) The Secretary of State must, as soon as is reasonably practicable after the end of each reporting period—(a) prepare and publish a report about the steps taken by the Secretary of State in the reporting period to support the rehabilitation of preventive sentence prisoners and their progress towards release from prison or licence termination, and(b) lay the report before Parliament.(2) For these purposes, in relation to a preventive sentence prisoner—(a) “release from prison” means the prisoner’s release on licence under section 28(5) or 32(5) of the 1997 Act or unconditional release under either of those sections as modified by section 31A(4G) of that Act;(b) “licence termination” means an order, under section 31A(2) or (4H) of the 1997 Act, that the licence on which the prisoner was released from prison is to cease to have effect.(3) The report must in particular contain details of the steps taken in relation to the following—(a) preventive sentence prisoners who are female;(b) preventive sentence prisoners who at any time in the reporting period were serving a sentence mentioned in paragraph (b) of the definition of preventive sentence (detention for public protection for serious offences committed by those under 18).(4) The report must also contain details of the persons the Secretary of State has consulted in the reporting period in relation to the matters mentioned in subsection (1)(a).(5) In this section—“the 1997 Act” means the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997;“life sentence” has the meaning given by section 34(2) of the 1997 Act;“preventive sentence” means—(a) a sentence of imprisonment or detention in a young offender institution for public protection under section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (including one passed as a result of section 219 of the Armed Forces Act 2006), or(b) a sentence of detention for public protection under section 226 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (including one passed as a result of section 221 of the Armed Forces Act 2006);“preventive sentence prisoner” , in relation to a reporting period, means a prisoner who—(a) was serving one or more preventive sentences at any time in the period, and(b) was not serving any other life sentence at any time in the period;“reporting period” means—(a) the period beginning with the day on which this section comes into force and ending with the 31 March following that day, and(b) each successive period of 12 months.” Member's explanatory statement
This new clause requires the Secretary of State to prepare, publish and lay before Parliament annual reports about the steps taken to support the rehabilitation of preventive sentence prisoners and their progress towards release from prison or licence termination.