Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

Lord Soley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 24th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, we are being required to legislate urgently to remedy an emergency created, at least in part, by overcomplicated sentencing law. I deeply regret the rush, and my support for the Bill —I do support it—is predicated on the premise that, before long, we shall be taking an entire look at the whole spectrum of sentencing: how it operates, how it is legislated for and how it will work. However, as I emphasise, I should prefer specific problems with sentencing to be considered in the context of time and measured reflection. We do not have that time; I am satisfied that recent events have shown that we are facing a real threat of catastrophic damage to public safety, not excluding multiple murders, by individuals who have been convicted and who, even as they strike, are still subject to prison sentences for terrorist-related offences. In my opinion, although this legislation does no more than postpone release dates—which will come and will have to be addressed, and we are not addressing that issue—and, even if we had the time to work towards a better solution to this very real problem, the interests of public safety must come first, particularly in the context of retrospectivity and the expectations of convicted criminals.

I want to put the issue of retrospectivity into some sort of context. There is no right of a convicted criminal to be released after he or she has served the prescribed part of their sentence; it is only lawyerly talk, but the Acts of Parliament that deal with this refer to a “duty” on the Secretary of State to release the prisoner on licence after he or she has completed the defined proportion. The release date itself has absolutely nothing to do with good behaviour or earning remission. It is automatic and time-based. The proposed legislation is retrospective but, to put it in context, it does nothing to remove anything that the criminal personally has earned.

It will not help the House if I try to sort out the differences between—wait for it—the extended determinate sentence, the standard determinate sentence, the sentence for an offender of particular concern, extended sentences, minimum terms of imprisonment and so on. There is a whole cacophony of this sort of language. What matters is the complexity that results. Some prisoners are released after half their sentence; some are released after half their sentence, provided the Parole Board has had a look at the case and recommends it. Some prisoners are released after two-thirds of their sentence, and some do not get released until the minimum term has been completed. There is no axiomatic period that works in relation to release and nothing sacrosanct about a half-time release. The legislation has come and gone, and gone and come, covering these sorts of issues.

Those released are released on licence. Their sentence is not completed until the full period of that sentence has elapsed. So, under the present legislation, release is more or less automatic, depending on which category it comes under, but it is conditional. Among other features worth underlining are the responsibilities of the Parole Board, the way periods of remand spent in custody should be credited against the sentence, the power to release early—even earlier than the statute requires, for example, on compassionate grounds—curfews and the nature and terms of licence conditions for individual prisoners, which have always been regarded as administrative responsibilities. They are administrative responsibilities to be carried out by the Secretary of State; they are not judicial decisions, and no reference is made to the sentencing judge about how those responsibilities should be exercised.

In the meantime, the sentence of the court remains in force and, as I said, there are a number of different restrictions. It is possible—we cannot afford it, but as a matter of law it is possible—to impose what used to be called control orders and are now called TPIMs. I had to remind myself that they are terrorism prevention and investigation measures, which may be imposed on a prisoner at liberty under licence. For an unconvicted person, those conditions are usually regarded, rightly, as a massive interference with their ordinary civil liberties. Can we be clear that the liberty of a prisoner released under the statutes is not the same liberty that we enjoy as we walk up and down the streets? More importantly—or no less importantly—that licence may be revoked by the Secretary of State. The offender may then be recalled to prison without a further trial to serve the rest of the sentence.

Of course, the Secretary of State cannot whimsically disapply the relevant statute because he does not like someone, and, of course, the criminal will expect to be released. Since 2012 the sentencing judge has been required to tell the prisoner that the sentence is X, which means he will serve Y, and so on. By the time the prisoner has been in prison for, say, three days, five days or a week, he or she will have been told the expected date of release. That is the retrospectivity concern. It is a serious issue that I do not dismiss, but we have to put it in a context that I have endeavoured to describe. What I find completely extraordinary is that, although rightly, the Secretary of State may revoke the prisoner’s licence and recall him to prison for breach of any licence conditions, and may—if not, why not?—do so if his behaviour while on licence gives rise to a reasonable suspicion that he is engaging in activity that represents a threat to public safety, the duty to release once the requisite custody has expired appears in practice to be absolute, or at least seems in practice to be treated as though it were. Can that be correct? If so, is it not obviously wrong—indeed, absurd—that if the deradicalisation process for an individual convicted of terrorist offences has plainly not had the desired effect, it is nevertheless the duty of the Secretary of State to release him?

I shall illustrate what I mean. In relation to the Streatham attack, we have been told that the perpetrator was subject to close police scrutiny, as I understand it, immediately or almost immediately after his release, presumably because he was believed—rightly, as it turned out—to pose a serious risk. There may have been many reasons why he was not recalled to custody. One may have been that his release had been so recent that it could have been argued on his behalf that the Secretary of State had failed to comply with the duty to release. To the extent that the answer does not compromise intelligence or create any embarrassment to anybody, the simple question is: if the Secretary of State was lawfully entitled not to release him, why was he released? If she was not entitled, given all the evidence we now know, why on earth not?

The legislation is complex and difficult. I have nothing to say about it that suggests that I am entirely happy with it, but we have to look at recent disasters, which have provided disquieting evidence that the deradicalisation processes in prison have been far from successful and that convicted terrorists, still subject to the sentence imposed by the court, have immediately resumed terrorist attacks while on licence. There is an immediate danger; we have to address it. I support the Bill.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on the question not of law—which I shall leave to others who have more knowledge than I have—but of dangerousness. I have dealt with this quite a bit, albeit 40-odd years ago when I dealt with an awful lot of serious offenders and dangerous people. At times I got predictions right and at times wrong, but the important point is that we need to look at—

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

May I remind the noble Lord that there is a speakers’ list?