Prisons: Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a real honour and privilege to follow the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and to speak in such an important debate. I thank the noble Baroness for asking the Government this key question and for never giving up on the fight for justice for the thousands of people serving IPPs.

The annual report, which we are dealing with now, and the action plan are worthy and well-considered documents; there is no doubt about that. But what is missing is any recognition that the IPP sentence itself is a form of torture—at least according to the United Nations. Like many others in your Lordships’ House, I believe that resentencing is the only way to end this torture.

The chair of the Justice Committee in the other place, Andy Slaughter MP, recently wrote to Ministers warning that

“the Government may have misunderstood the Committee’s original recommendation on resentencing”.

Ministers keep saying that resentencing would mean mass release with no supervision, but Mr Slaughter is clear that

“resentencing would not mean the automatic release of all IPP prisoners”.

Legislating for suitable supervision to manage risk will of course be necessary and indeed wanted by many of those in the system.

Mr Slaughter’s letter ends by encouraging Ministers, as we do, to consider again establishing an expert panel to explore options for IPP resentencing, balancing

“the protection of the public with justice for the individual offender”.

Despite the Prisons Minister’s concerns in last month’s debate, I do not believe that this would give “false hope” to IPP prisoners—not if the Government made clear that there was no commitment to resentencing at this stage but, instead, a commitment to consider the matter further. The expert advisory panel would be there to do just that by giving its expert advice to the Government on what a resentencing exercise, with public protection at its heart, could look like.

Ministers also claim that they are opposed to resentencing because they do not want to overrule or usurp the role of the Parole Board. That sounds reasonable at first, but, last week, an Answer to a Written Question submitted by Kim Johnson MP revealed that, since July, the new Government have refused to follow the Parole Board’s recommendations on the transfer or release of IPP prisoners more than 45% of the time. That is scandalous. Without wishing to sound cynical, some might say that the Government seem happy to hide behind the Parole Board when it suits them but to ignore its advice when it does not.

In finishing, I urge the Government to cut through the politics, to let Parliament solve the problem that Parliament itself created over 20 years ago, and to allow a free vote on resentencing in both Houses. This must be the fairest way to reduce the size of the IPP prison population, carefully balancing public protection with the principles of justice and mercy.