Parole Board: Maintaining Public Safety

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Conor McGinn

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) for introducing this important debate.

I start by extending my sympathies to the families of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth. I cannot begin to understand what they must have gone through over the years, with the victims being so young. My sympathies are with them at this time. My hon. Friend mentioned the impact on the wider community in Leicestershire and I am deeply aware of his interest in the case, the support he has given and continues to give to the victims’ families and his constituents more widely, and his personal efforts to bring the matter to the attention of the Ministry of Justice and to liaise with the Parole Board, meeting with its chief executive and providing a letter to be included in the parole dossier outlining his concerns so that those may be considered at the right time.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, the Parole Board fulfils a significant and fundamental role in protecting the public from harm. In providing a fair way to consider the release of those held in our prisons on indeterminate—and in some cases determinate—sentences, the expertise of Parole Board members is thoroughly to assess the risk and take effective decisions. That expertise is clear, with public protection absolutely at the heart of every case.

My hon. Friend was right to mention that there are only a limited number of cases in which the Parole Board allows a release and the offender goes on to reoffend. Serious further offences are rare. Less than 0.5% of offenders under statutory supervision are convicted of serious further offences, and I believe that this very low level shows that the Parole Board is reaching the right conclusions when it comes to release. None the less, each one is taken extremely seriously, and a review is carried out of all to identify any lessons for the better management of future cases.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, over the past two years, we have taken a number of steps to improve the effectiveness, and particularly the transparency, of the Parole Board system. We introduced two key changes. First, in 2018, we worked with the Parole Board to amend its rules to allow it to provide decision summaries. Previously, the rules prevented the Parole Board from revealing any details of the reasons for its decision. The provision of those summaries allows victims and the wider public to understand why the board has made a decision in a case. To date, around 4,000 decision summaries have been issued, mainly to victims.

Secondly, following last year’s case of John Worboys, whose release decision by the Parole Board was overturned by the High Court, we developed a reconsideration mechanism for decisions made. Where there is evidence that a decision is irrational, or procedurally unfair, the reconsideration mechanism allows the Secretary of State, or the prisoner, to apply for the decision to be looked at again. Victims may ask the Secretary of State to apply for reconsideration on their behalf, and since July 2019 the Government have submitted 23 applications for that, five of which followed victim requests.

Prior to that introduction, there was no way to challenge flawed decisions without resorting to costly and time-consuming litigation. Now, as set out in the 2015 victims code, victims have the right to make a victim personal statement to the Parole Board and the entitlement to apply to attend the hearing to read their statement. Last week, we published a revised code of practice for victims of crime, which reinforces those rights by stating that the Parole Board must agree to the statement being read at the hearing by the victim, or someone else on their behalf, and provide a summary of its decision on application, unless there is a good reason not to do so.

Those important steps have increased the transparency of the process and decisions made by the Parole Board, but we believe there is still more that can be done. We recognise that the Parole Board is responsible for considering the release of prisoners who have committed some of the most serious and violent offences, and who have sometimes caused unimaginable harm and distress to victims and their families. It is entirely understandable, therefore, that members of the public, particularly victims, might struggle to comprehend how prisoners can ever be assessed to be safe to release.

I believe that for victims’ families really to understand the decisions, it is important for them to be more involved in the process. However hard it may be to accept, the board’s difficult role is not to decide whether the offender should continue to be punished for the crimes that they have committed; its decision is about the current risk and whether the offender would pose a danger to the public if they were released. Greater openness and transparency will enable us to increase that understanding, and that will build trust and confidence in the system.

[Conor McGinn]

I believe firmly and passionately in the rehabilitative nature of our penal system, and that rehabilitation is a cornerstone of the system. The Minister has outlined that the threat to the public, or the compromising of public safety, is the first and foremost consideration. Does she accept that for a lot of victims’ families, there are issues around truth and justice, and that in cases where families do not feel as though they have had that, it is an affront to them and to common decency, and it only exacerbates their pain, to see people who were committed for the most heinous crimes being released without showing a shred of remorse?

[Lucy Frazer]

I completely understand that point, and I cannot imagine how it must feel to be in that situation—if someone had taken away a loved one, or done serious damage to me as the victim of a serious crime, such as rape. The justice system requires the person who committed that crime to go before a court and a sentence to be pronounced, and that is the sentence the person serves when they go to prison. The Parole Board must determine whether that person, having served their sentence—having done their time—is safe to be released.

Of course, the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire raised then comes come into consideration: is that person safe to be released, or are they manipulating the process? Are they telling the truth? Are they really committed to going forth and not committing further crime? That is when truth and deception come into play.

We are very aware of the importance of victims having their say, so that they have a right to be heard and feel that they have participated in the process. That is why we announced on 20 October—just over a month ago—the launch of the root-and-branch review of the parole system. That will build on the reforms that I have talked about today, and it will look at whether more fundamental reform of the system is required. One of the key things that we will consider in that review is whether we can increase openness and transparency to continue to improve public understanding, so that there is more confidence in the system.

We are running a consultation on whether parole hearings should be open to the public in some limited circumstances. The Parole Board is required to hold hearings in private, so public hearings would be a really significant step towards improving openness and transparency. We recognise that although there would be benefits in that, there are complexities and challenges around protecting the privacy and the safety of all involved—that would include victims—and ensuring that witnesses provided the candid evidence that the board would need to make effective decisions. That is why we are consulting on the process to ensure that any changes are made safely and responsibly. The parole process is extremely difficult for victims and their families, and we are determined to do as much as we can to give them the support and information that they need.

I will pick up further on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire made about sentences, and whether it is appropriate to release someone who has committed a crime such as the crimes committed by Colin Pitchfork, or other horrific crimes, where people are not rehabilitated. If Colin Pitchfork were to be sentenced now, he would likely receive a whole-life order, because under provisions introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the murder of a child that has a sexual or sadistic motivation attracts a whole-life order as its starting point. The Government recognise the particularly abhorrent nature of cases where a child has been murdered, as set out in the sentencing White Paper, and we intend to go further by making a whole-life order the starting point for any premeditated murder of a child.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) made an important point about the significant effect of rape on victims and what a dreadful crime that is. She will know that if a judge determines that an offender is dangerous, it is possible to hand down an extended determinate sentence. She will also know about the changes that we are proposing in relation to people who are sentenced for more than seven years—they will have their sentences increased, because we are recommending that they serve two thirds of their sentence, rather than half. However, I appreciate the important points that she made on the question whether such offenders should go before the Parole Board.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) made a point about resources. I hope she spotted that in today’s spending review, our Department’s finances went up by 8%. The Government are committed to ensuring that the justice system has the necessary resources to ensure that we can deliver justice. She will know that demand in relation to the Parole Board has increased significantly and dramatically over the years, with 30 times more cases—that is 8,000 more—being heard each year compared with 20 years ago.

The increase in demand has led to the need regularly to review systems and processes, but also to invest in increased provision. In 2017-18, we injected additional funding to enable the recruitment of over 100 new Parole Board members, so that more hearings could be held. I pay tribute to the Parole Board for managing not only to ensure that it keeps up with the rate of determination during this covid crisis, but to increase the number of matters that it has managed to determine in this difficult and challenging period.

The system is effective at protecting the public from dangerous criminals—it is a thorough and sophisticated process for carefully assessing an offender’s risk—but I want to look at whether it is the most effective model to deliver the parole function over the longer term. The root-and-branch review, which I mentioned, will look at whether we can go further to deliver justice. Together with the Parole Board, we have already made great strides to improve the effectiveness and transparency of the parole system. I am pleased that, through the root-and-branch review, we are now able to take the next steps to ensure that the future delivery of this critical public protection function is the best it can be, with fairness and public safety at the forefront of its focus.

Question put and agreed to.