Prisons

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

This is a perfectly sensible measure. I support it, as I hope will the whole House. It is a modest measure that will not make a vast difference, but it is worth while and part of an overall very sensible package that the Justice Secretary announced. We must be honest: the pressure in our prisons is the result of decades of underfunding. All parties have responsibility for that. It is not a question of blaming one Government or another; there has been a long period of this. We must also level with the British public: whenever we in this House demand longer prison sentences, or to lock more people up, it comes at a cost to the public purse. We must be up front with the public. Locking someone up in prison is sometimes necessary for public protection, but it is also exceedingly expensive, at £45,000 to £47,000 or so per annum.

As well as introducing this discrete measure, and the other measures in the package announced last week, we must think seriously about who should be in prison. Prison ought to be for those who are a threat or who are dangerous, but as anyone who has dealt with the system will know—some of us have done so for most of our working life—many people in prison are there because of inadequacy or failures earlier along the track. There are failures in education or in mental health, failures in parenting or social services, and failures in a raft of other areas around addiction and so on. People are there because their life is in a mess. They have done wrong and committed crimes, and they certainly need a degree of punishment, but lengthy periods of prison are not the answer; that is a very expensive way of dealing with things. We have to use prisons sensibly, and be honest about the fact that a degree of rationing is required.

The SI takes a sensible approach, and as I think the Minister will confirm, it does not alter the requirement that a prisoner should have served at least half their custodial sentence prior to release. The pre-release custodial period—the punitive bit—is not changed by this measure, but once someone has gone past that, we can bring forward their release date by 18 months, rather than by 12 months. That is a modest and sensible proposal, but we need a serious debate later in this House about the right way to make use of an expensive, necessary, valuable, but very pricey institution.

Prison Capacity

Robert Neill Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I commend the Lord Chancellor on his thoughtful, considered and serious statement that deserves a thoughtful and considered response, which it has not entirely had. Does he agree that it is right and proper that we are frank with the British public that prison is an extremely expensive way of dealing with people, and that it should be reserved for those who are a threat to us, not simply those with whom we are perhaps justifiably angry or irritated?

Does the Lord Chancellor agree that it is right to take on board some of the recommendations of the Justice Committee’s report in relation to IPP prisoners—those sentenced to imprisonment for public protection? I welcome what has been said about remand, which we know is also important. As well as reducing the qualifying licence period, can he help us a little more on what else he will do to take on board the recommendations about IPP prisoners in the report? What is the timeframe for moving swiftly towards reducing the remand population?

[Alex Chalk]

I thank my hon. Friend for his typically thoughtful and considered response. He is absolutely right that we have to make choices about what we do in respect of the custodial estate. We choose to ensure that the most dangerous people are locked away for longer, which is right, so that the punishment fits the crime and so that we protect the British people. This is not simply a political statement but a statement of evidence, and the evidence, not just in England and Wales but in the Netherlands and elsewhere, shows that short sentences are disproportionately associated with recidivism. Of course we should learn the lessons from that.

My hon. Friend rightly raises the issue of IPPs, which are a stain on the justice system. That point is made even by the person who came up with the idea. We will take steps, and I thank the Justice Committee for taking on this difficult issue and for coming up with some very sensible proposals. I will be announcing more, but the central point about licence length is critical. It seems to me that this 10-year licence length means that it is very hard for people on IPP to think they will ever be free.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The Justice Committee is proposing to hold an inquiry into future prison population and estate capacity, and I look forward to the Minister giving evidence to us about that. He will know that that is prompted in part by concerns that overall overcrowding in the adult male estate is some 23%, and it is much worse in many of the old local prisons. While he is right to draw attention to the Government’s new prison building programme, even if that were all completed on time, there would, according to figures we have seen, be a shortfall in March 2025 of about 2,300 places as against anticipated demand. What is going to be done to deal with that? Should we have a proper conversation with the public about what is a reasonable expectation of what can be done in prisons, what is the best use of prisons and who should be there?

[Damian Hinds]

On my hon. Friend’s last point, of course we must constantly be having an intelligent, constructive public debate about these matters. On the question of capacity, projections change, and there are many complex factors at play. I look forward, as ever, to being scrutinised by his Committee on that point.

It is important to note that crowding—doubling up in cells—has for a very long time been a feature of our prison system. Crowding overall is 2,000 fewer than it was when we came into government in 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am always happy to meet the hon. and learned Lady.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The reputation of our justice system depends on the independence, integrity and professionalism of our judges. At the end of this month, the right hon. Lord Burnett of Maldon will retire as Lord Chief Justice, to be succeeded by Dame Susan Carr, who will be the first ever female Lord Chief Justice. Will the Minister place on the record in this House his appreciation, and all our appreciation, of Lord Burnett for the exceptional leadership he has shown to the judiciary throughout his term in office?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know the Lord Chief Justice and I am very happy, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government and all those on the Government Front Bench, to do exactly as my hon. Friend says: to pay tribute to Lord Burnett’s exemplary period as Lord Chief Justice.

HMPPS Update

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, for his courtesy in giving me notice of it, and for the characteristic thoroughness and care with which he has approached this matter. He is clearly going into the detail in a careful and measured fashion, which is the right approach. I also congratulate the shadow Secretary of State and welcome her to her post.

First, the Secretary of State has accepted the need for an independent element, and the Justice Committee has more than once referred to the need to avoid the Prison Service marking its own homework. Will he bear in mind in that regard the work that has already been done by His Majesty’s chief inspectors of prison and probation in relation to Wandsworth and other prisons? They have real expertise, and I hope he will avail himself of it.

Secondly, in relation to his wider inquiry into the prison situation, when on the face of it there has been a significant improvement in gate security, the failure of gate security on this occasion is all the more alarming. It is a matter of record that there is an issue with staffing at Wandsworth and with retaining experienced staff across the Prison Service. We have a large number of comparatively inexperienced staff. Evidence submitted to the Justice Committee’s inquiry on the prison workforce demonstrates concern over levels of training in some establishments. Will the Secretary of State make sure that those points are fully taken on board as part of a serious review of prison workforce on the back of this?

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to these matters. As I have indicated, the inquiry must take its course and the issue of staffing will no doubt be considered. Necessarily, we cannot go into a huge amount of detail, but what I can say is that in all prisons staff take on different roles. On the specific issue of staffing at the security end of the prison, the positions were staffed and the security posts were occupied. The question is whether protocols were applied, and indeed whether people did what was expected of them under those protocols. We need to get to the bottom of that urgently.

His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to open this important debate, and I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity to debate this part of the Ministry of Justice estimates. I am glad to see the Minister and the shadow Minister in their places.

I want to raise succinctly, but in some detail, a number of pressing areas that trouble the Select Committee on Justice. Despite the funding increases that have recently been achieved, there is a background that causes real difficulties to the Prison and Probation Service.

I will highlight four areas in particular where the Minister ought to seek to persuade the Government to prioritise and increase their efforts, for the sake of both those who work in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and the offenders it is meant to manage and hold safely but humanely, with a view to reform wherever possible.

I will flag up the following issues: prison capacity, the projected prison population and overcrowding; the quality of the prison estate; the prison and probation workforce, and workforce shortages; and the youth custody estate. The Select Committee has looked at these matters on a number of occasions, and we are currently carrying out an inquiry into the prison workforce—I am grateful to everyone who has given evidence so far, and I appreciate the engagement we have had with Ministers.

I will start with one of the most pressing issues facing the Prison Service today. We now have the latest prison population projections and the reasons for their increase. The reality is simply that the prison population has grown substantially over the past 30 years. As of last Friday, there were some 85,851 people in prison. The number has changed a bit even since then.

Despite the Government’s efforts to manage the population, England and Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe and, of course, it is projected to grow further. We see no sign of the imprisonment rate falling. At the same time as having one of the highest imprisonment rates in western Europe, we also have one of the worst reoffending rates. Successive Governments have failed to address that ironic dichotomy.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Ind)]

The hon. Gentleman, the Minister and the shadow Minister know my bona fides on matters of law and order. Bad and dangerous people should be in prison to protect the public, but we do not talk often enough about prevention and rehabilitation. It would cost far less to keep people out of prison, and to stop them going back into prison, than to keep them in prison.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I could not agree more. The current Lord Chancellor has said previously that prison is there for the people of whom we are entitled to be afraid, not for the people with whom we are annoyed or angry. That is an important distinction, because prison is there to deal with those who are a danger to society or who have significantly harmed society; it is not there, in an ideal world, to deal with people who, for any number of reasons, have got their life into a mess. Such people can be a nuisance to society, but there is surely a better way to handle them than incarceration in the closed estate at a cost of some £40,000 a year.

The Justice Committee held an inquiry into the prison population back in 2017. There was about a 15% reduction in the prisons budget between 2015 and 2020, and it was found that had an impact on the safety and decency of the estate, following a reduction in the number of prison officers between 2010 and 2015. In truth, there has been underinvestment in prisons and, I would argue, underinvestment in the whole justice system for decades, under Governments of all complexions. Because the Ministry of Justice is both an unprotected Department, in budgetary terms, and a downstream Department, it often picks up the consequences of things that have gone wrong elsewhere in society and elsewhere in Government. The Ministry of Justice is particularly vulnerable.

In 2017 we saw there had been a 20% increase in the prison population over 15 years, and future projections indicated growth to 2022. There was, at that time, a transformation programme committed to expanding the prison estate by 10,000 places and to closing outdated prisons. Sadly, the truth is that the programme was not fully delivered. The Public Accounts Committee reported that just 206 places were delivered by the programme.

In 2018 the Ministry of Justice decided not to deliver the prison estate transformation in full because of budgetary pressures. Around 6,500 places were removed from the programme, but nothing has been done to reduce demand. Indeed, a number of changes to sentencing policy have, in fact, increased demand in a number of areas.

The 2017 inquiry found clear evidence that the reduction of spending in prisons had had a major destabilising effect. Reducing staff numbers put more pressure on remaining staff, and the way in which facilities management services were outsourced through block contracts meant the operation was very remote and very unresponsive to the day-to-day needs in prisons. It was very frustrating for governors, who were frequently finding that it took months to get basic repairs done. The nature of the contract was seriously at fault. I do not have a problem with contracting out in the right circumstances, but the way it was done was extremely inefficient.

Six years on, the Prison Service faces largely the same issues. The population has continued to increase, there is still an issue with the recruitment and retention of staff, and the estate still has capacity pressures. There was another prison expansion programme in 2019, and the “Prisons Strategy” White Paper said the provision of prison places would make a “more modern and secure” estate.

There was an ambitious target of 20,000 additional prison places as part of that programme, but we now know that planning permission has not been granted for three prisons—either it has been refused or no decision has been made—and the Ministry of Justice is having to appeal those planning decisions. That is hardly joined-up government. Surely the risk of delays in planning should have been foreseen at the outset.

On behalf of the Committee, I wrote to the permanent secretary at the MOJ following the publication of its main estimates, and I am grateful to her for responding yesterday. Disappointingly, only 8,200 new prison places will have been created and made operational by May 2025. We are about 11,800 short of the Government’s target of 20,000 by the mid-2020s. Given that background, is the Minister convinced that the current prison expansion programme is genuinely deliverable? When are we going to get to the 20,000 places? What steps are being taken to speed up a rate of delivery that, so far, will not get us there?

Prisons in England and Wales are reaching breaking point; the growth in the adult male population has forced the Government to use police cells to accommodate prisoners, through Operation Safeguard. The Government have said that would be in place for no longer than is necessary, but how much longer does the Minister anticipate that will be? How frequently is Operation Safeguard being used?

I mentioned the changes to sentencing policy, which have put more pressure on prisons. For example, we have seen changes to magistrates’ sentencing powers; there was an increase to two years and then, suddenly, a temporary reduction back down to one year. That is not good lawmaking, and it is not fair or just sentencing policy to have a lottery whereby when a defendant appears before the court decides whether he is dealt with by the magistrates or committed to the Crown court. As we all know, that move was done not because magistrates sentence more heavily—there was no evidence to suggest that—but because if people are sent to the Crown court for sentence, as the magistrates deem their powers insufficient, it will take longer before they end up in prison. There is a bit of sleight of hand here, as that was done to ease out the demand in the prison system, pushing people’s arrival in prison back down the road a bit, in the hope that somebody else will have left by then and so a bit more space is available.

That is not the right approach and it puts more pressure on another part of the MOJ’s responsibility, the Crown courts, because more cases are then being sent to them when they could have been dealt with more quickly by the magistrates. The Government need to address that situation. What is going to be done to deal with it? How long does the MOJ envisage this reduction in sentencing powers lasting? What is being done to consult the judiciary on whether that is a proper approach to the use of judicial resources and sentencing policy? I know that there has been a temporary response in respect of rapid deployment cells, which may offer some support. It may be of some assistance, but what is the long-term plan? How long do we envisage those cells being in use? What is the plan eventually to integrate them with the rest of the estate?

We have the plans for the 20,000 prison places, but the delay is significant. That means there is significant overcrowding in the estate, which is the second point I want to address. The overcrowding is such that it is difficult for prison staff to carry out rehabilitative work, which is one of the objectives of prison. That feeds into that high rate of recidivism and reoffending that I have referred to. It also creates real challenges on our basic duties of care towards both prisoners and prison officers. When the state removes someone’s liberty for the broader public good, it has the duty to commit to keep them safe and in decent conditions.

Equally, the state has a duty to provide decent, safe and reasonable working environments for those who supervise the prisoners and run the prisons. I fear that in a number of our prisons we are simply not getting there at the moment. We are simply failing in that, and repeated reports from His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons have flagged that up. The growth in the number of urgent notifications that have been issued by the inspector to the MOJ is also evidence of that. I appreciate that the Minister has always responded promptly to those urgent notification procedures, and I am grateful to him for that, but it speaks to an underlying problem that needs to be resolved. I suspect that that can be done only through sustained investment and by thinking about whether we are using the alternatives to prison effectively. To go back to the point made by the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), we need to make sure that we use it for those who are dangerous, where there is no other safe means of dealing with them and we cannot use cheaper and often more effective rehabilitative alternatives.

We still have many Victorian prisons—the “local prisons”, as they are often called—some of which are in a very poor state. They have been described as “not fit for purpose” and “dilapidated”. There has been historical under-investment in maintenance and we have a backlog of maintenance work in the prisons. In March 2021 this was estimated to be about £1 billion-worth. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service is regularly taking prison cells out of use because of their state of disrepair. In the decade between 2009-10 and 2019-20, some 1,730 prison cells were permanently out of use for failing to meet the required standards. The lack of money going into basic maintenance therefore adds to the capacity crisis.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Chair of the Justice Committee is making an excellent critique of the system. There is something ironic about prisons being so undermaintained and needing £1 billion spent on them, such that their accommodation is not available, when some £4 billion is being spent on new prisons at the same time. It looks as if we are just forgetting the ones that we have, particularly the remand and the local prisons.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I have a lot of sympathy with that point. The irony is that the chief inspector of prisons, in his 2021 annual report, describes some of those old prisons as

“cold, dark and shabby cells…often plagued by damp and cockroaches, leaking pipes and toilets, and broken or missing furniture and windows”

but, at the same time, as we have already observed, the new prison building schedule is way behind and, because of the planning situation, so far we have no assurance about when those spaces will be delivered. In any event, they will not replace the dilapidated prisons, as we had originally hoped, but will simply increase capacity, because we have a tap that nobody seems able to find the means of properly turning off, in terms of those coming into the system.

The original plan was to close old prisons as part of the prison estate transformation programme, but that has not happened. In 2019 the Minister’s predecessor said that they would need to be kept open. Well, how long do we expect to keep those prisons open? What is the long-term plan for those prisons? What is the plan to ensure that the risks in relation to planning permissions and restrictive covenants, which plagued the potential redevelopment of Holloway, for example, are recognised and sorted out well in advance of the commitment of the capital?

It is worth observing that we have had an increase in the capital departmental expenditure limits for prisons, which is welcome, but if we are spending only a fraction of it so far—as I recall it is about £4 billion, and we have spent about £1.6 billion so far—clearly we have resource being allocated by the Treasury that we cannot have confidence that the Ministry is able to spend and use to deliver in a timely fashion. What steps is the Minister taking to deal with that? What reassurance can he give us? What is the plan to speed up that programme and get the resource spent where it is needed?

The other issue I want to deal with is the operational workforce—as I said, the Committee is currently running an inquiry on that. I pay tribute to the men and women who work in our prisons. They do a very tough job, which probably no one in this House would want to do. They do it on behalf of society, frequently in difficult and unpleasant conditions—sometimes unacceptable conditions—and at some risk to themselves. They deserve to have the recognition that I do not think they always get. On behalf of the Justice Committee, I recognise and salute them for what they do, but we need more than just recognition and warm words; we need some real support for them.

As part of the inquiry, the Justice Committee undertook a survey of serving prison officers. Some 6,582 staff responded to it, which was a decent number. The responses were striking. We found that half of band 3 to band 5 staff do not feel safe at the prison they work in. Feeling safe at work is surely a basic right for anyone. Half is a frightening statistic. Reports from the inspector and the independent monitoring boards have highlighted the growing number of assaults, both on staff by prisoners and between prisoners. That is a result of the cramped, overcrowded and stressful conditions in which many prisoners are held, so perhaps it is no surprise that the prison officers feel so concerned about that.

Band 3 to band 5 and band 2 are the key operational grades—the frontline people who do jobs on the wings. Only 15% of band 2 operational staff felt they had proper, regular training; 25% of band 3 to band 5 staff said they had regular training. That means the majority of staff do not think that they have such training. Surely training people is a basic part of making sure that we professionalise and keep the workforce up to scratch? We are bringing in various protective equipment for them; they need to be trained to use it.

It is no surprise that morale is low. More than 70% of staff in band 2 and 80% of staff in bands 3 to 5 said that staff morale was not good at the prison in which they worked. If that is the position with the frontline staff, is it any wonder that we have a problem not just with recruitment, but with retention? It is clear that there is a real issue with experienced officers leaving the service. When things get difficult in prison, when those tensions threaten to boil over, and when there is potential dispute or violence on the wings, it is exactly those experienced officers—the old hands, the men and women who have been around the system—who know how to deal with sometimes quite damaged and challenging individuals. Their experience is more necessary than anyone’s to calm things down and to prevent things from escalating. Therefore, unless we have a proper strategy for retention, we are creating a potential powder keg for the future.

Ultimately, we have both to retain and to increase the number of staff. Unless we do that, we will not get the purposeful activity that is necessary to make prisons beneficial; otherwise we end up just warehousing individuals with no benefit at the end of it. That pressure on staffing and overcrowding in prisons is reflected in the concern of the president of the Prison Governors Association, Andrea Albutt, who said that the prison system faces an immediate crisis and could run out of prison places as early as mid-July. What is the Minister’s assessment of that? Does he agree with the president of the Prison Governors Association that, in a few days’ time, we could run out of space? If so, we are in a very grave situation indeed.

What, too, about the observations of the Shannon Trust—I am very grateful for its information—pointing out that statistics from the Office of National Statistics, HM Prison and Probation Service and the voluntary sector suggest that some 62% of all those incarcerated have a literacy level lower than an average 11-year-old? Given that we have some 85,000 people in prison, that potentially equates to about 53,000 people who have real literacy deficits. Without that being put right, what is their hope of getting a job on release? How do we then get them out of that cycle of reoffending? Because it is so difficult to carry out education activities in those cramped and inadequate facilities and to attract staff to do the tough job of education work in prisons, all too frequently, the level of courses is not being delivered in the way that was intended. What will the Minister do to increase the amount of education and purposeful activity that we see in our prisons? We all say that it is the objective, but so far we are not delivering on it in any consistent manner.

Let me look beyond prison to the critical issue of probation, which is sometimes, I fear, regarded as the poor relation of the two. The bulk of the budget goes on prisons because of the very high fixed costs, but probation is essential and we should pay tribute, too, to the probation officers who work so hard. It is essential to give alternatives to prison in the first place and, secondly, to have a proper means of transitioning prisoners back into society when they are released, without the risk of reoffending.

When we carried out our inquiries, we found high staff vacancies, overloaded probation practitioners working overcapacity, poor staff retention and inaccurate risk assessments, all of which were flagged up by the chief inspector of probation, who said that many services are experiencing exceptional staff shortages, with half the positions at key grades in some areas being unfilled. It is no wonder, therefore, that things are being missed. That is a risk not only to prisoners, but, potentially in the worst case, to the public as well. What is being done to deal with staff pressures in the probation service?

We met many probation officers. They want to improve their service, but they need decent and sustained funding to do so. You cannot have it being switched on and off like a light switch. We know that three fifths of the HMPPS’s expenditure is on prisons. We need to concentrate on and not forget the other two fifths of the budget as well.

[Conor McGinn]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Robert Neill]

I will give way one more time and then I shall move on.

[Conor McGinn]

I am sorry to intrude on the hon. Gentleman again. He is making an excellent speech. I think he will agree that the privatisation of the probation service was a disaster and it is right that that is being reversed, but that does not mean that probation cannot work with the private and voluntary sector, particularly around employment. There are some great examples of that, with firms such as Timpson, the voluntary sector and organisations such as the Prison Advice and Care Trust. It is important that the service works collectively with all those groups to ensure that we stop people from reoffending, and help them rebuild, get on and be successful in their lives.

[Sir Robert Neill]

Yet again the hon. Gentleman is spot on. I join him in paying tribute to Timpson, for example. The work of the Timpson family and their firm has been consistently quite exceptional over a long period; I have constituents who benefited through their endeavours and many others in the House will have similar cases.

The hon. Gentleman’s point is an important one. The Justice Committee was critical of the way the probation service was privatised. As he knows, I do not have an ideological objection to privatising services, in the right circumstances and in the right way, but the simple truth is that the way it was done in probation was absolutely the wrong way to do it, splitting up and dislocating the service, with a mixture of that which was retained nationally and that which was with various outsourced companies. It was wholly unsatisfactory and created some dire results.

I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), who, when he was Justice Secretary, took the tough but right decision to reverse the process and unify the service once more. That was welcome. None the less, that privatisation is still affecting morale, it has affected retention and it has created considerable dislocation in data sharing between various services. It also broke a number of the local ties that had been developed between the probation service and local authorities and other providers in the area.

Ironically, as the hon. Member for St Helens North says, there is a role for the private sector. The privatisation of probation was intended to have more private sector groups coming in to the provision of probation work and more smaller-scale charities. What happened instead is that it went on bulk contracts to some of the usual big outsourcers and defeated its own object.

We need to work hard now to ensure that we give charities, not-for-profits and small-scale organisations real access to provide services where they can bring a unique perspective. Again, I would be grateful for the Minister’s observations on what the Government will do to encourage those providers into the sector, where they can work collaboratively with the new unified service. We currently have 220,000 people on probation and 16,000 staff in probation. The service has been through any amount of upheaval. It now needs stability and support—both practical financial support and recognition for the work that it does.

I have only a couple more points, Mr Deputy Speaker. I turn now to the youth custody estate. Youth custody, it should be said, has been a real success. We imprison far fewer people now than we used to. That is a real win that all sides involved can take credit for. The service does not face the same pressure of numbers and we have seen a steady decline in the number of children in custody.

One is tempted to say, “Why, if we can do that for children, largely because of a more holistic approach and far more early interventions, can we not apply the same philosophy to the adult estate as well?” The principle is not different: it is getting in early when we see the first signs of the problem in someone’s life that is likely to make them more vulnerable to falling into offending. If we can do that successfully for youngsters, why should we not at least do much more of it in the adult estate too?

However, although the numbers are not an issue, safety is a real concern in the youth estate. Staff retention is a problem in the youth estate too, which has an impact on safety. Lack of staff and training is also a matter of concern and recent inspection reports from His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons have raised concerns about education in the YOIs.

Safety concerns extend beyond physical harm. If the institutions fail to provide adequate educational programmes, vocational training and rehabilitative regimes, young offenders will not receive the tools they need to reintegrate into society. Instead, they will be all the more vulnerable to being sucked back in to the leadership model of their criminal friends on the outside, whom in many cases they joined up with because of the gaps elsewhere in their life. I wrote to the Minister in May about the woeful findings in relation to His Majesty’s Prison Cookham Wood in the urgent notification procedure there, and I am grateful to the Minister for his response. However, it is pretty disappointing to see yet another urgent notification being issued in relation to a failing prison—particularly one where children are involved. We must see improvements for those children. They have been entrusted to the state’s care, and we have a duty to them to ensure that they are safe and that when they leave those institutions, they are in a better place than when they went in.

I recognise the Government’s attempts to stabilise prisons and probation by injecting funding, but they are trying to make up for the great deal that was taken out earlier. I recognise the Minister’s commitment, and I appreciate the personal courtesy and determination in his words. I recognise in particular the commitment of the new Secretary of State, who understands these issues very well from his own professional background. They will both know that we have a lot of ground to make up to get prisons and probation back to where they should be. The fact that there is some increase in the estimates is good news, as I have demonstrated, but I fear, first, that it may not be enough and, secondly, that we need an assurance that funding will be sustained over a period of years and that the Ministry has the capacity to spend the money wisely and successfully to deliver on all that.

I hope that the Minister will respond on those matters with his usual care and courtesy, but we need not just words but a clear programme of action. Frankly, we need to increase and raise the extent and awareness of public debate about the Prison and Probation Service, as we need to with the whole criminal justice system. It ought to be a decent prisons system and probation system—a means of protecting the public but also of rehabilitating those offenders who can be rehabilitated—and that ought to be as central a mission to any Government as a decent education, health or social care system. It does not get the same level of attention. Perhaps this debate will help, if only in a small way, to flag up some of the issues. We all have a duty to talk about those issues with our constituents, in a measured and calm way, more than perhaps we currently do.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, for his opening remarks and, more broadly, for securing this important debate on this estimates day. I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate.

There can be no higher purpose for a Government than protecting the public from the devastating consequences of crime and maintaining a criminal justice system in which people have confidence. We have honoured our manifesto commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers and, through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, we have introduced tougher penalties for the most serious crimes and removed automatic halfway release of the most violent and sexual offenders so that the worst criminals are locked up for longer. We are building new state-of-the-art prisons that will not only give effect to the order of the court to take criminals off our street, but properly rehabilitate them so that they turn their backs on crime for good. That way, we can break the destructive cycle of offending that costs the taxpayer £18 billion a year and has an incalculable personal cost to the victims and communities blighted by it.

The PCSC Act also brought in better monitored and more effective community sentences, which were just mentioned by the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves). They punish offenders, tackle the underlying drivers of offending and support people who want to turn their lives around. Those measures include tougher and more flexible electronically monitored curfews. We aim to almost double the number of defendants and offenders tagged at any one time to reach 25,000 by March 2025.

We have recruited more than 50 new health and justice co-ordinators, who will cover every probation region and work with health partners so that offenders get the right treatment to stay on the straight and narrow. That will be underpinned by regular drug testing to monitor compliance. We are investing up to £93 million in community payback to drive up the hours of unpaid work done by offenders, so that they visibly pay their debt to society for the damage they have done.

We are achieving our vision to cut the youth custodial population, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. Roughly 3,000 children and young people were in custody in 2008-09; as of April this year, the number had fallen to around 600. It is also important to note that, in line with our female offender strategy, between 2018 and 2021, the average female prison population fell by 17%.

Our £100 million security investment programme to reduce crime inside prisons, including stemming the flow of illicit items such as drugs, mobile phones and weapons, was completed in March 2022. Enhanced gate security—including 659 staff, 154 drug dogs and over 200 pieces of equipment—has been deployed to 42 high-risk prison sites that routinely search staff and visitors. We now have 97 X-ray body scanners covering the entire closed male estate and they have recorded more than 28,000 positive indications.

To date, 89 prisons have completed their roll-out of PAVA synthetic pepper spray to stop violent prisoners in their tracks and we have introduced 13,000 new generation body-worn video cameras across the estate, with networked, cloud-based technology. These important investments rightly underpin our focus on the safety of staff and others in prison.

Linked to that, we need prisons to be a place where offenders overcome addiction, which is why we are rolling out abstinence-focused drug recovery wings and increasing the number of dedicated, incentivised substance-free living units across the estate, where prisoners commit to regular drug tests in return for incentives such as more gym time.

Alongside safety and security in prisons, we must invest in education and employment if we are to cut crime sustainably. We know that, if a prisoner can hold down a steady job, it reduces their chance of reoffending by up to nine percentage points, which is why we are driving forward initiatives to help prisoners to secure jobs on release, including through prison employment leads to match prisoners to jobs and employment advisory boards to build links between prisons and local industry, and to ensure that the skills being taught in prisons align with what is demanded and required in the local labour market.

I agree that we need to go further on education. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) spoke about the Shannon Trust and I pay tribute to its work. I confirm that we are extending what we do with the literacy innovation fund across 15 prisons. There is also a much sharper understanding of neurodiversity in our prison population, and I am pleased that we will have neurodiversity support managers across the estate by January 2024. I am also excited about the prospect of the first secure school, which we will be doing in partnership with the Oasis Trust. It is a different approach from those in youth custody, further elevating the role of education.

Ensuring proper support is on offer beyond the prison gates is also crucial if we are to help offenders stay on the straight and narrow, so we are improving pre-release planning and continuity of care. We want to ensure that no one supervised by probation is released from prison homeless. Our new transitional accommodation scheme—community accommodation service tier 3, so below the level of bail hostels—helps us to deliver on that commitment. It was initially delivered in five probation regions in 2021, but our investment is expanding to operate across all of England and Wales by April 2024.

We are also investing in pre-release teams, which have been embedded in 67 prisons and provide an important interface for commissioned rehabilitative services that help ex-prisoners with accommodation, personal wellbeing, employment, training and education. To improve continuity of care for prison leavers with substance misuse or wider health issues, we are recruiting more than 50 health and justice co-ordinators with responsibility for ensuring more joined-up support between prison, probation and healthcare treatment services. Where appropriate, alcohol monitoring on licence is available.

Small things that the rest of us can take for granted can make all the difference, for good or ill. That is why we have introduced resettlement passports, set up ahead of release, to bring together the essentials that offenders need in one place: bank accounts, CVs and the identification people need to prove the right to work and to rent a flat. We have also supported the Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Act 2023, which recently received Royal Assent, having started out as a private Member’s Bill. It will enable offenders at risk of reoffending to be released up to two days earlier, to avoid what can be the hectic rush of trying to get round different services on a Friday.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst asked specifically about magistrates’ sentencing powers. Given the time, I should not talk about that in great detail now. We have had a chance to talk about it in the Select Committee. On his specific question about working with the judiciary, we are working with the Judicial Office as part of the review we are undertaking on the changes and plan to engage magistrates on it. We should have completed that review by the autumn.

My hon. Friend and others rightly asked about capacity, the role of Operation Safeguard and other shorter-term capacity measures, as well as the longer-term capital programme. Since October 2022, we have seen an acute and exceptional rise in the prison population. Operation Safeguard is a temporary measure to provide a short-term solution to that acute rise in demand. He asked how much of that capacity has been used. The answer is that it goes up and down; it is a facility to be drawn on as needed. The average over the period is really quite low, but there are days when its usage is greater. Standing it up has provided us with vital extra short-term resilience as we develop further that longer-term capital programme.

As of April, we had invested £1.3 billion in capital towards the delivery of the 20,000 additional, modern prison places to which my hon. Friend referred. By the end of June, about 5,400 of those places had been added to the estate. That includes the two new 1,700-place prisons, HMPs Five Wells and Fosse Way, with the latter having accepted its first prisoners at the end of May.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am grateful to the Minister for that update. Those who have been to Five Wells and Fosse Way recognise what an advance they are in design and facilities. Will he give us a specific update on where we are in the stalled planning process on the other three prisons, which are still stuck in the system? When are we likely to get those moving forward?

[Damian Hinds]

As my hon. Friend well knows—he was previously a leading light in ministerial office, dealing with local government—we do not control the planning process. I am therefore not in a position to give him a bang-up-to-date update, except to say that those three projects remain part of our plan. Overall, this is a complex capital programme and we need to deal with external factors, including working through the planning process.

[Sir Robert Neill]

Perhaps the Minister could write to me and the Select Committee to set out where we are with those projects. Have they gone to appeal yet? If so, has any indication been given as to when the hearings will take place?

[Damian Hinds]

Of course, I will be delighted to correspond in that way with my hon. Friend.

We are also rolling out 1,000 rapid deployment cells across the estate. The first three sites, HMPs Norwich, Wymott and Hollesley Bay, are now accepting prisoners, and the majority of the 1,000 additional places will be delivered this year. We are undertaking major refurbishments at sites including HMPs Birmingham, Liverpool and Norwich, delivering about 800 cells between them. The wing-by-wing refurbishment at HMP Liverpool will see every cell renovated. Construction has also started on new house blocks at HMPs Stocken, Hatfield, Sudbury and Rye Hill, which will add around 850 places between them. HMP Millsike, the new prison of some 1,500 places by HMP Full Sutton, will open in 2025. Our new prisons have a laser-sharp focus on rehabilitation, with workshops and cutting-edge technology that puts education, training and jobs front and centre, so every prisoner gets the right opportunity to turn over a new leaf.

Like many, or most, workforces, the Prison Service has experienced recruitment and retention challenges at a time of very low unemployment. Ensuring our services are sufficiently resourced and that we retain levels of experience are fundamental for delivering quality outcomes. That is why we are targeting the drivers of staff attrition and taking steps to improve recruitment, alongside a wider agenda of development in the workforce.

We welcome the Justice Committee’s important inquiry into the prison operational workforce and we have worked closely with the Committee to provide evidence. We are now closely considering the survey of prison staff, and I reaffirm that we take the issues of the morale and safety of staff with the greatest gravity. Prison staff do incredible work and, so often, are the hidden heroes of our justice system and society. In every prison I have visited, their dedication and drive are clear to see.

We fund a range of services to support staff wellbeing, which include care teams in public sector prisons that are trained to provide support to any member of staff involved in an incident at work. We are committed to making sure our prison staff feel safe, supported and valued, and we look forward to receiving the Committee’s full report and recommendations in due course.

The 2022-23 prison staff pay award was announced in July 2022. It represented a significant investment in the workforce. Alongside an increase in base pay of at least 4% for all staff between bands 2 and 11, we targeted further pay rises for our lowest-paid staff of up to £3,000.

The probation service is in its second year of a multi-year pay deal for staff. Salary values of all pay bands will increase each year, targeted at key operational grades to improve what has been a challenging recruitment and retention position. The pay increases differ for different job roles, but to provide an example, probation officers will see their starting salary rise from around £30,200 in 2021-22 to a little over £35,000 by 2024-25.

Let me respond briefly to some of the individual points made by colleagues during the debate. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) asked about crowding in prisons. The most recent statistics show crowding at 20.6% in the estate; by way of comparison, in 2009, that figure was 25.3%.

My near neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), raised the horrific crime of overkill. I have heard what she says and I will pass on those points within the Department.

I commend the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for his close association and work with the Prison Officers Association. I confirm that I will continue to look forward to speaking with the Prison Officers Association and other staff bodies throughout the Prison and Probation Service. He was right to identify the centrality of safety and security in people’s experience of work. I reassure him that we measure those things centrally through the key performance indicators that we have in prisons.

Multiple Members rightly talked about rehabilitation. Specifically on the question about education providers asked by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, it is true that there are four education providers contracted to provide education services through the prison system. However, there is also a flexible fund that enables individual governors to draw down funds to make supplementary provision in certain ways. It is important that we get a blend—that we are able to respond to local conditions and the specifics of a prison population, and have some commonality in the provision and in the qualification studies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am very grateful to all who have taken part in this important and valuable debate. I just wish more people had been here to hear it, but I hope that they will read at least some of what was said, because the issues raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House are important. They include the condition of prisons, and the issues raised by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on the legitimate concerns of the staff in our prisons, which should not be ignored. The points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) about families are also critical. I, too, look forward to the report of the Wade review.

There are positive things happening and there were positive suggestions from both Front-Bench teams. In some ways, we should try to find a more consensual approach to some issues of prison policy, because to put it right will require an approach that will span the lifetime of more than one Parliament. It is an important challenge, and I am grateful for the time for this debate today.

Question deferred until tomorrow at Seven o’clock (Standing Order No. 54).

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I am sure that the Lord Chancellor, as well as thanking the current Lord Chief Justice for his work, will welcome the appointment of Dame Sue Carr as the first woman Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and look forward to working with her, too. Does the Lord Chancellor agree that one of the real areas of concern and pressure on prisons is the growth in the remand population? In January, before he was appointed to office, the Justice Committee produced a report on remand, from which some recommendations were accepted and some were not. Will he revisit some of those recommendations and see what more we can do to bear down in particular on the growth in remand for people who after all have not yet been convicted?

[Alex Chalk]

Those are excellent points. Let me begin by joining my hon. Friend in welcoming Dame Sue Carr, whose appointment has been hugely welcomed across the political spectrum, across the legal sector and beyond. I also pay tribute to Lord Burnett. I think I speak on behalf of everyone in the House in saying that there is nothing but regard and respect for the contribution that he has made.

On remand, my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. It is worth reflecting that, compared with the pre-pandemic period, there are between 4,500 and 5,000 more of those people in custody. As he rightly pointed out, they have not been convicted of any crime. Technology, such as electronically monitored tags, can be of assistance. It is for the bench or the Crown Court judge to decide whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that, if released on bail, that person would commit further offences or fail to surrender, but I know that the courts will want to bear the technological options in mind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

Significant work is under way across the system to tackle victim blaming and disproportionate attention on victim credibility. As part of that, we developed Operation Soteria, which ensures that officers and prosecutors are focusing their investigations on the behaviour and offending pattern of suspects, rather than on subjective judgments of victims’ credibility. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady if she would like to discuss this further.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Will the Lord Chancellor confirm that it remains the Government’s intention to update and modernise our human rights law as necessary, but to do so while firmly remaining in adherence to the convention on human rights?

[Alex Chalk]

Yes, that is correct. Having carefully considered the Government’s legislative programme in the round, I can inform the House that we have decided not to proceed with the Bill of Rights, but the Government remain committed to a human rights framework that is up to date, fit for purpose and works for the British people. We have taken and are taking action to address specific issues with the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European convention, including through the Illegal Migration Bill, the Victims and Prisoners Bill, the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021 and the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, the last of which addressed vexatious claims against veterans and the armed forces. It is right that we recalibrate and rebalance our constitution over time, and that process continues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I have already welcomed the Lord Chancellor to his position. He will know that, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is not a legal maxim, but it is still a sound one that may apply in this case. If it were thought necessary to make changes to the human rights regime in this country, perhaps the report of Sir Peter Gross offers a better way forward, but does he also agree that his Department’s important priorities are those that affect people’s day-to-day lives in their interactions with the justice system? Ensuring that we have fully efficient and working court systems and an efficient and human prison system may therefore be higher priorities. Perhaps meeting the Bar Council and the Law Society to iron out the remaining matters from the Bellamy review and ensuring that we have a proper prison workforce strategy, rather than legislating, may therefore be his best priorities—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. You’re not in court now, Sir Robert. Come on.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

There is a very important distinction. When the Secretary of State considers those most serious cases, he will look at this issue of safety for the public. That is not whether, for example, the Parole Board has acted in such a way as to not be susceptible to judicial review; it is a much wider consideration so that the public can be satisfied not just that the Parole Board considered safety, but that the Secretary of State did, too, and that is an important second check. That matters, because in these most serious cases, public confidence is hanging on the single thread of the Parole Board. We want to make sure that an additional thread goes into that structure, so that the public recognise that there has been that second pair of eyes. Plainly, Ministers cannot over-politicise this process, which is why there must be an opportunity to have an independent review of the Secretary of State’s decision. That will allow us overall to have a much more vigorous and robust process that stands up for victims, but is also mindful of the rule of law.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Alex Chalk]

Oh, here we go. Yes, of course I will.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend, whom I warmly welcome to his place, for giving way. Can I just follow up the point made by my fellow Justice Committee member, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson)? There are passages in the Bill where, in carrying out that legitimate policy objective—I do not disagree with the Secretary of State on that legitimacy—in certain circumstances, as it is currently drafted, he may be asked to put his finding of fact and his opinion in the place of that of the parole board that actually heard the evidence. Could I therefore ask him to look very carefully at the evidence the Committee received—it is tagged to the Bill on the Order Paper—and find a more effective way to achieve his objective that is legally robust but fair, but does not place him and his successors in the very difficult position of trying to rehear facts at second hand, as opposed to taking the role of those who heard the initial evidence?

[Alex Chalk]

May I thank my hon. Friend, and say that I have read every word of that important evidence to the Committee? I thank him for the time he took to provide that additional scrutiny, which I found extremely helpful. He is absolutely right that the check and balance is a sensible one, but plainly it has to be operational. We have to be able to deliver it, and we have to be able to do so in a sufficiently timely fashion, ensuring that a decision is not offending against article 5 and so on, but also that all parties have certainty about what is actually going to happen. I hope he will be reassured by my saying that I am looking very closely at the operational aspects of this provision to ensure that it does what is intended, and provides that check and balance, while being deliverable and of course being consistent with the rule of law. If I may, I will now press on, because I know others want to speak.

Thirdly, we are already recruiting more ex-police officers to the Parole Board. Now we will ensure that individuals with law enforcement backgrounds can be included on panels considering the release of the most serious criminals. Their first-hand experience of assessing risk will bring additional expertise to parole hearings.

This Bill will also prohibit prisoners subject to a whole-life order from being able to marry or form a civil partnership in custody, subject to an exemption in truly exceptional circumstances. The rationale for this is simple. Those most dangerous and cruel criminals—the ones who have shattered lives and robbed others of their chance of happiness and a family life—should not be able to taunt victims and their families by enjoying that for themselves. It is simply unconscionable, yet as the law stands, prison governors cannot reject a prisoner’s application to marry unless it creates a security risk for the prison, however horrific their crime. Our changes will prevent whole-life prisoners from marrying or forming a civil partnership in prison or other places of detention. That is nothing less than basic fairness.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I start by warmly welcoming my right hon. and learned Friend to his position, to which nobody in this House is better suited. I know that he will fulfil it in the most distinguished manner; he comes to the position of Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor with a background in our criminal justice system that is second to none and a reputation at the Bar for scrupulous fairness and integrity.

My right hon. and learned Friend and I both used to deal in the same kind of work and we are both still in contact with many who work in the criminal justice system. His reputation as both prosecutor and defender was impeccable. It is right that the House should know that, and it is important because it means that he will know the importance of going on the evidence and of acting on a fair, rational and ultimately humane basis. The best prosecutors are the fairest and the most humane, and he was a very good prosecutor. I hope he will bring those attributes to the role of Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor.

My right hon. and learned Friend was also an active and distinguished member of the Justice Committee. I hope he will remember some of the work we did together. I am delighted to see another former Justice Committee member in the form of the Attorney General, who is sitting on the Treasury Bench as well. I feel a little like Banquo—not on the Treasury Bench, but the father of Law Officers. I am proud of having worked with both of them.

I turn to the Bill, which is an admirable place for the Secretary of State to make his debut. It is a bit dangerous to make classical allusions, but the Bill is a bit like Caesar’s view of Gaul—divided into three parts—and one can come to different judgments about those different parts.

Let me start with part 1, which relates to victims. It is welcome. It fulfils a manifesto commitment of our party, and I am glad to see it there. The Justice Committee very much appreciated the opportunity the Government gave us for pre-legislative scrutiny of part 1. That was helpful and I hope the Government found it so. We also welcome the fact that the Government accepted a number of our recommendations—in particular the inclusion of bereaved families specifically as victims in the Bill, the strengthening of the role of Victims’ Commissioner, and the statutory obligation on statutory agencies to make victims aware of the contents of the code.

Those are important steps forward, although, with respect, I think that more could be done. I particularly thank the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), for his constructive and full engagement with the Committee throughout the pre-legislative scrutiny. It was a good example of how such scrutiny can help the process. I might come back to that point in relation to other parts of the Bill.

I think that more could be done in some areas, but I nonetheless welcome the Bill. I suggest that we look at a couple of areas that the Select Committee picked up as the Bill goes forward. There are more areas as well. One is that although it is right to put the code on a statutory basis, there is a gap at the moment. If we give individuals legal rights, it is important to give them proper means of enforcing those rights and a proper remedy for their breach or for when there is non-compliance from the agencies charged with delivering those rights. At the moment, specificity is still lacking in that regard. As the Secretary of State knows, if we give somebody a right we must give them a remedy—that is basic sound law. At the moment, the clarity about the remedy is lacking. I hope that we can consider that as we go forward.

There is also an important point, which the Justice Committee report referred to, about victims of antisocial behaviour that does not end up being charged as a crime, for whatever reason. There would be no harm at all in adopting a more generous and broad approach on that issue, and I hope the Government will consider that. Our evidence on both points I have mentioned was pretty strong. Subject to that, however, this is a good part of the Bill, and I hope that we can work constructively across the House to improve some aspects of it.

Part 2, which deals with the appointment of an independent public advocate, is an addition that I broadly welcome. I know that there are those who will say that it does not go far enough, and I accept that. The Committee did not have a chance to look at it in detail, although we did hear some evidence connected with it in relation to other inquiries—notably from the Right Rev. James Jones, who did such fantastic work on the Hillsborough inquiry. I think there is something helpful to be learnt from that evidence. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), my fellow Committee member, for her exceptional work in relation to the Hillsborough disaster, and the work that has followed from that. Those in the House and beyond are in her debt.

While I think that the appointment of the independent public advocate will be valuable, I hope we can look at some other issues, in particular the scope of the scheme—the areas into which the advocate might be able to go—and the question of equality of arms for bereaved families at inquests when the actions of a state body are in question and that state body will inevitably be represented, at public expense, by lawyers, while the bereaved families are not. I hope that, for the sake of fairness, the Secretary of State will think again about that. Equality of arms is a concept with which both he and I are very familiar, and this strikes me as a gap in the system that it would not be onerous, in the overall scheme of things, to remedy.

Part 3 deals with prisoners and parole. Here I am afraid I must adopt a slightly different tone, because this is a rather less welcome addition to the Bill. That is not because the policy objective is wrong. As the Secretary of State said, it is clearly right and proper for the public to have confidence in our parole system, and that means there must be both a robust test of the grounds on which a prisoner can be released from sentence or moved to open conditions, and a robust system of ensuring that the test is applied. I think that the difficulty has been in the detail thereafter, and that may be reflected in the fact that this part of the Bill was not subject to any pre-legislative scrutiny. The Justice Committee wrote to the then Secretary of State offering to provide such scrutiny, but the offer was declined. I also note that the evidence we heard from the Parole Board only last week indicated only the most perfunctory engagement with the board itself. There was no face-to-face engagement; there was, I think, one meeting and a notification, effectively, after the event.

The Secretary of State, who has seen the transcript of that evidence session, will know that the Parole Board is a serious and expert body of people. As he rightly said, the vast majority of cases deliver results because people do not reoffend. It is perhaps surprising that a little more attention was not paid to the views of the board or, indeed, those of many other people working in the criminal justice system. The absence of outside consultation with almost anyone with knowledge of the system weakens the credibility of part 3.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

In his role as Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Gentleman has done some remarkable work on the Bill, and I pay tribute to him and his Committee. I was stunned, although not surprised, to hear that there had been no consultation with either him or the Committee on part 3. I am also not aware of any consultation with the broader non-governmental organisations, campaigners, charities and survivors. Is he aware of any such scrutiny?

[Sir Robert Neill]

The short answer is that none has come to my attention or that of the Committee. We did endeavour to secure a range of views, particularly from practitioners in the field. It is helpful to hear such views, and I therefore hope that as the Bill proceeds, the Secretary of State and his Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), will, as fair-minded people, find opportunities to take them on board.

What we want is a system that is robust, because that is critical, but also—as the Secretary of State said—a system that is operationally effective. One of my main concerns is that the evidence we did receive suggested, in respect of nearly all the principal aspects of part 3, that there were serious question marks over how operationally effective it would be. This is a classic case of where Committee improvements ought to be made, and I hope the Government will move to do that.

I want briefly to flag up some of those areas. The current test is a very short one of some 20 words, but it is robust. Essentially it says that the protection of the public comes first, and that is what we want to achieve anyway. It is expanded somewhat by a non-exhaustive number of other matters that can be taken into account. There is nothing wrong in that, but I hope that it does not make the test unduly complicated. It is also worth remembering that there is sometimes a misunderstanding, particularly in media reporting, in relation to the work of the Parole Board. That comes in two forms. First, as the Secretary of State said, in 99% of cases people released on parole do not reoffend, and that context is important. Secondly, there is a suggestion of some kind of balancing test, but that is not the case.

It is clear from the evidence that since the case of Knight in about 2017, the Parole Board very properly changed its guidance to reflect the primacy of the protection of the public test. I think there is an element in this part of the Bill of trying to solve a problem that does not exist and therefore a risk of over-engineering the system, which we might not need. So let us look again at the best way to do the test. There is nothing wrong with changing it, and perhaps nothing wrong with expanding it, but are we sure that we are getting this right?

The next matter is the way in which the Secretary of State will, from time to time, step in and review. There is nothing wrong with a review but I have two concerns about the way it is done. In certain cases set out in the Bill, it will be necessary, if the Secretary of State chooses to carry out those powers, to intervene and substitute the Secretary of State’s decision, including on the facts, for those of the board, which will have heard first-hand evidence. The Secretary of State is not in a position to hear first-hand evidence, so he would have to rely on a provision that enables a person to be appointed to interview the applicant for parole and then report to the Secretary of State. I do not think the Secretary of State would normally feel happy acting on hearsay in such circumstances, because at the end of the day it is second-hand evidence and he would have to substitute his judgment for that of those who had heard first-hand evidence. I am not sure that is a fair or satisfactory way of resolving that problem.

The second concern relates to the very proper means of review. As the Secretary of State rightly said, there has to be an independent review, but at the moment the suggestion is that, among other things, this could go to the upper chamber. I would ask him to reflect on the appropriateness of the upper chamber. Logically, the element within the upper chamber that would hear these cases is the upper tribunal. The upper tribunal, as a logical part of that, would be the administrative chamber, which is essentially there to deal with points of law; it is not a fact-finding body.

The route of application to appeal against the Secretary of State’s decision has two grounds. One is the normal ground of public law and judicial review—involving unreasonableness, for example—and that is fine. The administrative chamber no doubt deals with those kinds of things. This also includes an appeal on the merits, and it has to, to make it ECHR-compliant, but this would involve a rehearing, and the upper chamber has no experience of re-hearing the merits. So this route of appeal does not seem to be right or practical.

Another point to remember is that there is no requirement for leave in this route. If someone appeals to the upper tribunal on the ground of legal deficiency, such as unreasonableness, they have to get leave. If they apply on the ground that the Secretary of State got it wrong on the merits, they do not have to get leave at all and they can have a rehearing, so everyone who feels aggrieved at the Secretary of State’s decision will apply on the ground that they want to challenge the merits and therefore have a rehearing. The number of unmeritorious appeals will therefore greatly increase, which is hardly the objective of this piece of legislation. It would also put these matters into a chamber that—with absolute respect to those who sit in the administrative chamber—is not geared up to hear evidence to do rehearings. It is going to the wrong place, so I hope we at least reflect on a better means of achieving that end.

The same goes for the Secretary of State’s powers to intervene and rehear. Would it not be better simply to toughen the current power of redetermination? Surely asking for a case to be reconsidered by a differently constituted panel would be a more practical way forward. There are practical and sensible things that could be done, but unfortunately they were not picked up by the Bill’s drafting, perhaps because nobody who knows much about it was asked.

Clauses 42 to 44 disapply section 3 of the Human Rights Act for the purposes of these hearings. Whatever one’s view of the Human Rights Act, there is no evidence that this is a problem in such cases. In fact, the evidence we heard from practitioners, from both sides, is that it can be helpful to have to have regard to section 3 in these hearings. These clauses seem to be trying to solve a problem that does not exist, and I wonder whether we really need them. It is perfectly possible to have a robust system that still complies with section 3. This is a needless distraction that sends the wrong signal about a certain desire to pick unnecessary fights, which I know is not the current Secretary of State’s approach.

Clause 46 addresses the Parole Board’s composition and the appointment of board members. It is perfectly legitimate to have more people with law and order experience, which could be included as a category, but we must be careful to make sure there is no suggestion that the Secretary of State can say that a particular class of person should sit on a panel for a particular type of hearing, as that would go beyond independence. There is strong case law from our domestic courts, never mind elsewhere, to say that the Parole Board carries out a judicial function and therefore must have a proper degree of judicial independence. There is a risk that the clause, as currently drafted, offends against that.

The final issue that arises is with the power to dismiss the chair of the Parole Board. There is already a protocol for removing a chair of the Parole Board who loses the Secretary of State’s confidence, and it was exercised after the Worboys case—I think it is called the Mostyn protocol. Why do we need an extra statutory power when we already have a way to do it? Establishing a statutory power creates another problem, because clause 47 says that the chair of the Parole Board shall not sit on any panels of the Parole Board. When we heard evidence, no one could work out why, but it has subsequently been suggested to me that it would be interfering with judicial independence to remove a chair who is sitting on a panel.

Perhaps the answer is not to have the needless power to remove a chair, because we can see the illogicality: if we want a Secretary of State to be able to remove the chair of the Parole Board, we have to make sure they are not carrying out any judicial functions, because otherwise the Secretary of State would be interfering with judicial independence. But we already have a means of removing a chair of the Parole Board, and it works, so why go down this rabbit hole?

My observations on part 3 are intended to be helpful and constructive, and I am sure the Secretary of State and the Minister will take them on board.

The Victims and Prisoners Bill makes no mention of the continuing injustice, as the Secretary of State rightly said—the blot and stain on our judicial landscape—facing a particular class of prisoner: those imprisoned for public protection. The House recognised that indeterminate sentences had failed and so abolished them, but not retrospectively. An increasing number of people on open-ended sentences, which Parliament has abolished, are being recalled. People have no hope of their sentence coming to an end and, because they are also potentially subject to a life licence, more people have been recalled than are serving their original sentence. Something has gone badly wrong here, which is doubtless why Lord Blunkett, the creator of the sentence, said, “This has gone wrong and needs to be changed.” It is also why Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, a former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and not someone generally regarded as a soft touch in sentencing matters, said, “The only logical way to resolve this is to have a resentencing exercise.”

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I speak as an old boy of the Justice Committee. I do not want to rehearse the debate we had only a few weeks ago, but there seems to be some reticence among those on both Front Benches about the proposals the hon. Gentleman put forward through the Select Committee; they seem to think that they would result in the large-scale release of dangerous prisoners. Could he emphasise exactly what the Select Committee was proposing: a panel of experts carefully preparing a way forward on resentencing that balances public protection and the rights of the victims, with securing justice? That has the wholehearted support of organisations on the frontline, including the Prison Officers Association, the probation officers, the courts staff and, as he said, the former Home Secretary and the Supreme Court judge. This needs to be addressed now. If we do not use this Bill to introduce such a measure, we will lose the opportunity, possibly for another number of years.

[Sir Robert Neill]

The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right and I agree with him. We are in a hopeless situation at the moment and there has been a misunderstanding. The Select Committee took careful evidence and made a number of recommendations, not purely on resentencing, but on a number of other practical measures that may be taken to improve the way in which IPP prisoners are dealt with in the system. Frankly, at the moment, they are set up to fail. They have to go on courses, which they are told about only a few weeks before their parole hearing and the course waiting list is two years in some places, we are told. They may be in a prison where the courses do not exist or are not available. They are then on permanent licence, where they can be recalled at any time. There is scope to have that removed after 10 years. We can see no evidence as to why the period should not be five years, rather than 10. If somebody has shown willing and gone straight for five years, there is no evidence to suggest that going on for 10 makes any difference to the reoffending rate. So why do that? Why set people up to fail?

On the resentencing exercise, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly says, we were not at all seeking to say, “Everybody will be resentenced immediately. Everybody will be released immediately.” Having acted in some cases that involved sentences of this kind, I know that some people will always remain very dangerous. There are some people who, by the nature of the index offence, will remain in prison for a long time and the determinate sentence that they ultimately receive under our scheme may be a very long one. So the idea that that approach opens the doors is wrong. What it does do is give certainty to everybody and give hope. Tragically, I was informed that, in the four weeks after the former Secretary of State rejected the entirely of the serious recommendations of the Select Committee, three IPP prisoners took their own lives. I hope that there was no connection there, but it does not say much for the sensitivity with which this has been handled in the past. I know that that is not the view of this Secretary of State, who is a deeply humane man and will want to do justice by this.

The resentencing exercise is not something that can be done quickly. It would require an expert panel of people, including lawyers, to say how best to do it and to work it through. I beg the Secretary of State to think again about using this opportunity. I have had a clause drafted that would give effect to the Select Committee’s recommendation. I would much prefer it if the Government said, “We will pre-empt that and bring forward our own proposals to set up an expert panel.” That may take some time and it may not come into effect for a period, but it would at least give people hope that something serious was being done, that work was being followed up and that there was a willingness to look at the matter again; I would have thought that that was only fair. Equally, it cannot be fair that soon some people will have served longer than the maximum sentence for the offence of which they were convicted. That cannot be just. This is not being soft. It is just being fair and just and that is part of the balance of the system.

I commend the good parts of the Bill to the House, and commend the Secretary of State to the House and to the legal fraternity, who respect him highly. In considering those outstanding matters, I ask him to apply exactly the same test as he and I, and any other advocate worth their salt, have set to juries day in, day out: try the case on the evidence, go on the evidence and apply your mind fairly and dispassionately. That is the right approach. If he does that, we will come to some changes in the Bill.

Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Third Report of the Justice Committee, IPP Sentences, HC 266, and the Government response, HC 933.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to the Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee for enabling us to have this debate. I am glad to see the Minister in his place. I know he will take seriously what are grave matters that need to be raised—both the issue itself, and the complete inadequacy of the Government’s response to a considered report by a Select Committee. I welcome my fellow members of the Select Committee. This report had support across parties in the Committee and was based on detailed evidence. I regret that none of that evidence seems to have penetrated into the reasoning of the response.

Let me set out the situation. I regret that we have to have this debate. We spent a great deal of time considering this issue and, as I said, we had a detailed evidence base and a comprehensive report. I hope that with changes in the Department and a new Secretary of State, there will be more scope for the Minister, whose personal qualities I entirely recognise and respect, to revisit the position on this matter.

Sentences of imprisonment for public protection, or IPP sentences, are indeterminate—that is, they have no fixed end date. They were originally designed to ensure that dangerous, violent and sexual offenders stayed in custody for as long as they presented a risk to the public. IPP sentences were introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and came into effect in 2005. Following criticisms of the sentence and its operation, it was reformed in 2008 but, frankly, those reforms did not work satisfactorily either and the sentence was abolished by 2012.

The sentence was abolished largely because—this was accepted by the originators of the scheme, not least the noble Lord Blunkett and others, as I will come to later—the way the scheme was drafted and the number of offences that brought people within its scope, together with the lack of understanding and, at the time, judicial training on the matter, meant that far more people fell within the scope of the scheme than had been the political intention. Rightly, in 2012, the coalition Government, of which I had the honour to be a member, rectified that and abolished the sentence. However, they did not deal with those who were already serving sentences. In other words, the abolition did not have effect retrospectively for those who were already subject to the sentences.

In total, some 8,711 people received an IPP sentence. The sentence works in three parts. First, there is a mandatory period in prison known as the tariff. That is broadly based on the nature of the offence for which the individual is convicted and sentenced—that is, the tariff for that offence or the index offence, as it is sometimes referred to. Secondly, that is followed by indefinite detention until such time as the Parole Board determines that the person concerned has reduced their risk enough to be safely released. Thirdly, following that release, they are subject to a life licence in the community, from which they may be recalled if they breach their licence or reoffend. Ten years after their initial release, IPP prisoners can apply to the Parole Board to have that licence terminated. There is, of course, no guarantee that it will be.

Our inquiry was prompted by the serious concern, which has been ventilated in the media and both Chambers of this Parliament over a period of time, about the number of IPP prisoners who have never been released, despite the fact that the vast majority have served their tariff. Some 97.5% of IPP prisoners currently in prison have already served their tariff, and in many cases they have served well beyond their tariff. The last figures that we had showed that at the end of December 2022, there were 2,892 IPP prisoners, of whom 1,394 are serving their original sentence and have never been released.

Some 621 of those prisoners are at least 10 years over their tariff, and 222 of those had received a tariff of less than two years. To put that in stark terms, they have been in prison for something like five times longer than the index sentence that the court that sentenced them and the judge who heard the facts thought was the appropriate tariff for the offence for which they were convicted. The tariff was set at, say, two years or less—the going rate for that offence—and some have been inside for five times that. That is a stark and shocking figure.

Some 1,498 IPP prisoners in custody at the end of December 2022 have been released but subsequently recalled to custody. When we were doing our inquiry, it was suggested to us that, at the current rates of recall, the proportion will change so that a majority of the IPP population will have been released and recalled. That point has now been reached. More than half of IPP prisoners have been released and recalled for one reason or other, and I will come to that later. There are a number of problems with IPP sentences.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

It is actually starker than my hon. Friend sets out. One IPP sentence was given with a tariff of 28 days, so hypothetically somebody who received a 28-day tariff could spend 50 years in prison. Even in the worst banana republic, that would sound extraordinary, but that is actually what this sentence is about. We are going to keep people locked up indefinitely, even though in any other circumstances they would be released. Will my hon. Friend touch on that? I do not have the words to describe it, but I agree wholeheartedly with him.

[Sir Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, he speaks with great experience as a long-standing solicitor specialising in criminal work. He and I have seen this in our professional experience. We have perhaps seen rather more of the prison system than many of those who pontificate in either House or the media about what it is like.

This is a scandal. That is why one of the great supporters of reform, the noble Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood—one of the last Lord Justices of Appeal, one of the first members of the Supreme Court and one of the most distinguished lawyers of his generation—described it as a “stain” upon the reputation of the British legal system, and he is absolutely right. That is why, to his credit, the noble Lord Blunkett, when he gave evidence to us, said frankly, fairly and honestly, “This was not what we intended should happen with these sentences.” My hon. Friend is therefore entirely right to point out how stark that could be. We would be shocked if this were happening in some of the countries with which we do business, and we rightly criticise it elsewhere around the world.

One of the problems is that IPP prisoners face barriers to progression to prove they are no longer a risk within prison and, if they are released, within the community. The aim of our inquiry was to examine carefully and on the evidence the continued existence of IPP sentences and identify possible legislative and policy solutions to a situation that is, as my hon. Friend rightly says, really not acceptable.

The seriousness of those concerns and the strength of feeling about IPP sentences was reflected in the volume of evidence that the Justice Committee received. It was the largest number of submissions we have ever received for any inquiry that we have undertaken. Of course, I looked at all of them, and they included hundreds of handwritten letters, some going into considerable detail, from serving prisoners. They were moving, and articulate in many cases, but also frequently deeply distressing.

Beyond that, the Committee also proactively sought the perspective of all stakeholders affected by the sentence. That is why we took evidence from Lord Blunkett, who was the original architect of the scheme, and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former Lord Chief Justice. We also held private meetings and roundtables with affected parties, including people serving IPP sentences in the community, family members, legal professionals who have supported IPP prisoners, Parole Board members, prison and probation staff—it should be said that it is not easy for prison and probation staff to deal with people in this situation, and I suspect that there is also an injustice to them—and victims of IPP prisoners. I do accept that the victim’s perspective also has to be considered, so we deliberately and specifically sought victims’ views.

I thank all who took the time and effort to engage with our inquiry and to provide the evidence that underpinned our recommendations and conclusions. In particular, I thank Donna Mooney and Shirley Debono, both of whom gave oral evidence to us on behalf of the United Group for Reform of IPP. I think that some of the group are in the Public Gallery.

Donna Mooney shared with us the experience of her brother Tommy Nicol, who took his own life in 2015 following a second refusal of parole by the Parole Board. His tariff was four years; by then, he had already served six. Donna told us of the difficulties her brother Tommy faced in enrolling on courses that he needed to complete to demonstrate progression, and in accessing mental health support. He often told her and his family that his sentence was “psychological torture”.

Shirley Debono, whose son is a released IPP prisoner, told us that even those who have been released and are serving an IPP sentence in the community are immensely fearful of being recalled to prison. She described the licence conditions as “draining” and difficult to cope with. She said that her son had been afraid of the telephone in case it was the probation service calling. That is not a happy situation to put probation officers in, never mind anything else, including the difficulty that it causes people who are genuinely trying to rehabilitate themselves.

The Committee’s report considers the difficulties faced by IPP prisoners in progressing through sentences, and the psychological harm that that causes. Our evidence focused on actions that the Government should take to address the problem, and we began by considering the prison-based barriers to progression.

The psychological harm caused to individuals serving an IPP sentence was evidenced by a number of contributors to the inquiry, including those serving the sentence, family members and professionals who have experience of working with people who are serving the sentence. It was demonstrated clearly that rates of self-harm among IPP prisoners are high. Although it is good to see that the rate of self-harm thankfully reduced between the end of 2017 and the end of 2021, it is still almost double that for prisoners serving a determinate sentence. The Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody told us that as of May 2021, of the 250 IPP prisoners who had died in custody since the sentence came into effect, 65 had taken their own lives.

The Committee recently took evidence from the former chair of that panel, Juliet Lyon CBE. She told us that nine people serving an IPP sentence died last year. She said:

“It is something one cannot afford to forget. The utter hopelessness of their position means it is very difficult for them to maintain any sense of future; it seems just utterly sad and hopeless.”

Juliet Lyon has served in post for a considerable time and has decades of experience in the criminal justice system. Her wise words ought to weigh heavily. Sadly, I was notified that only two days ago another young man serving an IPP prison sentence took his own life in His Majesty’s Prison Manchester. This is still happening all the time.

Given the psychological harm that ensues as a result of the sentence and the conditions attached, many have argued that assessing risk is more complicated than it is for other prisoners. We heard that mental health need and risk are sometimes conflated and that poor mental health may therefore become a barrier to release—although, ironically, it is the serving of the indeterminate sentence that has triggered that poor mental health, and we have a vicious circle.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is giving a very powerful account, and I am very glad that the Select Committee mounted the inquiry. Figures released last year showed that an increasing number of prisoners assessed as needing to be in secure mental health units because they had chronic personality disorders, psychotic illness and so on were not being transferred because the beds were not available. The figure was up 81% in the last five-year period, compared with the previous five years.

Does the hon. Gentleman think that this is also a factor in trying to get the right support for people on IPP sentences, so that they get treatment and can make progress? The Government are now committing to a time limit of 28 days for transfer to hospitals for people who need it. Does he have confidence that that is going to happen?

[Sir Robert Neill]

I very much hope that it will, because it is certainly true that that was a problem. Delays in transfer to secure beds were demonstrated to us in the evidence. I hope the Government will move on that.

The other germane point is that because of the fear of the conflation of mental health need with risk, we found that many IPP prisoners were frightened to speak up about their poor mental health and get the help that they might need, because it might count against them in their risk assessment. Compounding that, even when there is mental health support, we found that IPP prisoners faced difficulty getting help, and that included transfer to secure hospitals.

We asked the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service to acknowledge the harm caused by the sentence and the challenges it presents to progression. We asked them further to set out how they intend to improve access to mental health support for IPP prisoners. The Government’s response did not set out any plans to improve access to mental health support specifically for this cohort of prisoners. Instead, it told us that which we already knew, setting out the work that is being undertaken to improve mental health support for all prisoners. That is welcome in itself, of course, like the 28-day limit that we have just discussed, but it entirely misses the point of what we asked about. We asked the Government to look again at the specific needs of the IPP cohort, separate from the general pressure that already exists, and to see what improvements can be made.

As well as the problem with accessing mental health support, there are concerns about the adequacy of offender behaviour programs and the availability of courses. Offender behaviour programmes and interventions are central to the IPP sentence. They are the primary means by which an IPP prisoner can demonstrate rehabilitation and risk reduction. If they cannot get on the courses or the interventions, they are being set up to fail, and too often that is the case. We heard of one prisoner who had a parole hearing coming up very shortly. He was asked to complete a course, but the waiting list for the course was two years. A system in such a state of affairs is simply dysfunctional.

We asked the Government what they are doing to expand the availability of courses, to reduce waiting lists and to ensure that IPP prisoners are held in the appropriate category of prison. That was a problem we found, too. We also asked that the Government publish a report that they had commissioned on the offender personality disorder pathway, and that they set out more generally how they will ensure that programmes deliver adequate outcomes.

The Government only partially accepted those recommendations. Their response noted that places on programmes and other interventions were disrupted by the pandemic. Of course I accept that, and many of the submissions we received from prisoners expressed concern about that too. In our ongoing inquiry into the prison workforce, we have also heard concerns about staffing pressures affecting prisoners’ access to courses. I hope the Minister will come back to us now that the pandemic is out of the way and set out in more detail what work is under way to ensure that IPP prisoners’ progression is not hindered by such circumstances—lack of access to courses and so on—which, in fairness, are beyond their control. And why, oh why, is it not possible for the Government to respond specifically to our request for the publication of the report on the offender personality disorder pathway? What is there to hide about it? Why can we not have it published?

We heard that, as well as the prison-based barriers to progression, people serving an IPP sentence also face barriers in the community on release. We have particular concerns about what we termed in our report the “recall merry-go-round”, which sees released IPP prisoners returned to prison following their release, in some cases time and time again. That is why we heard clear evidence that reducing the qualifying period to have the licence removed from 10 years to five years would go some way to restoring proportionality. If someone has been on an indeterminate sentence, persuaded the Parole Board that they can be safely released and been able to show, for five years, that they can stay out of trouble and move on, what is the magic in making them wait another five years, with these things hanging over their head, to reach 10 years?

The decision to recall an IPP prisoner is made by the probation service, and the reasons for recall vary. The Government’s position seems to be that they do not accept that offenders serving the sentence in the community are being recalled unnecessarily. In November last year, the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), told us in oral evidence that, in the 12 months to the end of 2021, 34% of IPP recalls were the result of new offences, rather than—in his words, not mine—

“tripping up over onerous licence conditions.”

Well, first, he did not deal very much with the 66% for us. Secondly, even in relation to that 34%, when we asked how many of those charges resulted in further prosecution or conviction—some might have been dropped because there was never evidence to justify them, which happens in the system—the answer was that the Government do not know:

“the required data is not routinely collated”.

How can the Government insist that every recall of someone serving an IPP is necessary for public protection if they do not know the basic data? There is an underlying problem with the collection and use of data in the justice system anyway, and that is a particularly egregious example, if you will forgive my saying so, Mr Twigg. Perhaps the Minister could explain why that is the case, and what can be done to correct it?

I am glad the Government have asked the chief inspector of probation to conduct an independent thematic inspection on whether IPP recalls are necessary and proportionate. Certainly, we heard evidence all too often that there was something of a tick-box exercise in relation to some of the recalls, which really are not based on risk. Of course, where there is genuine risk, any person on licence—whether it is IPP or not—should be considered for recall, but the risk must be genuine; these things should not happen, as is the case sometimes, purely because of a failure in communications, or because of a failure to bear in mind that many people find it really difficult to get their lives back on track straightaway after such sentences. It will not be a straight, linear progression, and there does not seem to be enough recognition of that in the recall process. There are probably better ways in which we could keep a hold on people, technologically and otherwise, and track their movements and so on without the need for the nuclear option of recall, if I can put it that way.

That is why we particularly want to press the Government on why they have not taken on board our recommendation of going down to five years for the licence to be removed. It is worth saying that among those who said they would support a reduction from 10 years to five years was Martin Jones, the chief executive of the Parole Board. The people who deal with this themselves—the Government’s own experts—see the force in that, but the Government will not listen to them.

We were disappointed to see that the Government rejected that entirely, opting instead to review the policy and practice of suspending just the supervisory element after five years of good behaviour. It is a small step, but it really does not do justice to the evidence presented on that point. I hope we can have a fuller explanation of what their reasoning was, because it just is not apparent from their response. Let us also have the opportunity to think again about that. We presented the evidence base. Where is the Government’s?

Since June 2022, the Secretary of State has been required to automatically refer every eligible IPP prisoner to the Parole Board for licence termination at the 10-year point, and to do so in every subsequent year. I hope that that will help with the number of licences terminated, but I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on the number of referrals made since then and on how many licences have been terminated, because the intention may be good but we want to know whether it actually works in practice.

This is a long topic, and I want to make as much progress as I can to do it justice, so I will now turn to our main recommendation. When the IPP was abolished in 2012, that was because it was found to be unfair. In particular, it led to a lack of clarity and consistency in the way that two people who had committed the same crime might be sentenced, and to uncertainty for victims and families about when their assailants or family members might be released. In 2012, Parliament agreed that IPP sentences are fundamentally unjust, but there are still people serving them. Successive Governments acknowledged the problem, and there have been efforts by Members of both Houses to change the arrangements. Lord Blunkett was very frank with us when he expressed his profound regret at the setting up of the sentence. He said:

“I got it wrong. The Government now have the chance to get it right.”

I just hope the Government will.

On our key recommendation, although we can make various improvements to the process inside and outside prison, the real issue is that we have to bite the bullet and get rid of this irredeemably flawed system by enacting primary legislation, so that we can have a resentencing exercise for all prisoners still serving an IPP sentence on licence. That was clear from the evidence we had, and the recommendation was overwhelmingly supported. Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, a former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, called resentencing the only “inevitable” outcome. He said:

“It is the only fair and just thing to do.”

That is why we made that call, and it was not made lightly. We recognise that there are concerns about resentencing, particularly for victims of crime, who have perfectly valid concerns about making sure that there is no risk to them or their families. It should be said that we never envisaged that a resentencing exercise for determinate sentences would automatically mean that every IPP prisoner would be released. We have to be honest with IPP prisoners and their families and say that there will be some for whom a determinate sentence would necessarily be a long one, and that they would not necessarily be released immediately or in a short time. But many probably would be, and all of them, however long their determinate sentence, would have finality, some certainty and the prospect of some hope. In other words, they would have the basic fairness that everybody else gets in the prison system.

To deal with this difficult issue, we suggested having a small, expert and time-limited panel to advise on the shape that the primary legislation and the scheme might take. We did not try to draft it ourselves. All we were saying is that we need to balance protection of the public with justice for the individual offender—that is a basic principle of sentencing anyway—the need to preserve the independence of the judiciary and the need to ensure that we do not, even inadvertently, retrospectively increase a sentence. None of those, we believed, were impossible, and with expert support and political will all those things can be done.

Many people had great hope raised by that recommendation, and we had moving letters from prisoners about it. I am afraid that some of those hopes have been dashed by the nature of the Government’s report. They did not just reject our key recommendation on resentencing; they did so with such a scarcity of evidence to support their reasoning that, frankly, they demonstrated no engagement whatever with the evidence and reasoning behind our recommendation, and nor did they reflect on our efforts to explain the complexities of a resentencing exercise, including the risks to the public and how they could be overcome. The Government fell back on simplistic mantras, if I may say so. I am embarrassed to have to say that about a Government of my own party. It is not the way that I, as a Conservative, have normally treated these matters, and I do not believe that the Minister would either—he was not the person responsible for drafting the response. It is as shoddy a response as I have ever seen to a Select Committee report.

I am, however, pleased that the Government have followed through on their commitment to publish the IPP action plan, which came out two days ago. I welcome that, and I am grateful to the Minister for it. We look forward to engaging with him in taking it forward and seeing how it operates in practice.

I am sorry to have taken so much time to set out what I think is a compelling case. We are now in a position to move on. It is political will that is needed now. There is a new Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, who is someone who has considerable experience of the criminal justice system, so they know what prisons are like not just as a politician—there is nothing wrong with that—but as a lawyer who has been in practice for many years and who has dealt with the complexities of sentencing for many years. There is a chance for a fresh start and for the Government to say, “We will think again about this. We need to revisit our response. We need to recognise that we did not do justice to all the evidence presented to us.”

I know that the Minister, who is a fair man in all our dealings—I genuinely mean that—and a humane man, as is the Secretary of State, will want to go by the evidence, and there is now no obstacle to prevent them from doing that. I hope we will hear answers from the Minister to the specific concerns we have raised and also a sense that the Government are prepared to revisit something. There is no shame in saying, “We got this wrong.” There is no shame in Lord Blunkett saying, “I got it wrong. It was for the best of reasons, but I got it wrong.” There is massive credit in that. There would be no shame in the Government saying, “The response we gave was not up to scratch. We will go back and look again.” I hope they will reconsider, reflect and do that following this debate, and I hope the Minister will be able to signal to us that they are open-minded on that.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

If Members take no more than nine or 10 minutes for their speeches, I will not have to impose a time limit. I will call the Opposition spokesperson no later than 2.40 pm. Members should bob if they wish to speak. I call John McDonnell.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill]

Will the Minister set out, either here or in the Library, what evidence he has that suggests the risk is significantly greater at five years as opposed to 10? What statistics lead to that decision?

[Damian Hinds]

We will continue to engage with my hon. Friend’s Committee in the normal way. It is perfectly reasonable of him to challenge us. I was coming on to say something about the licence periods.

Although we will not be reducing the eligibility period for licence termination at this time, we have committed in the action plan to review the current policy and practice for suspending the supervisory elements of IPP licences to ensure that all cases are considered at the point when they are eligible, which, for the supervisory element, is after five continuous successful years on licence in the community. My hon. Friend will be aware of the changes that we made in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 in regard to making sure that eligible cases are brought forward.

Colleagues have expressed legitimate concern about the high number of IPP offenders recalled to custody, and asked about the proportionality of that. I assure colleagues that in 2020 His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation did a thematic report on recall in terms of its proportionality, and it found that decisions to recall were proportionate. As part of our action plan, we will be internally reviewing our recall processes. We are also asking His Majesty’s inspector of probation—the chief inspector—to undertake a thematic inspection of recalls specifically for IPP and for that to happen in this calendar year. He will also look at the weeks leading up to recall—I know that this is a significant point that matters to colleagues, and rightly so— and consider whether, had the support on offer been different, recall could have been avoided. I thank the chief inspector for stepping up to undertake that piece of work.

I will move on to the IPP action plan, but first may I ask what time I must finish by, Mr Twigg?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill]

I thank all Members who have spoken so powerfully in the debate. Of course, we look forward to engaging with the Minister and the Government on the action plan, but I must say that closed minds still seem to prevail in relation to the key issue of resentencing. If the Government will not move, Parliament must move for them. I have prepared a draft clause to enact the recommendations of the report for a resentencing exercise, and I shall not hesitate to move it when the Victims and Prisoners Bill returns to this House. I hope it will have support from across the Chamber.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Third Report of the Justice Committee, IPP Sentences, HC 266, and the Government response, HC 933.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The initiatives that the Government have introduced are very welcome. One of those is the pre-recorded cross-examination under section 28, but, to make that work, there has to be a proper level of remuneration for advocates on both sides to ensure that we have skilled and experienced barristers prosecuting and defending those cases. What arrangements have now been made to finalise the conditions and terms of payment for section 28 proceedings with both defence and prosecution barristers? Until we get that right, we will not get the cases through at the speed we wish.

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his question. We have already introduced the statutory instrument to increase that uplift for those lawyers conducting the section 28 pre-recorded evidence. It has now been rolled out nationwide and it will start to make a difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

We showed only last week, when we brought together more than 40 countries to give effect to the International Criminal Court mandate to investigate and prosecute war crimes in Ukraine, how we are leading the charge and upholding the international rule of law. That is not helped, however, by abuses of the system, particularly, as suggested by her colleague the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), foreign national offenders using elastic interpretations of human rights to frustrate a deportation order. That is the ill that we will cure in addition to strengthening quintessential UK rights, such as freedom of speech.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Last year, the Government rightly accepted the Bellamy review’s recommendations on criminal legal aid, one of which was the establishment of an independent advisory board. When will the Government publish the board’s membership and detailed terms of reference?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the Chair of the Justice Committee. They will be published very shortly.