Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences

Debate between Robert Neill and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 27th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[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.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and Kerry McCarthy

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I need to make some progress, so I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me. I have not much more to say.

Let me explain how this procedure will work. The proposed use of the affirmative procedure takes account of the fact that this amendment addresses only EU legislation that is in train, but not wholly in effect. These pieces of legislation have been subject to policy input and scrutiny processes, so they are very limited in number.

Support for this approach comes from two practitioner-based groups in the City: the International Regulatory Strategy Group, which I referred to in debate yesterday, and the Financial Markets Law Committee. The strategy group includes most of the key players in the London financial world. The law committee is an independent body drawn from leading practitioners in City firms and institutions and from members of the judiciary—in fact, it is chaired by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who recently retired as Lord Chief Justice. Their imprimatur is likely to indicate that this modest proposal has a pretty strong parentage in terms of its expertise and application.

The two bodies identify potential sources of legal uncertainty affecting the wholesale financial markets. Let me give two examples. First, there is the situation regarding the second payment services directive. The directive will apply from next year and will be domesticated, but important regulatory technical standards that will underpin the operation of the directive are not expected to be finalised by the European Banking Authority until after Brexit. At the moment, the Bill will not allow us to adopt those standards into UK law. The amendment would give us a streamlined means to deal with that.

Some of the provisions of the prospectus regulation came into force over the summer, and some important elements are due to take effect in the months after Brexit. Do we have to go through full primary legislation to incorporate that, or do we deal with it through a streamlined procedure? The City institutions and practitioners think it would be much more sensible to have the procedure I propose, so that they have certainty that they will not have delays in the primary legislative process. They can then have the regulation in place, and they are already prepared for it.

That is the nub of the amendment. I am grateful, again, to the Remembrancer’s Office of the City of London for its assistance with the drafting. I am sure the Minister will want to find the means to achieve what is set out in the amendment. I hope that he will be able to respond and find a means of taking this forward.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to my new clause 25, which has cross-party support. The Minister has already praised me from the Dispatch Box for the clarity with which I have spoken to it, but I can reassure him that now this really is me doing so. I also support new clauses 55 and 58. All these new clauses relate to retaining enhanced protections after exit day. As will be evident from other measures I have tabled, including new clause 28, which is in today’s second group, my main concern is retaining the valuable environmental protections that flow from our EU membership. However, of course, employment rights, equalities, and health and safety standards, as set out in new clause 58, which was tabled by Labour Front Benchers, are also vital, and the same arguments apply to them.

Persecution of Christians

Debate between Robert Neill and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

I would not want to separate it out and just talk about it in the context of freedom of religion. We should discuss it generally in the context of human rights abuses. We have taken steps in countries where we think that there is corruption—

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

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kerry McCarthy]

May I just finish answering the question?

In several countries we would give aid directly to agencies working in the field, rather than putting it into the Government’s coffers, because of concerns about corruption and a lack of democracy. That might be a way forward when we have concerns about a country’s human rights record, particularly if there are recognised and well-established agencies, such as UN agencies, working in those countries that we can trust to deliver aid without discrimination and without supporting any measures that persecute people. As I have said, I think that we should look at a country’s record in the round. It comes down to whether we trust its Government to spend aid money in the way we expect them to.

[Robert Neill]

I do not think that we disagree with anything the hon. Lady has said, but why does she seem so reluctant to phrase her contribution in terms of religion and the particular persecution suffered by Christians? We are all in favour of human rights for everybody, but there is a particular and pressing concern about Christian communities around the world. Will she not be more specific in her response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) on ensuring that aid reflects discrimination against Christian and other religious bodies?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am sorry, but I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not think that we should start carving up human rights by saying that some abuses are worse than others. That would be entirely wrong, because there are countries in which people of other faiths are being persecuted and killed, and we see persecution when we look at violence against women and attacks on LGBT communities. I accept that the persecution of Christians is a growing problem and that it is horrific in many countries, but I just do not think that we should divide it up. I think that we should look at whether a country respects human rights.

This year saw the launch of the Commonwealth charter, which was trumpeted as the first time that all Commonwealth countries had signed up to a statement of shared values. I attended the Commonwealth parliamentary conference in Johannesburg this year. There was a lot of controversy, because it became apparent that not all the countries represented shared the same values, particularly when it came to LGBT rights.

I will return to the issue of religious freedom. The Maldives has signed up to the Commonwealth charter and so is deemed to share the Commonwealth values of respect for human rights, but its constitution states that a person is not allowed to be anything other than Muslim, as we have heard, and no Christian gatherings or buildings are allowed. Citizens have to be Muslim, and that is enforced by pressure from families, society and the state.

Bangladesh is another Commonwealth country. The Bangladesh Minority Council has lobbied and met me to highlight the treatment of Christians, Buddhists and, in particular, Hindus, who now comprise just 7% of the population. In Pakistan, as we have heard, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and Ahmadis are at serious risk of violence and intimidation. Members will know the case of the Christian girl arrested last year for allegedly burning pages of the Koran, which brought to public attention the impact of the blasphemy laws in that country. We have also heard about another Commonwealth country, Nigeria, where horrific acts of violence against Christians are being carried out. We have to question what we can do within the Commonwealth. If we say that the Commonwealth is a club of shared values, what can we do when members of that club do not seem to be putting those principles into practice? It is really important to take that question forward.

The hon. Member for Strangford rightly highlighted the plight of Christians in Syria. Of course, that is not the only country from which Christians are being forced to flee. Open Doors has warned that Christians are on the verge of extinction in Iraq, where their population has fallen from 1.2 million in the early 1990s to just 333,000 today. In Iran, Christians have had to flee their homes or the country, Muslims who have renounced Islam face the death penalty and Christians are being sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking communion wine. The special rapporteur on human rights in Iran reported that more than 300 Christians have been arrested since 2010, including Saeed Abedini, who was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for this work with the house churches. Other faiths, not least the Baha’i, also face persecution in Iran.

On Burma, we know about the religious tensions in Rakhine state, where the Rohingya Muslims’ faith is a factor, as well as their ethnicity, but Christians in Burma have suffered persecution too. The Chin Christians have been targeted for their ethnicity and their faith. A report by the Chin Human Rights Organisation documented cases of forced labour, more than 40 separate incidents of torture, and 24 official complaints from Chin Christians of human rights violations, including rape and extra-judicial killing, where no action was taken against the perpetrators.

As we heard earlier, Open Doors ranked Saudi Arabia second on its world watch list, with only North Korea ahead of it. Conversion to a religion other than Islam is punishable by death, and Christian worshippers risk imprisonment, lashing, deportation and torture. It is important to note that last month saw the elections, mostly uncontested, to the Human Rights Council, of which Saudi Arabia and the Maldives, as well as China, are now members. I echo the comments I made about the Commonwealth club. If these countries are to be members of the Human Rights Council, they need to be demonstrating in their own countries that they are putting respect for human rights into practice.