Oral Answers to Questions

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

One by one, various countries have been challenged on that front, and one by one the more restrictive measures are falling. Some have no restrictions at all, and just allow prisoners to vote. It was necessary for the Government and my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister to take the best legal advice on what could protect us against the risk of future claims and judgments, draw a line under that and comply with legal objections. That is the basis on which we arrived at four years, and as I have just explained, there is some logic in putting a four-year threshold in, as we can refer back to the old definition of long-term imprisonment to explain rationally why we have chosen that threshold.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

It is worth reminding the House that details of plans to allow people serving sentences of up to four years to have the vote was given via press release on the last Friday before we broke up for Christmas. May I ask the Secretary of State what role Ministers in his Department played in the Deputy Prime Minister’s plans, and can we take it that he, his Ministers and all the Law Officers agree with the Deputy Prime Minister that four years is the appropriate threshold?

[Mr Clarke]

I was obviously involved in the collective discussions, as were colleagues, and we took the best legal advice. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the previous Government accepted the legal obligation. The Government in which he recently served undertook two consultations, and they canvassed four years as a possibility. [Interruption.] With great respect, they did canvass four years, and they also accepted that prisoners should vote in all elections, including local government elections and referendums. We have drawn back from that. We are proposing that they should vote only in parliamentary and European elections.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

We addressed this problem in the Green Paper, on which we are consulting. It is quite obvious that the IPP system has never worked as either the previous Government or Parliament intended. Indeed, the previous Government made one attempt to revise it to stop the unexpectedly large numbers of people who were going into the system. IPP prisoners are almost all high-risk, and they should be released only once they have been assessed by the Parole Board, but of course it is extremely difficult to form judgments about the risks that they pose when they are in prison and sometimes unable to access rehabilitation courses. We published our proposals in the Green Paper and are now consulting on them, but we have no intention whatever of putting the public at more risk by releasing people without some assessment by the Parole Board. However, it has to be a sensible assessment that can sensibly be made.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I welcome the last part of the Secretary of State’s answer in particular. He will be aware that indeterminate sentences are given to serious criminals such as the ring leaders in the grooming of vulnerable girls for sex convicted last week at Nottingham Crown court. He will appreciate concern that, in his desire to reduce the prison population, he may release dangerous convicted prisoners prematurely. He talked about those currently serving IPPs who have served their minimum tariff. How soon does he think his proposals will have an impact on those prisoners, and how will he address the British public’s legitimate concerns?

[Mr Clarke]

At the moment, more than 3,000 people on an IPP sentence have completed their minimum tariff, which is the punishment for the crime for which they are sent to prison, and a very small proportion of those are being released. The numbers are piling up all the time, and recommendations are frequently made to the Department that the matter has to be re-addressed, because we have more than 3,000 people whose release from prison is totally uncertain. We are now consulting and there will be legislation in the spring, which will have to be enacted and improved by the House before a new system comes into effect. That system will retain the need for the Parole Board to make a sensible assessment of whether the risk posed by those in question can properly be managed in the community.