Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Judith Cummins(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Shabana Mahmood)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on the independent inquiry into grooming gangs, the appointment of its chair and panel, and the inquiry’s terms of reference.
I know that, for many, this day is long overdue. For years, the victims of these awful crimes were ignored. First abused by vile predators, they then found themselves belittled and even blamed, when it was justice they were owed.
In January, my predecessor asked Baroness Casey of Blackstock, who is here with us today, to conduct a national audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse. With devastating clarity, Baroness Casey revealed the horror that lies behind that jargonistic term. It is vital that we, too, call these crimes what they were: multiple sexual assaults, committed by multiple men, on multiple occasions.
Children were submitted to beatings and gang rapes. Many contracted sexually transmitted infections. Some were forced to have abortions. Others had their children taken from them. But it was not just these awful crimes that now shame us. There was also an abject failure by the state, in its many forms, to fulfil its most basic duty: protecting the young and vulnerable.
Worse still, some in positions of power turned a blind eye to the horror, or even covered it up. Despite a shameful lack of national data, Baroness Casey was clear that in some local areas where data was available
“disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds”
were “amongst the suspects”. Like every member of my community who I know, I am horrified by these acts. We must root out this evil, once and for all. The sickening acts of a minority of evil men, as well as those in positions of authority who looked the other way, must not be allowed to marginalise or demonise entire communities of law-abiding citizens.
What is required now is a moment of reckoning. We must cast fresh light on this darkness. In her audit, Baroness Casey called for a national inquiry. In June, the Government accepted that recommendation. Today, I can announce the chair and panel that will form the leadership of the inquiry, and a draft of the inquiry’s terms of reference.
The inquiry will be chaired by Baroness Anne Longfield. As many in this place will know, Baroness Longfield was the Children’s Commissioner from 2015 to 2021. She has devoted her life to children’s rights, including running a charity supporting and protecting young people, and working for Prime Ministers of different political parties. In recognition of her service, Baroness Longfield was elevated to the Lords earlier this year. At that point, she took the Labour Whip, which she will now resign on taking up this appointment.
Alongside her, I can also announce her two fellow panellists. The first is Zoë Billingham CBE. Zoë is a former inspector at His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, and currently serves as chair of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS foundation trust. She brings deep expertise in safeguarding and policing, specifically in holding forces to account. The second panellist is Eleanor Kelly CBE. Eleanor is the former chief executive of Southwark council. In 2017, she supported the survivors of the London Bridge terrorist attacks, and the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire of the same year. Together, the chair and panel bring deep experience of championing children’s rights, knowledge of policing and local government, and, crucially, a proven track record of holding powerful institutions to account. Each individual was recommended by Baroness Casey, and her recommendation follows recent engagement with victims. The first thing the chair and panel will do, alongside Baroness Casey, is meet victims later this week.
Today, we also publish the draft terms of reference, which I will place in the House of Commons Library. Baroness Casey was clear this inquiry must be time-limited to ensure justice is swift for those who have already waited too long. For that reason, it will be completed within three years, supported by a £65 million budget. The inquiry will be a series of local investigations, overseen by a national panel with full statutory powers. Baroness Longfield has confirmed that Oldham will have a local investigation. The chair and panel will determine the other locations in due course. No area will be able to resist a local investigation.
These terms of reference are clear on a number of vital issues. The inquiry is focused, specifically, on child sexual abuse committed by grooming gangs. It will consider, explicitly, the background of offenders, including their ethnicity and religion, and whether the authorities failed to properly investigate what happened out of a misplaced desire to protect community cohesion.
The inquiry will act without fear or favour, identifying individual, institutional and systemic failure, inadequate organisational responses, and failures of leadership. It will also work hand in hand with the police where new criminality comes to light, be that by the perpetrators or those who covered up their crimes. The inquiry will pass evidence to law enforcement, so they can take forward any further prosecutions and put more of these evil men behind bars.
The inquiry must, and will, place victims and survivors at the forefront, with a charter setting out how they will participate and how their views, experiences and testimony will shape the inquiry’s work. As I have said already, the terms are in draft form. The chair will now consult on them with victims and other stakeholders. They will be confirmed no later than March, when the inquiry can begin its work in earnest.
Alongside launching this inquiry, Baroness Casey's audit contained a number of other recommendations, which the Government accepted in full. As the inquiry begins its work, we continue righting these wrongs. I can announce today that I have commissioned new research from UK Research and Innovation to rectify the unacceptable gaps in our understanding of perpetrators’ backgrounds and motivations, including their ethnicity and religion. My predecessor wrote to all police forces calling on them to improve the collection of ethnicity data, and while the Home Secretary does not currently have the power to mandate that it is collected, I will rectify that by legislating at the earliest possible opportunity.
The Department for Education is currently interrogating gaps in “children in need” data identified in the audit, which seem to under-report the scale of this crisis. The Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), will soon publish the findings of an urgent review of that data conducted by her Department. Across Government, the audit identified that poor data sharing continues to put children at risk. As a result, we are introducing a legal duty for information sharing between safeguarding partners. We are creating a unique identifier for every child, linking all data across Government, and we are upgrading police technology to ensure data can be shared across agencies.
The audit also identified an absurdity in our legal system, which saw some child rapists convicted of lesser crimes. As a result, we are now changing the law to make clear that children cannot consent when they have been raped by an adult, so perpetrators are charged for the hideous crime they have, in fact, committed.
While the law has protected abusers from the consequences of their crimes, it has too often punished victims. Some survivors were convicted for crimes they had been coerced into, continuing their trauma to this day. We are already legislating in the Crime and Policing Bill to disregard offences related to prostitution, and the Ministry of Justice is now working with the Criminal Cases Review Commission to ensure that it is resourced to review applications from individuals who believe they were wrongly criminalised.
The national audit identified further weaknesses in relation to taxi licensing. Abusers were applying for licences in areas where controls were lax to circumvent protections put in place by local councils to tackle abuse. My right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary will soon be legislating to close that dangerous loophole in the regulation of taxis.
The audit was clear that justice has not been done. Baroness Casey requested a new national police investigation to bring offenders to justice. Last month, the National Crime Agency launched Operation Beaconport to review previously closed cases of child sexual exploitation. It has already flagged more than 1,200 cases for potential reinvestigation, more than 200 of which are high-priority cases of rape. The evil men who committed those crimes, and thought that they got away with them, will find they have nowhere to hide.
Finally, the audit called on the Government to fund the delivery of its recommendations. Alongside investment in the inquiry itself, I can announce today that a further £3.65 million will be committed this year to the policing operation, survivor support and research into grooming gangs.
That work is essential, but there can be no justice without truth. Today, I have announced the chair and panel of an inquiry that will shine a bright light on this dark moment in our history. They will do so alongside the victims of these awful crimes, who have waited too long to see justice done. This inquiry is theirs, not ours, so I call on all those present to put politics aside for a moment and to support the chair and her panel in the pursuit of truth and justice. I commend this statement to the House.
Shabana Mahmood
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her long work exposing many of the issues herself in her area, which will now be the subject of the national inquiry. She is right: it is utterly shocking and defies comprehension that people whose only job was to look after vulnerable children failed in their duty to those children. The inquiry will ensure that those people face ultimate accountability for their failures.
I hear my hon. Friend’s point about the inquiry covering every single area, and there is no doubt that child abuse occurs in every part of the country. One of Baroness Casey’s recommendations was that the inquiry be time-limited, because so many of the victims and survivors have waited so long for a proper measure of justice in their cases. She recognised that there is a necessary trade-off between the inquiry being time-limited and it being able to go to every single area. I am sure, though, that the inquiry, the chair and the panel will engage constructively with Members across this House to ensure that they get to the right areas and can draw the lessons that will then lead to national recommendations. Even if the lessons come from a smaller cohort of areas, all the recommendations will apply absolutely everywhere.
The Government have invested billions in child protection measures already in this Parliament, but I recognise the call that my hon. Friend has made. I am sure that when the recommendations are made, the Government will respond on money in due course.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
The despicable, sickening crimes that we have heard about today were first reported in the press more than 20 years ago, and the victims have already waited far too long for justice, so we welcome today’s announcement. We also welcome other details in the statement, including reforms to ensure that children cannot be considered to have consented to sexual activity with adults—the fact that that was the case is a shame on our nation—and moves to close loopholes in taxi licensing, as well as the points about data collection.
Some questions remain about the process. How will the Government ensure that the inquiry remains fully independent and free from political influence and pressures regardless of the strong pressures it will face, including from in this House, and that it runs to timetable? Are Ministers still in touch with the women who recently resigned from the previous panel to offer them the chance to rejoin the process now that it is gaining some pace? What steps will the inquiry take to maintain the trust of the victims and their families? Will the Home Secretary commit to implementing all the previous recommendations from the previous Casey and Jay reviews?
The national audit highlighted the incompleteness of data, but it was suggestive of concerning trends related to the modes of organisation and how they relate to ethnicity, particularly in the areas where police were recording appropriate data. The Home Secretary rightly mentioned cohesion in her statement. How will this inquiry avoid stigmatising entire communities and undermining efforts to improve cohesion in this subject and in others adjacent while thoroughly investigating the matter and ensuring that victims get the justice they deserve?
Migration: Settlement Pathway
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Judith Cummins(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend brings a huge amount of personal experience to this discussion, having been a Minister herself, and she has a very august track record as a Select Committee Chair, so I will always take seriously any suggestions that she makes. I will discuss with my ministerial team the detail of what she suggests. Our principled position is that it is right that people pay fees for visa extensions, and that we move from a five-year to a 10-year qualifying period for settlement. We are not consulting on whether we move from five years to 10 years, which is already decided policy. What is set out in the consultation are some of the other questions that sit underneath that. I will happily discuss that with her, because I know she has much experience in the area of Home Office capacity and how we build a system that can work effectively, not only in being delivered by the state but in providing certainty for the people who ultimately want to make their lives in this country.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before I begin, I beg your forgiveness for taking a few extra seconds to reflect on the exchanges in this Chamber on Monday. I would like to use this opportunity to put on the record my utter contempt for those who abuse the Home Secretary and anybody else who is abused based on the colour of their skin or their religion. That is not what Britain stands for.
The Home Secretary will, of course, choose the language that she wants to use in this debate, and I will choose my language too. The constructive and moderate tone of voice that I and the Liberal Democrats will use in discussions about immigration will remain, as will our attempts to help offer feedback as and when the Government bring forward proposals. The number of Liberal Democrats present today shows that we are not ignoring this issue; indeed, we have as many in the Chamber as there are Reform Members—and none of them is here.
Like others, we are aware of the issues facing communities up and down the country, and immigrants who live here too. We agree with the Home Secretary that faith must be restored in the immigration and asylum system, as I stated on Monday, and we agree that that requires changes to policy. Of course, most of what we are discussing today is distinct from some of the discussions we had on Monday about desperate refugees and asylum seekers.
We also believe that it must be acknowledged that prior to Brexit and the removal of nearly all safe and legal routes, this country had a more rational and controlled approach to immigration and asylum. The Conservative party is responsible. We think it is regrettable that the Government have not made quicker progress towards building stronger links with Europe in their work on getting control of our immigration policy, and we believe that discussions about regaining control must also come with a proper discussion about the opportunities that that provides and the potential risks.
Changes to pathways to settlement must be done with regard to the economy and public services, and with fairness to individuals. We are concerned about the chilling effect that some changes could have on the economy. The UK is fast becoming a less competitive place for science and innovation, not least because of Brexit. The cost of a five-year global talent visa to Britain is £6,000 per person—around 20 times more expensive than comparable visas in our competitor countries, where similar schemes typically cost a few hundred pounds. It is no surprise that so few researchers come to Britain on these visas every year. Cancer Research UK alone spends £900,000 annually—money that could be better spent on setting up research labs instead.
The Government must also be careful about the effect that their rhetoric and policy will have on our public services. The NHS is heavily reliant on nurses and staff who are not British nationals. Has the Home Secretary made an assessment of the risk that some will leave, and what steps are this Government taking to develop domestic talent in the health and care sector?
Shabana Mahmood
It is immoral if we stand by and watch people make dangerous crossings, pay thousands of pounds to criminals, and put their lives and those of others at risk, while we do nothing. That would be a total dereliction of duty. It would also be a dereliction of duty for a Labour Government to continue to preside over a broken system, or to not have the mettle to go ahead and reform that system, and then watch as we lose public consent for having an asylum system at all. I think it is existential for us to have public consent for the asylum system, which is why all the changes are so necessary.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call Bobby Dean, with a very short question.
Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I thank the Home Secretary for her confirmation about the five-year pathway for Hongkongers—that is a promise kept to them. The statement was otherwise a series of push measures. I am always fascinated by how much more difficult it gets, when it comes to the individual decisions made within the system. To push the Home Secretary on the Boriswave, which she has criticised, the vast majority of those figures were made up of Hongkongers arriving here under the BNO scheme, Ukrainian refugees, and deferred student visas after the covid pandemic. Which of those measures does she think was a mistake?
Asylum Policy
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Judith Cummins(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Reform)
I welcome the rhetoric in the Home Secretary’s announcement. In fact, I recognise her rhetoric. We have our plan for restoring justice, and she has announced a plan to restore order and control. However, before she puts in her application to join Reform UK—and I would very much welcome her doing so—may I just draw out the difference between our parties?
Unlike the Government, we do not propose to give illegal immigrants the right to stay here for two and a half years after arriving; we do not propose to give them the right to study and work here; we do not propose to allow them to bring their families here; and, crucially, we are not going to contort our law to comply with and fit into the European convention on human rights. The derogations announced by the Home Secretary will not work to stop the lawfare, just as the derogations announced in the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 would not have stopped the lawfare, which is why I opposed that Bill as well. She talks about—
Shabana Mahmood
I do not think there was a question in there, Madam Deputy Speaker. As for the hon. Gentleman’s invitation to join his party—hardly any of whose Members appear to be present—let me say to him, “Over my dead body.”
Shabana Mahmood
I urge my hon. Friend to look at the proposals on protection work and study and on safe and legal routes. It is right that we try to pivot to a more humane system that privileges those who come not via paying people smugglers a lot of money. On family reunification, British citizens at the moment have to meet thresholds and various qualifying tests before they can apply for family reunion. I think it is right that we bring the position in relation to refugees through the protection work and study route to the same level.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. Members will have seen how many Members are on their feet. I will need to finish this statement by 8 pm, so please bear that in mind, because I want to get everybody in.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
I welcome a sizeable amount of what the Home Secretary has said and is trying to do. Earlier this year the immigration and asylum chamber of the upper tribunal in the case of IX reiterated the established administrative law requirements that Government decision making in asylum cases be proportionate and reasonable and not expose individuals to prolonged or indefinite uncertainty—something that the Home Office used to criticise, under the Tories in fact, as a lengthy limbo period. Can the Home Secretary clarify how her proposal to require a 20-year period before someone granted asylum may obtain a permanent right to remain complies with these fundamental principles?
Shabana Mahmood
I will clarify a point of fact. The hon. Member said that I describe myself as a child of immigrants. It is not a description; it is just a statement of fact. Everything else she said is beneath contempt.
Shabana Mahmood
I am happy to say to the hon. Gentleman that it was not misleading; it was just wrong, so I can clarify that for the record.
I say to the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) that I think it is a fair point of debate to point out that the Green party often indulges in hypocrisy. I shall look carefully at what her colleague has said in relation to the large military sites, but I say to her that the Green party never seems to offer any solution, only commentary that does not work.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank both Members for their points of order. Their comments are now on the record.
Independent Sentencing Review
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Judith Cummins(7 months ago)
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Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right. We have to cut crime, have fewer victims and make sure that our streets are safe. That is why we have to make sure that we never run out of prison places, that we never see the breakdown in law and order that would ensue were that to happen, and that we take forward a package of measures that I have announced today. We work on the legislation in the coming weeks and months, which will be designed to make sure that we do not run out of prison places, that we put victims first, and that we cut crime in this country.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call Tristan Osborne for the last question on this statement.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
Leaving the best until last, Madam Deputy Speaker.
As a former police officer, I can say that community payback works. Does the Lord Chancellor agree with me and many of my colleagues in the criminal justice system that rehabilitation of offenders, including filling potholes and clearing fly tipping, is popular, not only in Chatham and Aylesford but in Newark and across the country?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. I am determined that we toughen community punishment and make sure that unpaid work truly pays back to the communities that have been harmed by crime. That is why I work with businesses and local authorities, so we can all have a system that drives down reoffending—a system where reparations are made to the communities that have been harmed by crime, whether they are in Newark, Birmingham Ladywood or indeed anywhere else.
Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Judith Cummins(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Shabana Mahmood
I know that the shadow Lord Chancellor followed it closely. I am setting up a women’s justice board, which will report with a strategy in the spring. We need to do more with female offenders, especially given the impact that the incarceration of women and the breaking up of family homes has on their children, particularly as two thirds of women in prison are there for non-violent offences. I hope there is cross-party consensus in this House on dealing with women offenders differently.
On prison capacity, I say gently to the shadow Lord Chancellor that we can trade numbers across this Dispatch Box about things that the last Labour Government did before 2010, or he might want to acknowledge the failure that took place over his Government’s 14 years in power. He knows that only 500 net prison places were added by his Government over those 14 years, and that the crisis that faced me when I walked into the Department was acute—he knows that, because he had walked out of that same Department only a few days before. The previous Government ran our prisons boiling hot for far too long, so my inheritance when I took over was dire, leaving me with no option other than the emergency release of prisoners.
I note the shadow Lord Chancellor’s point about domestic abuse and domestic violence cases, but I remind him that his own early release scheme that his Government implemented for many months before the last general election—the so-called end of custody supervised licence scheme—contained none of the SDS40 exclusions. He knows that; he also knows that we pulled every lever available to us within the law to exclude the offences that are most closely connected to domestic abuse and domestic violence. As a matter of law, it is only possible to exclude offence types, rather than offenders. I have had to pull that emergency lever; I have sought to do so in the safest way possible, to make as many exclusions as possible, and to give the Probation Service the time it needs to prepare for this measure and to make sure victims are notified under victim notification schemes in the usual way.
I will be publishing the data in relation to tranche 1 and 2 releases in two ad hoc statistical releases before Christmas, so that data will be in the public domain. As the shadow Lord Chancellor will know from his time in the Department, the recall rate usually hovers between 6% and 10%—it can vary quite a bit between those numbers. Our current information is that the SDS40 releases are not showing a higher recall rate than we would expect compared with normal releases, but those statistics will of course be published in the usual way in due course.
On hotels, I made provision to allow the emergency use of hotel accommodation for prisoners released under the SDS40 scheme to prevent any homelessness that might lead to higher rates of recall. Fewer than 20 prisoners have been housed in hotels, and at a very low cost. This is a temporary measure, and I do not anticipate that it will be used any more extensively than it has been already. On foreign national offenders, I will return to this House on that matter, but work is under way across Government and I am working closely with my colleagues in the Home Office.
I will be publishing for the House, and will return to the House with, the detail of the further measures on the home detention curfew. The shadow Lord Chancellor rightly says that not everybody is automatically eligible for a home detention curfew. There is still a risk assessment, and safeguarding concerns are the No. 1 way in which domestic abuse issues show up as a red flag for a particular prisoner. I would not imagine that those previous and current arrangements will change very much with the measures we will take.
I thank the shadow Lord Chancellor for the contract concluded with Serco to deliver the tagging. It may not have been him directly and personally, but it was his Government. The performance of Serco has been unacceptable. Let me be very clear with the House: there is no shortage of tags in this country. It has failed to make sure that it has enough staff in place to tag everybody who needs a tag. Its progress has been monitored daily by me, my Ministers and officials in the Department, and we will continue to hold its feet to the fire. We will levy financial penalties, and all options remain on the table. Performance has improved a little—it has made progress—but all options are on the table if that falls back in any way.
The shadow Lord Chancellor will know that I am not going to comment on anything relating to the Budget. The Chancellor will make her statement in due course. I gently remind him that the budgets of the Ministry of Justice under the Tory party left a lot to be desired.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
I welcome the approach the Lord Chancellor is taking to the management of the prison system, and the appointment of David Gauke to head the sentencing review. Given that the initiatives she has announced today to relieve pressure on prisons will create additional work for already overstretched probation officers, will she make a further statement when she has decided what operational changes she is going to make to the Probation Service? The additional 14,000 prison places she has promised to build will take prison capacity to above 100,000. Is that desirable in the long term? Given her intention to expand punishment outside prison, will she make it her aim in time to close some of the worst of our existing prisons, built two or three centuries ago, which warehouse crime and, despite the best efforts of prison staff, do little or nothing to reform or rehabilitate their inmates?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his questions. On probation, I recognise the very high workloads that probation officers are working under. We committed in our manifesto to a strategic review of probation governance. I have made sure that we have brought forward the recruitment of an extra 1,000 probation officers by March next year. We are working closely with probation unions and probation staff on the frontline to manage the situation. I am very conscious that we do not want to take the pressure out of the prisons and just leave it with the Probation Service instead. This is a whole-system response, and the whole system needs to be stabilised and able to face the pressures we see in it.
On the prison population, make no mistake: the number of prison places will increase in this country. We will deliver the 14,000 the previous Government did not deliver, and the prison population will therefore rise. However, as I have said, we cannot build our way out of this crisis, and we do have to do things differently. We are a very long way away from any of the changes the Chair of the Select Committee may want to see, but fundamentally we must make sure, and the review must make sure, that we never ever run out of prison places in this country again.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement.
Having myself grown up in a home of domestic violence at the hands of my mum’s former partner, I share the concerns of the Victims’ Commissioner and survivors of domestic abuse that loopholes in the early release scheme’s criteria could mean that some of their abusers, who have been convicted of violent offences but not of domestic violence-specific offences, may have been released early today. I know the Secretary of State attempted to provide some reassurances, but I can say to her that I have received communications from affected people outside this Chamber who are not satisfied with those assurances yet. Domestic abuse survivors deserve to be safe. Can she address these concerns today?
We welcome the Government’s determination to fix the mess that the Conservatives made of our criminal justice system through the evidence-led, independent sentencing review. The former Lord Chancellor chairing it and I have a track record of fixing things together. In my past life, I used to run a social enterprise phone repair company staffed by ex-offenders, and we ran pop-up repair shops in the MOJ, at one of which the then Lord Chancellor David Gauke eagerly presented his phone for repair. I hope this Lord Chancellor shares that collaborative fixing spirit when it comes to engaging with the Liberal Democrats and me on this review—and I will happily sort the Secretary of State out with a phone repair if she needs one.
While empirical evidence will be critical to this review, some of the most valuable insights on this matter are held by victims and survivors themselves. I was therefore disappointed not to find the words “victim” or “survivor” mentioned once anywhere in the terms of reference, although I have heard the Secretary of State say them today. Will she put that right, and outline specifically how victims and survivors will be represented and formally consulted in the sentencing review?
Finally, even though the Secretary of State has said there will be no constraints and no constrictions, something else missing from the review is the injustice of indeterminate imprisonment for public protection sentences, under which almost 3,000 people remain imprisoned with no release date. What is more, people are serving IPP sentences who have committed lesser offences than those being released today under the Government’s early release scheme. Reforming these sentences could help address prison overcrowding and the safety crisis, so why have the Government explicitly excluded IPP sentences from this review, and will she reconsider that decision?