Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Victoria Prentis

Thursday 19th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

6. What recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Crown Prosecution Service in ensuring access to justice for victims of crime.

[The Attorney General (Victoria Prentis)]

The Government are committed to ensuring that victims are treated fairly and compassionately. We know that joined-up working across the criminal justice system works, and we know that supporting victims makes a real difference. That is why we are spending four times as much on victim support as was the case in 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dhesi]

Shockingly, according to the latest figures, more than 6,400 Crown court cases have been waiting more than two years to be heard. That is up more than two thirds on last year alone. What does the Attorney General have to say to the victims, who, to their despair, have found that their lives have been put on hold while they are waiting for justice? And what does she say to those who can no longer cope with any more delay even if that means having to let their case collapse?

[The Attorney General]

I am happy to say that the hon. Gentleman and I share a local Crown prosecution area in Thames and Chiltern where the local victim attrition rate is well below the national average. It is running at about 13%. Any attrition is too high, and we want to make sure that we support victims to enable them to continue to bring their cases. That is why we have put in place about 800 independent sexual violence advisers to help those victims feel supported and able to go to trial.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Victoria Prentis

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis]

I would be delighted to meet colleagues to discuss this important subject. New measures in the Bill specify that a dog will be considered to be at large unless it is on a lead of less than 1.8 metres or the dog remains in sight of the owner, who is aware of the dog’s actions and is confident that the dog will return if called .It is important that we continue to work on these details to get this absolutely right.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

If he will bring forward legislative proposals to set a target for the abundance of wildlife species by 2030.

Imprisonment for Public Protection

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Victoria Prentis

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Dhesi]

My hon. Friend’s excellent point encapsulates the mental health issues and the intertwined nature of what we are discussing. I will elaborate further on the mental health problems faced by prisoners.

In 2009, Tommy Nicol received an IPP sentence with a minimum four-year tariff for stealing a car from a mechanic’s garage and injuring a man’s arm in the process. Once his tariff was completed, the Parole Board refused his request to be released and told him he should access a therapeutic community, in order to address his mental health issues and become safe to be released.

Tommy’s mental health suffered as he was repeatedly denied access to mental health treatment courses. He was moved to prisons that did not even offer those courses, making proving that he had been rehabilitated increasingly difficult. In November 2014, he made a formal complaint saying that IPP sentences were a form of “psychological torture”. Around that time, he also began to self-segregate and went on hunger strike. His behaviour became increasingly erratic as he understandably struggled to deal with the psychological impact of his situation. Tommy tragically took his own life in prison in September 2015.

James Ward was given an IPP sentence in 2006 with a tariff of only one year for setting light to his mattress while in prison serving a fixed sentence for a fight with his father. He ended up serving not one year but 11 years.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the case of arsonists is often serious in the IPP sentence structure? Because of the links between arson, sex offending and reckless behaviour, arsonists have been disproportionately affected.

[Mr Dhesi]

The hon. Lady ably makes the point about arsonists who end up serving a lot longer than they should. It is not fair.

During those 11 years, James Ward regularly self-harmed and his mental health deteriorated significantly. He has since spoken out about the damage that the IPP sentence did to his mental health, telling the “Today” programme:

“Prison is not fit to accommodate people like me with mental health problems. It’s made me worse. How can I change in a place like this? I wake up every morning scared of what the day may hold.”

IPP sentences leave prisoners in limbo, with a lack of access to courses and treatment. Those cases show how much more needs to be done to address the issue faced by those serving IPP sentences. They also highlight a particular issue for IPP-sentenced prisoners, namely being unable to complete the courses that the Parole Board has told them will help to demonstrate that they are safe for release. That is partly because we face an increasingly violent and overcrowded prison system, where there are simply not enough places on development courses and therefore not enough opportunities for short-tariff IPP-sentenced prisoners to demonstrate that they no longer pose a risk.

There are other problems, which are easier to fix. For example, the families of IPP-sentenced prisoners have said that prisoners are prioritised for places on courses based on how close they are to their release date. Because IPP-sentenced prisoners do not have a fixed release date, they fall to the back of the queue and can struggle to ever get on the appropriate courses. I would be grateful if the Minister provided an update on what is being done to address that issue.

IPP sentences have a huge impact on prisoners’ mental health, as they would do on anyone locked up and deprived of their liberty with no end in sight. They create a sense of despair and hopelessness, which can have a significant impact on an individual’s mental health. This is demonstrated by the fact that IPP prisoners are significantly more likely to self-harm than determinate-sentence prisoners and even life-sentence prisoners, which is an amazing statistic. This is borne out by numerous reports, such as those by the Prison Reform Trust, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at King’s College London.

Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons found that IPP prisoners were significantly more likely than life-sentence or determinate-sentence prisoners to have arrived in their current prison with problems, including feeling depressed and suicidal. Mental health issues are already endemic in our prison system, with at least one in three prisoners reported to have mental health issues by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons reports. The real figure is likely to be greater.

Instances of self-harm are already too high, with 55,598 in 2018 alone. We need a comprehensive and fully-funded strategy for the reduction of all forms of violence in prison, including self-harm, and that must include special support for those on IPP sentences. Will the Minister outline what special provision is made to tackle the mental health conditions of IPP prisoners, especially those with shorter tariffs, who have served way beyond their tariff and probably never expected to be in this situation?

Another issue that affects the prisoner’s ability to rehabilitate and turn their life around is recall. When an IPP-sentenced prisoner is released, they are released on licence, with strict licence conditions that must be followed. Breaching those conditions can result in recall to prison. In many cases, that is a correct and appropriate response, but there are cases where technical breaches—for example, missing a probation meeting due to unforeseen illness or travel delays—have resulted in recall to prison. The excessive use of recall to prison for minor breaches of licence has contributed to the number of IPP prisoners remaining in prison staying stubbornly high. Families of those serving IPP sentences have called for a more reasonable approach to recalls to be taken, to ensure that only those breaches that suggest that someone poses a risk should necessitate the deprivation of an individual’s liberty.

Minor breaches of licence conditions are often not crimes in and of themselves, but simple things, such as missing appointments and breaching administrative conditions. The ex-head of the Parole Board told of offenders sent back to prison for turning up drunk at their bail hostel, even though that presented no risk to anybody. Repeated recall to prison while on release on licence also prevents an IPP prisoner from securing housing and holding down a job, both factors that are proven to reduce reoffending rates. Indeed, 936 people on IPP sentences were released by the Parole Board in 2017. In the same year, 543 people on IPPs were recalled. This is a complex and serious issue that will be tackled only through proper co-ordination between the Ministry of Justice, prisons, probation services and the police. Will the Minister outline his Government’s strategy to tackle the issue of recall?

The only way that an IPP prisoner can finally be entirely released from their sentence is to apply to the Parole Board, 10 years after their release from custody, to have their licence ended. Many experts and campaigners have rightly pointed out that this is simply too long and sets people up to fail. Does the Minister have plans to amend this?

Before concluding, I will highlight the impact of IPP sentences on our justice system. Such sentences do not just have a detrimental impact on the mental health and stability of offenders, both while in prison and during release on their extraordinarily long licences; they are detrimental to the efficient running of the prison and parole systems. The Parole Board has historically heard the cases of offenders given longer sentences than those who were subject to IPP sentences, but is now forced to conduct a lengthy risk assessment process for short-tariff offenders on IPP sentences. There is also no doubt that the rapid increase in the number of prisoners on IPPs contributed to prison overcrowding, which continues, despite the abolition of IPP sentences, because many IPP sentence prisoners face difficulties in demonstrating that they are safe to be released.

The prison population has risen significantly since 1994, especially following changes to minimum sentences since 2000. The UK now has the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe, with 141 prisoners per 100,000 of the population. Our prisons are often dangerously overcrowded, with many prisons operating at significantly over their certified capacity. Such overcrowding has a detrimental impact on safety, which has deteriorated considerably under this Government; prisons are substantially more violent than in the past. Overcrowding has also had an impact on the ability of prisons to rehabilitate offenders effectively; Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons has repeatedly raised it as an area of concern because it affects the resources available to reduce reoffending.

It is now time for IPP sentences to be resolved. Continued calls for further change—including from former Justice Secretaries, from Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons and from the chair of the Parole Board—have focused on the unfairness for prisoners who are still serving IPP sentences and on the challenges that they create for the prison system. Abolishing new IPP sentences was the correct course of action, but there is still more to be done to address the issues that face those who were sent to prison for a short tariff that has effectively turned into a life sentence.

The families of those on IPP sentences are making proposals that may well offer a way forward. For example, Donna—the sister of Tommy Nicol, who I referred to earlier—is now campaigning for reforms to the system that prisoners on IPP sentences face. She has called for the sentences of those who are serving initial tariffs of four years or less, as her brother was, to be converted to fixed sentences. Is the Minister looking at that? There are many suggestions for reforming these outlawed sentences to ensure that public safety and justice is served. Suggestions from the criminal justice reform sector include converting IPP sentences to fixed-length sentences, starting with shorter tariffs, and protecting the public with minimum licence periods.

The Government need to finish the job that they started. Their challenge now is to lay out how they will ensure that this wrong is finally righted. Until it is, it will remain a stain on our justice system.