The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab) My
Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat a Statement made
in the House of Commons by the Lord Chancellor yesterday. The
Statement is as follows: “With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I
would like to make a Statement on how the Government will address
the crisis in our prisons, not just today but for years to come.
The House has heard me recount my inheritance as Lord Chancellor
before. The...Request free trial
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice () (Lab)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat a Statement
made in the House of Commons by the Lord Chancellor yesterday.
The Statement is as follows:
“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a
Statement on how the Government will address the crisis in our
prisons, not just today but for years to come.
The House has heard me recount my inheritance as Lord Chancellor
before. The crisis in our prisons was, I believe, the greatest
disgrace of the last Conservative Government. They left our
prisons on the point of collapse—a situation that would have
forced us to close the prison doors, cancel all trials and force
the police to halt arrests. Crime would have gone unpunished,
victims would never have seen justice done and we would have
witnessed the total breakdown of law and order. The previous
Prime Minister knew he had to act. His Lord Chancellor begged him
to do so, but instead he called an election.
As I announced to the House on 18 July, we had no choice but to
bring forward the release point for some prisoners. Some of those
serving standard determinate sentences have seen the custodial
element reduced from 50% to 40%, spending the rest of their
sentence on licence. They can be recalled to prison should
probation staff judge that necessary to protect the public. As we
saw over the summer of disorder, these releases could not come
soon enough. After the August bank holiday, we were left with
fewer than 100 spaces in our men's prisons. The system was held
together only by the heroic work and considerable good will of
our prison and probation staff. We were, on many occasions, just
one bad day from disaster.
Today, the second tranche of emergency releases takes place,
creating desperately needed space in our prisons, but that is not
the long-term solution. I will now set out the long-term plan for
our prisons, which will ensure that never again is a Lord
Chancellor placed in the invidious position that I was on taking
office.
This must begin by building more prisons. For all their rhetoric,
the last Conservative Government's record on prison building was
abject. They like to mention that, between 2010 and 2024, they
built 13,000 places. What they are less keen to admit is that, in
the same time, they closed 12,500. In 14 years, they added just
500 places to our prison capacity. In our first 100 days, this
Government are already close to matching that. The previous
Government promised to build 20,000 new places by the mid-2020s,
but by the time they left office they had built only 6,000. They
were simply too terrified of their own Back-Benchers, who
supported prison building vociferously, as long as those prisons
were not built anywhere near them.
This Government will build the prisons that the last Conservative
Government promised but failed to deliver. In seeking a lasting
solution to our prisons crisis, we must be honest in a way that
my predecessors were not. We cannot build our way out of this
problem. Every year, our prison population grows by around 4,500
prisoners. This is a question of simple mathematics. To build
enough prisons to meet that demand we would have to build the
equivalent of HMP Birmingham—which is in my constituency of
Birmingham Ladywood—four and a half times over, every single
year. To put that in context, in the past 10 years, the last
Conservative Government built just three prisons. While we will
speed up prison building and build as fast as we can, that pace
is simply impossible. For that reason, if we are to address our
prisons crisis, we must be smarter about who receives a prison
sentence.
Let me be clear: there will always be a place for prison, and
there will always be offenders who must be locked up, but we must
expand the range of punishments we use outside prison and
consider how we punish those offenders who have broken our rules
but are not a danger to society. For that reason, today I am
launching a review of sentencing. It will have one clear goal: to
ensure that we are never again in a position where we have more
prisoners than we have space in our prisons.
The review will follow three principles. First, sentences must
punish offenders and protect the public. For dangerous offenders,
prison will always remain the answer. Punishment and public
protection will be the Government's first priority. There are
some offenders whom I will task the review with considering, such
as prolific offenders, who account for just one in every 10
individuals, but nearly half of all sentences. Some of them are
hyper-prolific offenders, committing hundreds of crimes. I will
ask the reviewers to consider whether a longer sentence might
punish them better and force them to engage with rehabilitation
on the inside.
The second, related, principle of the review is that sentences
must encourage offenders to turn their backs on crime—we need
both sticks and carrots. I will be encouraging the reviewers to
learn from others who have succeeded. In Texas, for instance,
Republican legislators faced a problem similar to ours: a soaring
prison population; sky-high reoffending rates; and prisons that
had run out of space. Working across political divides, the
Texans introduced a system of good behaviour credits, where
well-behaved prisoners could earn time off their sentence by
engaging in rehabilitation programmes. The results were
remarkable. Crime fell by nearly a third, reaching the lowest
levels in half a century. The prison population fell by over
20,000, and after two decades, the Texans had closed 16 prisons
rather than building new ones.
The third principle of the review is that it must expand the
punishment that offenders receive outside prison. There are
already ways that we severely constrain offenders, limiting their
freedom outside prison. Those under home detention curfews are,
in practice, under a form of house arrest. With a tag on their
ankle and a sensor in their home, they are placed under curfew,
generally for 12 hours each day. Should they break that curfew,
they can be picked up and, if needs be, locked up.
In some ways, punishment outside prison can be even more
restrictive than prison. It is a sad fact that in many of our
prisons today, a drinker can all too easily procure a drink. On a
sobriety tag, however, with their sweat measured every 30 minutes
and a 97% compliance rate, their teetotalism is almost as strict
as mine. All of that is just using the technology that is
immediately available to us, and used already in this country. I
will be inviting the reviewers to consider the technology they
have available to them now, and the next frontier of technology,
used in other countries but not yet in ours. I believe that the
modern world presents us with the opportunity to build a prison
outside prison, where the eyes of the state follow a prisoner
more closely than any prison officer can.
Moving punishment out of prison for those who can be safely
managed there has huge benefits. Outside prison, offenders can
engage in work that pays back the communities and individuals
they have harmed. The evidence is abundantly clear that those who
serve their sentences outside prison are far less likely to
reoffend. That cuts crime, with fewer victims and safer streets,
and reduces the huge cost to society of reoffending, most
recently valued at over £22 billion a year.
This Government believe that crime must have consequences and
criminals must be punished. We also believe in
rehabilitation—that those who earn the right must be encouraged
to turn their backs on crime. This Government believe in prison,
but we must increase the use of punishment outside prison too.
The sentencing review will be tasked with pursuing those
goals.
I am pleased to say that the review will be led by a former Lord
Chancellor, , a highly regarded Minister who
served in multiple roles across government. He has rightly gained
the respect of both the judiciary and the legal sector, as well
as many within this House. I will work with him to assemble a
panel of reviewers who will draw together deep expertise and
experience in the criminal justice system. The review will take a
bipartisan and evidence-based look at an issue that has for far
too long been a political football, booted around by both sides.
will report back with his
recommendations in the spring, and I have placed a copy of the
complete terms of reference of the review in the Library of the
House.
It is right that the review is given time to do its work. As I
have noted already, however, the capacity crisis in our prisons
has not gone away. When we introduced emergency measures, we
believed that they had bought us about a year. But, after the
summer of disorder, the next crisis could be just nine months
away. For that reason, I announced last week an extension of the
sentencing powers of magistrates' courts, which allows us to bear
down on the remand population in our prisons. But we must go
further.
While I will not countenance any further emergency releases of
prisoners, there are operational measures that I will lay before
the House in the months ahead. The first, which I have already
referenced, is home detention curfew. This modern form of house
arrest curtails freedom and helps offenders turn their lives
around. Offenders are subject to electronically monitored
curfews, which must be imposed for nine hours a day, are
generally 12 hours long and can extend to 16 hours.
As the shadow Lord Chancellor noted in the House in February, the
reoffending rate for the average prisoner, which was measured a
few years ago, is close to 50%, but for offenders released on a
home detention curfew it is 23%. This Government will soon extend
the use of that measure, following in the footsteps of the
previous Administration, who rightly expanded its use on a number
of occasions. We will increase the maximum period that eligible
offenders can spend under house arrest from six months to 12
months.
The second measure that we will introduce will address the
soaring recall population, which has doubled from 6,000 to 12,000
in just six years. Risk-assessed recall review is a power of the
Secretary of State to re-release, on licence, those who pose a
low risk to the public, avoiding the long waits they often face
for a Parole Board hearing. In the past, the measure was used
often: it was used between 1,000 and 1,500 times each year
between 2017 and 2019, but its use has fallen in recent years,
reaching as low as 92 times in 2022.
Later this month, I intend to review the risk-assessed recall
review process, so that lower-risk cases can be considered for
re-release after they have been recalled to prison for two to
three months, and where their further detention is no longer
necessary to protect the public. I should note that this will
change only the cases that can be considered for release, with
the final decision still in the hands of experienced probation
officers and managers.
The final area where I intend to make progress is in the case of
foreign national offenders. I share the public's view that, with
10,000 in our prisons, there are far too many foreign offenders
in this country, costing £50,000 each a year to house at His
Majesty's pleasure. It happens to be my personal view that
deportation is as good a punishment as imprisonment, if not
better. We are currently on track to remove more foreign national
offenders this year than at any time in recent years. But I will
now be working with my colleagues across government to explore
the ways that we can accelerate that further, including working
with the Home Office to make the early removal scheme for foreign
offenders more effective.
When I walked into the Ministry of Justice for the first time as
Lord Chancellor just over three months ago, I encountered a
prison system on the brink of collapse. It was the result of the
inaction of the last Government, who thought they could dither
and delay, and led us to the precipice of disaster. But their
failure was longer in the making: they failed to build the prison
places this country needs and they failed to address the
challenge of an ever-rising prison population.
In July, this Government took action to avert immediate disaster,
but the plan that I have set out today does more than that. It
will ensure that this Government and our successors are never
forced to rely on the emergency release of prisoners again—a
measure over which I had no choice, one that I took despite my
personal beliefs and one that must never happen again. I commend
this Statement to the House”.
4.07pm
(Con)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement of the Justice
Secretary. It is comforting to note that the Whitehall tradition
of dusting down old policies for new Ministers is still with us.
Of course, there are many matters addressed in the Statement with
which I entirely agree. The proposal for a review is certainly to
be welcomed, and there are many policy initiatives touched upon
that deserve further consideration and ultimately, I hope, some
form of introduction, but does the Minister agree with me that
one major issue to be addressed at the outset is the practicality
and cost of the measures being proposed?
Take a simple example: extending home detention and the use of
tagging. The Minister mentioned tags and sensors, but that is a
tiny part of that overall programme. When we have, let us say,
thousands of offenders tagged, we require more than just the tag
and sensor, however sophisticated it may be. Does the Minister
agree with me that, for the programme to work, we require
real-time monitoring, real-time reporting 24 hours a day and a
real-time response—again, 24 hours a day? There is no point in
noticing that someone has left home under curfew if we do not
check on them for another week. That makes considerable demands
on police resources, for example. What will be done to address
that issue in the context of these reforms?
If, however, we are going to use some other service, such as the
Probation Service, does the Minister anticipate a significant
and, indeed, material increase in the provision of that service?
I also ask him: is it proposed to use home detention and tagging
as a potential alternative to remand, since it is at the end of
remand that we find the greatest pressure upon the current prison
system? Furthermore, if we are to have a much-extended home
detention system, what steps will be taken to monitor and deal
with the impact on families of having an offender in their midst
for up to 16 hours a day? We know from the experience of the
pandemic lockdown of the stress and mental difficulty that can be
caused by that sort of situation. We will need more than just
experts in the criminal justice system to address that sort of
proposal, so I hope that the appointment of the review panel will
go further than indicated in the Justice Secretary's
Statement.
We should also consider the victims of crime and the public
perception of crime and punishment. If your home has been burgled
half a dozen times in the previous year by the same individual,
it is somewhat galling to see him walking down the street in
front of your house wearing a tag. We have to be able to inform
the public as to the effectiveness of the proposals that are
being made. We are going to have to educate the public with
regard to their effectiveness. There is the further issue of
public confidence in the penal system. At present, it is
conceivable that a person given a three-year sentence can be
released on licence after three months. How does the Minister
consider that the public perceive that when it occurs? A further
area of education may be required, if I might be permitted to
mention it: the education of the magistrates and judges to
persuade them that community sentences can have a much more major
part to play in our sentencing policy. Will that too be addressed
in the context of the present review?
Then there is a question of how the Government will deal with the
opposition. I am referring not to His Majesty's loyal Opposition
but to the Treasury—the place where all penal reform proposals go
to die. Before we start out on this ambitious project, will the
Minister be able to assure us that he has, in principle, the
support of the Treasury for the considerable sums that will be
required to implement these policy proposals?
There is an acknowledgement in the Statement that we need more
prisons. Will the Minister disclose to us the programme for those
new prisons? Will he also address the difficult issue of
planning, where proposals for prisons seem to be notoriously
subject to blocking and delay? Are there steps that the Minister
will be able to advise us of to try to circumvent that
problem?
We then come to the matter of foreign nationals, who make up
about 12% of the present prison population. The Justice Secretary
said in the Statement that it was
“my personal view that deportation is as good a punishment as
imprisonment, if not better [”.—[Official Report, Commons,
22/10/24; col.
200.]](/search/column?VolumeNumber=&ColumnNumber=200&House=1&ExternalId=9798C633-EDFE-4AF5-823B-0C051802A4A7)
Does the Minister agree with me that this is a completely mad
proposition? Foreign criminals, gangsters and drug dealers from
safe countries—remember that we can deport foreign nationals only
to safe countries—will come here to rob, burgle and create
mayhem. Then when caught, according to the Justice Secretary's
policy, they will simply be sent home again, no doubt at our
expense. We will become a magnet for foreign criminals. Why would
you not come here if that was the policy being implemented? Get
caught and go home but get a free ticket to go home—wonderful.
Can the Minister advise me who dreamed up this particular policy
and how they intend to implement it?
It is clear that penal reform has been overdue in this country
for many years. I welcome the idea of the review and the
appointment of the former Conservative Justice Secretary to head
that review. I hope we can see such a review being carried
forward in the very near future. I thank the Minister again for
repeating the Statement.
(LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement in
your Lordships' House. Overcrowding in our prisons has been in
the headlines for as long as I can remember. Different Ministers
have offered various solutions to this problem. No one seems to
have looked at overall solutions that could resolve the problem.
We are now offered a review by a former Minister and a prison
capacity package to solve the present crisis.
We have long called for a review of criminal sentencing. We have
asked for reoffending to be cut by taking a holistic approach to
rehabilitation and community supervision, including a full range
of rehabilitative services. We also believe in implementing a
presumption against short sentences of 12 months or fewer to
facilitate rehabilitation in the community.
The present proposals offer short-term solutions but do not
alleviate the problems or provide the long-term solutions we
badly need. The previous Administration had a golden opportunity
to set up a royal commission on the criminal justice system, but
this was kicked into the long grass. Instead, we have a piecemeal
approach to legislation in this field. We need to look at the
overuse of imprisonment. This has put us on top in Europe as the
worst country in the way we sentence offenders. It is astonishing
that we imprison nearly twice as many people as Germany.
There are a number of questions for the Minister. I welcome the
proposals to reduce the prison population. We should seriously
examine the work of the Sentencing Council. Surely a Minister
should put a legislative obligation to take note of the prison
population before a sentence is passed. How will the review plan
to address concerns about disproportionate sentencing of minority
groups and marginalised communities? Would the Minister agree
that ploughing more resources into expanding the prison system to
hold an ever-growing number of prisoners is far from the most
sensible way to tackle crime?
(Lab)
I thank the noble and learned Lord and the noble Lord for their
welcome of the review, their excellent questions and suggestions
and enthusiasm for what we are trying to do. I will try to answer
some of those questions now.
Increasing the use of technology as part of community sentencing
is something we should consider very seriously. It is not just
about the conventional electronic monitoring and the tag. Other
countries have far more advanced technology than we do, including
Spain, which is a country I am going to look at shortly to
understand what we can learn from them. A lot of it is about the
data it collects and the reassurance to victims from that data
and how it can support them.
The noble and learned Lord is correct that the more tags we put
on people, the more work that creates for others. I have
mentioned in the House before that we are recruiting 1,000
probation officers and 4,000 more police officers. But it is not
just about recruiting them; it is about training them and
settling them into their jobs, which takes time. We need to make
sure that we do not rush at it, but one thing I can guarantee is
that we are not short of tags.
On the point about remand offenders being tagged in the
community, for me this comes back to trust and how much the
courts can trust tagging and how effective it is at reducing
reoffending. When it comes to offenders being at home for a lot
of time during the day, if I had the choice between being in
prison or being on a tag at home, I would much prefer to be at
home reading my kids bedtime stories and helping them with their
homework to being behind a cell door.
I am concerned about highly prolific low-level offenders and what
we do with them—the noble and learned Lord raised this. A few
weeks ago, I spent two days in Preston Prison, following an
officer, Steve, around as he did his job. One thing that was very
clear was that a lot of the prisoners he spoke to he had known
for the last 32 years that he had worked in that prison. They
were coming in and out from when they were young to when they
were old men. So, as part of the review, we need to consider
whether custody for longer periods is the right thing for them.
Public sentiment about crime and what we are doing depends on how
good we are at reducing reoffending. When 80% of offending is
reoffending, something is clearly going wrong. We need to deal
with that, but we need to do so as part of the sentencing review
and the other things I intend to do in my role.
On money, we are engaging with the Treasury on the spending
commitments needed to progress our delivery plans. But, like
noble Lords, we will wait for the Budget, which is not too far
away. For me, the priority is protecting the public; that has to
come before anything else.
On new prisons being built, one is being finished off in York:
HMP Millsike, which will open in the spring. We will publish a
10-year capacity strategy soon. I do not have any further details
on the planning proposals yet, but I know we have the willingness
to make sure that we can build prisons where we need to.
Finally, I feel that £50,000 a year for every foreign national
offender in prison is quite expensive when we could be sending
some of them home. But what is important is that we work with our
Home Office colleagues to make sure that we process the paperwork
as fast as possible.
(Lab)
My Lords, we now have 20 minutes of Back-Bench questions. To
paraphrase what my noble friend said, can we have questions, not
statements, so we can get as many noble Lords in as possible?
4.21pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I completely support the general thrust of the
Statement and the principles underlying it. Of course we will
have problems with the Treasury—every department does on every
occasion—but I completely welcome it, in particular the
appointment of . That is a very good start to
the bipartisan approach, which I have no doubt will be shared by
the opposition spokesman, in his usual supportive role.
On a specific point, right now the evidence shows that over half
of adults on short-term sentences will reoffend—that is a
terrible number. Meanwhile, community orders have a much lesser
extent of reoffending: I think the figure is 34%. Can the
Minister assure me that why and how that might be replicated will
be considered in the review?
(Lab)
I thank my noble friend. Like him, I am pleased that has agreed to chair this review
panel. I have worked closely with him—he was one of my trustees
at the Prison Reform Trust—so I know not just how capable he is
but how enthusiastic he is for prison reform. We will shortly
announce the rest of the panel and I am sure my noble friend will
welcome them as enthusiastically.
I agree with my noble friend about community sentences for adults
who would otherwise have short-term sentences. I have been in
prisons for 22 years and I have seen too many people go in and
come out no different. We need to use the opportunity when they
are in prison to overcome their mental health and addiction
problems. When they leave, they need somewhere to live and,
hopefully, a job. It is much easier to do a lot of that—when the
risks are right—when someone is in the community, not in
prison.
(Con)
My Lords, I am old enough to remember the promise, under the last
Labour Government, to build Titan prisons with 7,500 places—that
never happened. Notwithstanding that, the Government are laudably
pursuing a policy of tackling violence against women and girls.
With that in mind, what specific policies are in place to protect
the interests of victims of prisoners hitherto convicted of
domestic abuse and sexual assault, who may be released?
(Lab)
The noble Lord will be pleased to know that a victims'
representative will be appointed to the panel. That is important
because the voices of victims need to be heard and we will be
announcing the appointment soon.
It is a very difficult situation for victims, especially with the
recent releases. Often, they expected someone to be released but
it happened a few days or weeks early. I believe that the victim
contact scheme is important and works very well. We need to make
sure that victims engage with it, where appropriate, because they
do not in all cases. The latest SDS40 releases were far better
managed. We had an eight-week lead-in time, which is not perfect
but is better than the earlier ECSL scheme, which was pretty
chaotic. It is important that this review considers the victims
in every sentence and every line of the report.
(CB)
My Lords, one of the most depressing points in the Minister's
Statement is that the prison population grows by around 4,500
prisoners a year. Do we really have to accept that it will
continue to grow? The Statement says it is a matter of simple
arithmetic, but have we lost sight of living in a predominantly
law-abiding society, with crime cut down to the bare minimum?
(Lab)
When I first walked into the Ministry of Justice and was told
that the prison population goes up by 80 people a week, I thought
that was manageable. But when you times that by 52, and then by
five, you realise the scale of the problem. There are a number of
examples of similar situations where people have done things
differently. While we have a big problem on our hands, we need to
make sure that it becomes a big opportunity to change things,
because something is clearly not working.
I will give noble Lords the example of Texas, where they decided
that a number of non-violent and first-time offenders would not
go to prison but would serve community sentences instead—a number
of other states have done similar things. I mentioned earlier
that highly prolific low-level offenders actually went to prison
for longer. Texas also introduced good-behaviour credits, an
incentive scheme for people to behave in prison. Crime went down
by 29% and 16 prisons have closed. So we should take hope from
the fact that, if we use the evidence and take our time, we can
learn from other examples. However, it will take time for the
increase in prison numbers to slow down: these things,
unfortunately, do not happen quickly enough.
(Lab)
My Lords, I greatly welcome the Statement and the Government's
decision to tackle penal reform, which is long overdue. It is
absolutely right to put far more emphasis on non-custodial
sentencing. If I have any reservations, they are about embarking
on another prison-building programme. The problem is that supply
creates demand. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the
decision to expand the number of prisons should be reviewed in
the context of improvements in non-custodial sentences and their
effectiveness, and in the context of David Gauke's review of
sentencing? There is also a case for closing some prisons, even
if new ones are to be built, because many are appalling buildings
with inadequate accommodation and terrible facilities, and they
should go. Perhaps the Minister could also address that
question.
(Lab)
When I walked into Preston Prison, there was a big board next to
the governor's office, with the names and dates of all the
governors of the prison from when it first opened. The first
governor started working there in 1798; I walked up the same
steps that the first prisoners walked up in 1798. So, clearly, we
have a problem with lots of old, dilapidated prisons, house
blocks and other parts of the prison estate; unfortunately, we
need to build new prisons.
It will take time for our reforms to reduce reoffending. It is
one of my goals, and I managed to get it into my job title:
Minister for Reducing Reoffending. The more we can reduce
reoffending, the fewer prisons we will need. Maybe in 20 years'
time we will look to close the prisons built in 1798—but, for
now, I am afraid, we need all the space we have got.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on his role in introducing
this package of measures and look forward to its speedy progress.
When I was Home Secretary and Lord Chancellor, I am afraid I was
quite unable to persuade my ministerial colleagues to allow me to
proceed with anything that remotely resembled this. I hope that,
with the changed climate, the Minister can persuade the public
that this approach to sentencing will have no adverse effects on
the overall level of crime in this country, as one can find other
countries to demonstrate, and that this is an altogether more
effective system if it actually reduces the rate of reoffending,
which ought to be one of the prime purposes of putting a person
in prison when they have committed a serious crime.
Will the review in general be so bold as to have a look at the
sentencing guidelines with the judiciary, which have tended to
produce ever-longer sentences in recent years in response to
populist pressure? Would he also consider the number of minimum
sentences that have been introduced over the last 20 or 30 years?
There is a get-out clause for the judges, in the interests of
justice, but it tends to produce high minimum sentences in every
case. Should not the judiciary be trusted to look at the exact
circumstances of the particular crime and offender, and have this
inhibition on their discretion removed? Will the review be so
bold as to look at the actual sentencing guidelines?
(Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for the question. When he was having those
conversations a number of years ago, I think he was also having
some of them with me in meetings outside of his political
meetings, as I was talking to him about recruiting offenders. As
I mentioned before, there are a number of examples of where crime
has come down: Texas, Louisiana and a number of other states in
the US. The Dutch model is also something I have followed
closely.
The noble Lord is right that reoffending needs to come down. I
hope that I can instil the skills I learnt running the family
business over the years in the culture, values and organisation
of the Prison Service, to help it become better at delivering
what we need to do on reform.
On the terms of reference on the sentencing review, I will not go
into detail—they are in the Library—but I will give noble Lords a
brief summary. Our ask to the panel is that we must punish
offenders and always leave a space for dangerous offenders in our
jails. We must
“encourage offenders to turn their backs on … crime”—
we want better citizens, not better criminals—and we must expand
the range of punishment outside of prisons and focus on
technology that curtails freedoms. I am sure that noble Lords
will be pleased to know that one of the panel members may well, I
suspect, be a Member of this House.
(LD)
My Lords—
(Lab)
My Lords—
Baroness of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords—
(Lab)
My Lords, we will hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches, which
we have not heard from as yet.
(LD)
My Lords, perhaps the review could be so bold as to look at the
legislation which deals with mandatory sentencing and minimum
sentences. The support around the House for community sentences
is very welcome, but I think the Minister will agree—and perhaps
he will confirm this—that community sentences need providers of
treatments for mental health, alcoholism and so on, and all the
services which support offenders. Will the review extend to the
support for those providers and the whole gamut of what makes up
a good community sentence?
(Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for the question. Yes, I hope the
panel will engage with the whole sector, and there are so many
experts who have so much experience. As far as the scope of the
sentencing review goes, it will be reviewing the framework around
longer custodial sentences, including the use of minimum
sentences and the range of sentences and maximum penalties
available for different offences and how we administer them. The
panel will also review the specific needs of young offenders,
older offenders, female offenders and prolific offenders. It has
a lot of work to do, and we hope it will do it by the spring.
(Lab)
My Lords, there are 1,800 prisoners serving IPP sentences, as the
Minister knows. One has been in prison for 12 years for stealing
a plant pot; another has been in for eight years for stealing a
mobile phone. At the same time, there is no review. When we look
at prison places, I look forward to the Minister's efforts in
reviewing this situation, which cannot go on any longer. Does the
Minister agree with me that we do not need large warehouse
prisons? As the Prison Officers' Association says, we need
something local—something that can be looked after socially in
the local area—and that makes sure that reoffending does not take
place.
(Lab)
I thank my noble friend for the question. As for what kind of
prisons we need, I think we need a good mix of prisons of all
shapes and sizes and in all locations. On IPP sentence prisoners,
I am sure the House knows me well enough to know how deeply
troubled I am by the state of the lives of IPP sentence
prisoners. It is not included in the sentencing review because I
feel we are already making good progress, albeit early progress.
The IPP action plan is solid and we need to push on fast with
it.
I am looking at two things at the moment. One is that 30% of IPP
sentence prisoners are in the wrong prison for helping them
fulfil their needs to get out of prison. I am also heartened by a
dashboard that we now have so we know where every IPP prisoner is
and where they are up to with their sentence—it may not sound
much, but it is a game-changer for how we can support people to
work through their sentence. So I want to make rapid progress. I
also reassure my noble friend that, when I was running the family
business, I managed to work alongside 30 colleagues who were IPP
prisoners and they were absolutely fantastic, and the second
chance that they were given was paid back in buckets.
(Con)
My Lords, with sentencing of female offenders, much is made of
their vulnerability, their adverse childhood experiences and
revictimisation as adults. Judges are increasingly mindful of
their roles as primary carers. All this is humane and
understandable. Is the sentencing review going to take a similar
approach to men? While they must also take responsibility for
breaking our laws, many are equally vulnerable and have had many
adverse childhood experiences—I think 25% of the prison
population has had the experience of being in care—but it is
culturally normative to take a far more punitive approach to
men.
(Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for the question. While the review will
evaluate the sentencing framework and examine the experiences of
all offenders, it will be guided by the evidence of what works to
keep the public safe and to rehabilitate offenders. I am focused
on the evidence of what works both here and abroad. Currently,
judges and sentences already take into account the individual
circumstances of each case to account for the culpability of the
offender, male or female, and the harm they caused, or intended
to cause and any aggravating or mitigating factors.
There are three facts that I am sue the noble Lord will know:
female offenders make up only 4% of the prison population; over
two-thirds of them are in prison for a non-violent offence; and
55% of women in prison have dependent children. What noble Lords
may not know is that the average life expectancy for someone who
is not in prison in this country is 82; if you are a man in
prison, it is 56; if you are a woman in prison, it is 47. So, we
clearly have a lot of work to do to support these very vulnerable
and often ill people.
(CB)
My Lords, since so many repeat prisoners have drink and drug
addictions, are the Government looking at residential
establishments outside prison with a probation order, where, if
they do not obey at the residential place, they would then go to
prison?
(Lab)
The noble and learned Baroness is correct that drugs and alcohol
is a massive problem for people in prison and leaving prison.
With 49% of prisoners having drug misuse problems, it is not
surprising that in prisons there is a demand for drugs. But when
people are out, we need to do all we can to help them overcome
their addiction problems because otherwise they are far more
likely to be recalled and to offend again. So, I am fan of
drug-free wings in prisons and of all the excellent support
mechanisms already out there. Residential support centres for
women are of far more interest for me in the future, and there
are a couple of examples that are already starting to work very
well.
(Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to hear the Minister's Statement and
his emphasis that prison is about not just punishment or public
safety but rehabilitation. When I did a lot of prison visiting 10
years ago, one of the biggest problems was that, although courses
were laid on internally, prisoners were often unable to attend
them simply because there were insufficient staff to conduct them
from their cells to the courses concerned. I would be grateful if
the Minister could tell us how that will be addressed. More
importantly, what incentivisation will there be for prisoners to
take part properly in the rehabilitation programmes?
(Lab)
I thank my noble friend for his question. I have walked past far
too many classrooms in prisons where there are rows of computers
and desks but no one inside. When prisons are 99.9% full, all
that the governor can do is get people clean clothes, three meals
a day and a shower. Going to a classroom is the last thing on
their list, which is a very sad state of affairs.
I am used to incentives. Some noble Lords may have been into the
business I used to work in—one of the Timpson shops—and while
they may have asked for one key, someone may have tried to sell
them two. The reason they do that is not because they are trying
to be helpful; it is because they have an incentive. What I know
from incentives elsewhere in the prison world is that they can
have a very positive impact on prisoners' behaviour: to engage
with their sentence plan, to go to education and to purposeful
activity, not to take drugs and to play the game. We are working
on this now and I hope to provide more information to the review
in due course. It is very powerful; in the new year, I hope to go
to Texas with the Lord Chancellor to see for ourselves exactly
how we can implement it and just how powerful it can be. That is
very important for us to do.
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