The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
With permission, I shall make a statement on the criminal justice
system in England and Wales. The first duty of any Government is to
keep their people safe, and that is why those who pose a danger to
society must be locked up. The Government are categorical that the
worst offenders should be locked away for as long as it takes to
protect the public. We have increased the sentences for offences
including...Request free trial
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice ()
With permission, I shall make a statement on the criminal justice
system in England and Wales.
The first duty of any Government is to keep their people safe,
and that is why those who pose a danger to society must be locked
up. The Government are categorical that the worst offenders
should be locked away for as long as it takes to protect the
public. We have increased the sentences for offences including
knife crime, causing death by dangerous driving—now a maximum of
life imprisonment—and causing or allowing the death of a child.
We have ended automatic halfway release for serious sexual and
violent offenders, so they will serve two thirds of their
sentence behind bars, and, in the most dangerous cases, all of
their sentence behind bars. We are changing the law to make whole
life sentences the default for the most heinous type of murder,
so that for society’s most depraved killers, life means life and
murderers end their days in prison.
Today, I can announce that we will be going further. We will
legislate so that rapists, as well as those convicted of
equivalent sexual offences, will serve the entirety of the
custodial term handed down to them by the courts. A 15-year
custodial term will mean 15 years behind bars.
There have been inaccurate reports in the media, claiming that
judges have been told not to send rapists to prison. Let me be
categorical: this is untrue. Sentencing is a matter for the
judiciary acting impartially and in accordance with the law. It
is a fact that under this Government the most serious and
dangerous offenders are being locked away for longer. In the case
of rapists, average sentences are nearly a third longer than in
2010. That is the right thing to do to keep the public safe.
To continue to put the worst offenders away for longer, we must
use prisons better, and always so that there are sufficient
spaces to lock up the most dangerous criminals. We must reform
the justice system so that it keeps the worst of society behind
bars, rehabilitates offenders who will be let out and presents
the least serious, lowest risk offenders with a path away from a
life of crime. That matters, because intelligent reform means
less crime.
I have been candid from the moment I took on this role that our
custodial estate is under pressure. Today, the prison population
in England and Wales is greater than it has ever been—nearly
double the level it was three decades ago. That is not
principally because of the growth in the sentenced population:
instead, it is the remand population, principally made up of
unconvicted prisoners awaiting trial, which has surged in recent
years, from 9,000 in 2019 to more than 15,000 in 2023. That is
more than 6,000 more people in our prisons out of a total of some
88,000. That is because in the white heat of the pandemic we took
the right and principled decision not to jettison hundreds of
years of British history and abandon the jury trial system. We
did that because the jury trial system is the bedrock of our
freedoms. But covid restrictions inevitably meant that the flow
of trials slowed and, in turn, the remand population grew. That
growth was exacerbated by industrial action last year. In
addition, the recall population is also significantly higher than
in 2018, partly because we are rightly ensuring that offenders
who do not comply with their licence conditions are returned to
prison.
The Government have taken unprecedented steps to meet demand. We
are building 20,000 modern rehabilitative prison places—the
largest prison-building programme since the Victorian era. By
doubling up cells where it is safe to do so, speeding up the
deportation of foreign national offenders and delaying
non-essential maintenance projects to bring cells back into use,
we have freed up an extra 2,600 places since September last year
alone. On top of that, we have continued to roll out hundreds of
rapid deployment cells at prison sites. Altogether, we have been
bringing on capacity at a rate of more than 100 places a week—the
fastest rate in living memory, and possibly in 100 years.
We are going further. Today I can announce up to £400 million for
more prison places, enough for more than 800 new cells. When we
legislate to keep rapists behind bars for the whole of their
custodial term, I will ensure that commencement is dependent on
there being sufficient prison capacity. There is already an
obligation to lay before both Houses of Parliament a report as to
how I have discharged my general duty in relation to the courts.
To ensure public confidence, a new annual statement of prison
capacity will be laid before both Houses. It will include a clear
statement of current prison capacity, future demand, the range of
system costs that will be incurred under different scenarios and
our forward pipeline of prison build. That will bring greater
transparency to the plans and will set out the progress that is
being made. I have also already commissioned urgent work, to
conclude before the end of the year, to identify new sites for us
to purchase. That is backed by a down payment of up to £30
million in funding to acquire land in 2024 and launch the
planning process.
We must do whatever it takes to ensure that there are always
enough prison places to lock up the most dangerous offenders to
keep the British people safe, to ensure that criminals can be
brought to justice, and to maintain safety and decency in the
prison estate. We have decided to use the power in section 248 of
the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to allow the Prison Service to move
some less serious offenders out of prison on to licence up to 18
days before their automatic release date.
Let me be clear: this will not apply to anyone serving a life
sentence, anyone serving an extended determinate sentence, anyone
serving a sentence for an offence of particular concern, anyone
convicted of a serious violence offence, anyone convicted of
terrorism or anyone convicted of a sex offence, and this power
will be used only for a limited period and only in targeted
areas. Every offender will be placed under strict licence
conditions that provide a step down from custody to living in the
community. They may include the following: first, being made to
wear an electronic tag when that is needed for the offender to be
managed safely; secondly, a condition not to contact a named
individual, directly or indirectly; thirdly, having to live at an
address approved by the offender’s probation officer; fourthly,
attending appointments; and fifthly, a condition not to enter
certain areas such as particular postcodes. I should also make it
clear that breach of those conditions could lead to offenders’
being recalled to custody for the entire second half of their
sentences.
This will be overseen by the probation service—a probation
service into which we have injected £155 million a year to
recruit staff to bring down case loads and deliver better
supervision of offenders in the community. In addition, HM Prison
& Probation Service leadership will retain discretion to
decide on further exemptions from release on advice of governors
when concerns remain. Let me make it clear that this is a
temporary operational measure to relieve immediate pressure
contributed to by remand.
However, if we are to protect the public and reduce crime, we
need to go further to use our prisons better. At the heart of the
long-term plan for prison reform that I am announcing today is a
simple mission: cut crime. To deliver that, we need to do three
things. First, we need to ensure that the most dangerous
offenders are locked up for longer, away from the public and
unable to commit crime. Secondly, we need to ensure that prisons
are geared to help offenders turn away from crime, to change
their ways and to become contributing members of society.
Thirdly, we need to ensure that more lower-level offenders get
the tough community sentences that are shown by the evidence to
cut reoffending and hence to cut crime.
Let me put that last point in another way: prisons should not
ruin the redeemable. It is clear that all too often the
circumstances that lead to an initial offence are exacerbated by
a short stint in prison, with offenders losing their homes,
breaking contact with key support networks and, crucially,
meeting others inside prison who steer them in the wrong
direction. When they are released just a short time later, they
all too often reoffend, fuelled by addiction or mental health
issues that cannot possibly be addressed effectively in such a
short space of time. The fact is that more than 50% of people who
leave prison after serving less than 12 months go on to commit
further crimes. The figure is 58% for those who serve sentences
of six months or less. However, the figure for those who are on
suspended sentence orders with conditions is 22%.
Meanwhile, the cost of this is £47,000 per year per prisoner. The
taxpayer should not be forking out for a system that risks
further criminalising offenders and trapping them in a
merry-go-round of short sentences, so the Government are
determined to grasp the nettle and deliver a better approach. We
will legislate for a presumption that custodial sentences of less
than 12 months in prison will be suspended and offenders will be
punished in the community instead, repaying their debt within
communities, cleaning up our neighbourhoods and scrubbing
graffiti off walls. We can do this more intelligently with modern
solutions for a digital age.
I can announce today that we are doubling the number of GPS tags
available to the courts, to ensure that offenders can be
monitored, to track them to ensure that they are going to work,
and also to ensure that their freedom is curtailed in the
evenings and weekends, with robust curfews of up to 20 hours a
day. We will make further use of new technologies such as alcohol
monitoring tags. This will enable us to strengthen and expand
successful step-down programmes such as home detention curfew,
which we will keep under active review. If offenders breach the
terms of their curfew or other requirement of their suspended
custodial sentence, or commit another offence, they can be hauled
back before the court and forced to serve that sentence in
custody.
What we are not doing is getting rid of short sentences
altogether. I know from my time as a prosecutor that that is
sometimes the right and just option. Prolific offenders who are
unable or unwilling to comply with community orders or other
orders of the court must know that their actions have
consequences, and they will continue to feel the full force of
the justice system. Building on our antisocial behaviour action
plan, the Home Secretary and I are looking at what more we can do
to punish those so-called lower-level offenders who are a blight
on our communities. For some offenders, the proper sanction is, I
am afraid, the clang of the prison gate.
We will also remove foreign offenders who should not be in the
United Kingdom taking up space in our prisons at vast expense to
the taxpayer. There are over 10,000 foreign nationals in our
prisons. It cannot be right that some of them are sat in prison
when they could otherwise be removed from our country. That is
why we will extend the early removal scheme so that we have the
power to remove foreign criminals up to 18 months before they are
due to be released—up from 12 months now—getting them out of the
country early and no longer costing taxpayers a fortune.
To support that, more caseworkers will be deployed to speed up
removals, and the Home Office will also look at measures to do
more to remove foreign nationals accused of less serious crimes
more quickly. We will continue to strike new prisoner transfer
deals like the one agreed with Albania, ensuring that criminals
from overseas serve their time at home rather than in Britain. We
will bring forward legislation to enable prisoners to be held in
prisons overseas—an approach taken by Belgium, Norway and Denmark
in recent years.
More must be done to stop people spending long periods of time
waiting in prison for their trial. As I have set out, there are
now more than 15,000 defendants on remand in our prisons. Remand
decisions are properly for independent judges, but we will
consider whether to extend the discount to encourage people to
plead guilty at the first opportunity, because when more
offenders plead guilty, that saves time in the court and cuts the
number of people in our prisons on remand, but most importantly
it saves victims the ordeal of giving evidence in court. We will
also be reviewing the use of recall for offenders on release who
infringe the terms of their licence. It is right that
ex-prisoners who commit new crimes or serious breaches while on
licence should be returned to prison. We want to ensure that the
system is working effectively to mitigate any risk posed by
offenders while not having people in prison on recall longer than
necessary.
We will take decisive action to address sentences of imprisonment
for public protection. We put a stop to these discredited
sentences a decade ago, but it is true that there remain about
3,000 IPP prisoners in custody despite their original tariff
expiring years ago. IPPs are a stain on our justice system, so I
am looking at options to curtail the licence period to restore
greater proportionality to IPP sentences in line with
recommendation 8 of the Justice Committee’s report, and I will
come back to the House on that in due course. This will not
compromise public safety. Those found by the Parole Board to pose
a risk to the public will not be released.
As I have set out, we are taking decisive action to make our
prisons work better in the long term. We are building more prison
places than at any time since Disraeli was speaking from this
Dispatch Box. We are rolling out hundreds of rapid deployment
cells across the country to increase immediate capacity. We are
going further and faster than ever before to remove foreign
criminals from our prisons.
To govern is to choose. We choose to lock up the most dangerous
criminals for longer to protect victims and their families. We
choose to reform the justice system so that criminals who can
otherwise be forced into taking the right path are not trapped in
a cycle of criminality. That is the right long-term plan for our
justice system, and I commend this statement to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
5.48pm
(Birmingham, Ladywood)
(Lab)
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank the
Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement.
The Secretary of State was on his feet for about 15 minutes, his
statement is about 2,500 words long, he did an op-ed at the
weekend in The Telegraph, and there have been endless briefings
to the media over the last few days. Yet in all that verbiage
there has been not one word of apology to the British public for
failing in the first duty of Government, which is to keep our
citizens safe. As everybody knows, the first stage of
rehabilitation is to acknowledge mistakes and make a sincere
apology to those affected and let down by those actions, or, in
the Secretary of State’s case, inactions. His failure to do so
today is utterly inexcusable. It is a damning indictment of this
Government’s collective failure.
Our prisons are completely full. We have been sounding the alarm
for many years now, as overcrowding has skyrocketed. As of today,
the public will undoubtedly be less safe. Although the Secretary
of State has said that sentencing delays will apply only to those
deemed “low risk”, he knows that in 2021 more than 20,000
offences were committed by those on bail, including more than 200
sexual offences. So the public need to know: what steps will he
be taking to mitigate the risk of increased offending that will
arise as a result of the delayed sentencing? How many cases in
total are we talking about? How many of those involve sexual and
violent crimes? What is the plan to reach out to victims and
assure them that the convicted offender in their case will be
taken off the streets as quickly as possible?
The reason we are in this position is that the Government have
consistently broken their promises to deal with the rising prison
population. As far back as 2016, the Government pledged to build
10,000 new prison places by 2020—the Public Accounts Committee
found that they had managed just 206. So the Government went
ahead and pledged 18,000 prison places, but still with no plan. A
year later, they said that they would make it 20,000 by the
mid-2020s. According to the latest figures, there are no more
than 8,200 places set to be built by the end of 2025, which
represents a shortfall of 60%. The Government have known about
this problem not only for the whole time this Secretary of State
has been in Parliament, but ever since the Prime Minister was the
Chancellor, and they have done nothing. It beggars belief that
the funding has been allocated but the Government still cannot
get these prison places built—so much so that they are looking to
rent space in prisons abroad, with no indication of how much that
will cost. Given this woeful record, why should anyone believe
that the Government will build those 20,000 prison places that we
need? What update can the Secretary of State provide on the
number of new prison places that are guaranteed to be built
before the end of the year?
Will the Government consult on the changes to short sentences?
Will any such consultation include victims? The Secretary of
State knows that the use of community sentences has halved since
2011. How will the Government persuade the courts that these
sentences are the solution? How can he reassure the public that
this is not just a green light to offenders? He will know that
this plan will take time to go through Parliament. What will his
Government do in the immediate term to address the problem? So
far, it sounds as though his plan is to move some prisoners
abroad and to let others out early. Is that all he has got?
On the deportation of foreign national offenders, last year the
Government managed to deport only 2,958 foreign national
offenders, which is less than a third of the total number in our
prisons and about half the annual number before the covid
pandemic. Why should the public believe the Government when they
claim that they can get a grip on the number of foreign national
offenders in our prisons, given that they have failed to do so
until now? What difference will bringing forward the deportation
of foreign national offenders by six months make to the prison
population—and by when? Let us be clear: the public need to know
that today an offender—including, potentially, a sex offender—can
go to court and be found guilty by a jury but instead of being
locked up behind bars, where they belong, the inaction of this
chaotic Conservative Government means that they can walk free.
Can the Secretary of State tell the House today that not one
individual convicted of a serious sexual offence is out on the
streets as a result of a lack of prison places?
As the Secretary of State said, to govern is— [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Order.
As the Secretary of State acknowledged, to govern is to choose.
His Government have chosen to fail victims and to fail the
public. and to offer too little, too late to turn our failing
criminal justice system around.
What a very disappointing response. I was surprised to hear that
newfound interest in locking up rapists. Lest we forget, this
Government are prosecuting more alleged rapists, convicting a
higher proportion and imposing longer sentences than Labour, and
ensuring that a higher proportion of those sentences is being
spent behind bars.
It is important to aim off a little bit when looking at what is
said in the Chamber by Labour Members. The hon. Lady refers to
foreign national offenders, but I remember very well that back in
2020 we wanted to ensure that a plane full of rapists and
murderers could leave the country, yet a letter came to the Prime
Minister, saying:
“Dear Prime Minister, We, the undersigned,”—
have—
“grave concern over Home Office plans to deport 50 people”.
It went on to say:
“The flight and all future charter flights must be
suspended”.
Shall we see who was on that flight, Madam Deputy Speaker? There
was a man who had thrust a bottle into his victim’s face, leaving
him scarred for life, in what was described as a “horrifying
attack”—that is grievous bodily harm. Another person, who had
been imprisoned for attacking a 17-year-old girl twice and
abducting her, and who had sex with a 15-year-old, then lied
about it and “vandalised” her life, according to her mother, was
called “devious, callous and manipulative” by the judge. The hon.
Lady signed a letter asking that he should not be deported. We
will take no lessons from the Labour party in being tough on
criminals. [Interruption.] She seems still to justify signing
that letter. Does she not regret that decision? I think she might
want to think about it again.
The Conservative party will get foreign national offenders out of
this country. We have brought on the largest prison building
programme since the Victorian era: 100 cells per week.
[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. When the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood () was being interrupted, I
stopped the interruption. I hope she will have the courtesy not
to speak now from the Front Bench.
We will always take the steps that need to be taken to keep the
British people safe.
In respect of community orders, the hon. Lady is right that it is
important that they are robust and enforceable. That is why I was
at pains to point out that we are doubling the number of tags—I
suspect we will go much further and triple the number of tags. By
the way, they are not the old radio frequency tags that were used
when I was prosecuting. They are GPS tags that mean that judges
and those appointed to the bench can ensure the monitoring of
where that individual has gone, to make sure that they go to work
and that their liberty is deprived at the weekend. That is the
kind of robust penalty we support.
Our ability to ensure that people are under curfew for over 100
hours a week was in our legislation, which was opposed by—guess
who?—the Labour party.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.
(Bromley and Chislehurst)
(Con)
I commend the Lord Chancellor on his thoughtful, considered and
serious statement that deserves a thoughtful and considered
response, which it has not entirely had. Does he agree that it is
right and proper that we are frank with the British public that
prison is an extremely expensive way of dealing with people, and
that it should be reserved for those who are a threat to us, not
simply those with whom we are perhaps justifiably angry or
irritated?
Does the Lord Chancellor agree that it is right to take on board
some of the recommendations of the Justice Committee’s report in
relation to IPP prisoners—those sentenced to imprisonment for
public protection? I welcome what has been said about remand,
which we know is also important. As well as reducing the
qualifying licence period, can he help us a little more on what
else he will do to take on board the recommendations about IPP
prisoners in the report? What is the timeframe for moving swiftly
towards reducing the remand population?
I thank my hon. Friend for his typically thoughtful and
considered response. He is absolutely right that we have to make
choices about what we do in respect of the custodial estate. We
choose to ensure that the most dangerous people are locked away
for longer, which is right, so that the punishment fits the crime
and so that we protect the British people. This is not simply a
political statement but a statement of evidence, and the
evidence, not just in England and Wales but in the Netherlands
and elsewhere, shows that short sentences are disproportionately
associated with recidivism. Of course we should learn the lessons
from that.
My hon. Friend rightly raises the issue of IPPs, which are a
stain on the justice system. That point is made even by the
person who came up with the idea. We will take steps, and I thank
the Justice Committee for taking on this difficult issue and for
coming up with some very sensible proposals. I will be announcing
more, but the central point about licence length is critical. It
seems to me that this 10-year licence length means that it is
very hard for people on IPP to think they will ever be free.
(York Central)
(Lab/Co-op)
I have a constituent who has been in prison for 18 years under
IPP. He is due to be up for parole towards the end of the year.
The Secretary of State says he will be bringing forward a review.
How long will that take, and how will it impact on people
awaiting the Parole Board?
First, I make it very clear to the hon. Lady and her constituent
that we will not take steps that put the British people at risk.
The Parole Board will have to make an assessment, in the normal
way, on whether a person is safe to be released. If they are
considered safe for release, the question is then about the
duration of the licence period that remains. IPP effectively
continues to hang over them. I am looking at that particular area
at the moment, but I want to be clear that it is a sensitive
area. We are trying to unwind a very ill-starred policy, but we
have to do so in a way that ultimately keeps the British people
safe.
Sir (South Swindon) (Con)
I commend my right hon. and learned Friend for his statement. In
so many ways, it echoes and builds on the work we did together in
the Department.
I emphasise the importance of building a technologically sound,
innovative and direct alternative to short-term prison sentences,
which I think this statement presages. We need to get on with
that work, because short-term sentences have to be a last resort,
as they clearly do not help to cut crime. What more can my right
hon. and learned Friend do to redouble efforts to ensure that the
prison building programme that started when I was in office is
delivered on time, and that we overcome some of the constant
barriers of planning permission and other administrative
obstacles?
l pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend. I talked about
tough decisions being made in the white heat of the pandemic, and
he is the one who said that we will not get rid of the jury
system on our watch. My goodness, he was right to say that. It
was a tough call, but it was manifestly the right one.
Lest we forget, Five Wells and Fosse Way have opened and HMP
Millsike is currently under construction, going alongside Garth,
Gartree, Grendon/Spring Hill and other prisons. My right hon. and
learned Friend is right that there has been an issue with
planning. I have said that, with an additional £30 million, we
will identify further sites in 2024 and get the planning
permission well in advance, because we cannot have a situation in
which these critical building programmes are held up by the
planning process. We are changing to a new approach, and we are
putting on the afterburners to make sure those prisons get
built.
(Hayes and Harlington)
(Lab)
I declare an interest as an honorary life member of the Prison
Officers Association.
In his statement, the Secretary of State celebrated the fact that
the prison population has risen to 80,000. When I was elected in
1997, it was a scandal that we were at the 40,000 level. Part of
the problem is the lack of crime prevention, but there is also a
failure of rehabilitation. The statement mentioned probation, but
there was no mention of prison staff. There is a desperate need
for adequate prison staffing if we are to secure the
rehabilitation of prisoners. What will be the staff-prisoner
ratio in our prisons following these reforms?
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the issue
of prison staff, as they are ultimately the most important
factor, beyond the nature of the prison estate, in making the
difference to whether prisoners are kept safe and rehabilitated.
We are increasing the number of prison staff, and I think an
additional 700 staff were recruited in the last period for which
figures are available. The other important point is retention,
and we are starting to see a positive trend in retention.
I also make the point that those prison officers who stuck by
their duty during the pandemic and went into work when it was
tough to do that—when their parents and friends would have been
telling them not to do so—are the ones who ensured there was not
a complete catastrophe in our prisons in terms of loss of life,
and they should take enormous credit for that.
(Witham) (Con)
I completely agree with the Lord Chancellor’s last point about
prison staff during the covid pandemic, and I am very grateful to
him for pointing out that the approach to FNOs must continue. He
will know that between 2019 and 2022, some 12,000 FNOs were
deported, despite, as he so eloquently pointed out, opposition
from Labour Members. They were writing letters personally to the
Prime Minister and myself. What assurances will the Lord
Chancellor give the public going forward—this is about the
direction of travel on this issue—that they are protected, and
that offenders who are out and released back into the community,
with GPS tags, do not pose a threat to the public? He will recall
that in 2008, when the Labour party was in government, similar
policies were pursued and there were major issues, with hundreds
reoffending and prisoners on the run despite being recalled to
prison.
I thank my right hon. Friend; no one did more in government to
ensure that serious foreign national offenders were on planes
getting out of the country. She did an exceptional job and I pay
tribute to her for that.
On public protection, the whole point of the suspended sentence
order is that the magistrate will say to the individual, “The
crime that you’ve committed crosses the custody threshold. I am
going to impose a suspended sentence order, potentially with a
curfew and unpaid work”—or whatever the other conditions are.
That order is then a sword of Damocles hanging over the person.
If they do not comply, they are brought back before the court and
they serve that sentence in custody. The choice for that offender
is very clear: do what they should and abide by the order of the
court, or they will hear the clang of the prison gates.
(Tiverton and Honiton)
(LD)
As Home Secretary, Lord introduced indeterminate
imprisonment for public protection sentences. has since said that he
regrets injustices caused by the awarding of those IPP sentences.
In February this year, 372 of the 2,456 women serving sentences
in prison were serving indeterminate sentences. How many women
are still serving IPP sentences who have already served their
full tariff?
The hon. Gentleman is right, and I remember when IPPs came in;
they were created by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. I was a
barrister at the time and I remember that under the legislation
we were required effectively to apply for them and that judges
were required to hand them down. There has been an understanding,
in the intervening 20 years, that they have not operated as they
should. They have created a sense of total despair, hopelessness
and, most importantly of all, injustice.
How we deal with this issue is difficult in circumstances where
the Parole Board has judged that people remain a danger to
society. That is the issue. There is no easy solution where we
say simply, “Let people out”, because we know in doing so that
they could commit crimes and harm our fellow citizens. So we
cannot do that, but what we will do is take every step, including
providing additional psychological support so that individuals
can prepare for parole hearings, and we will look at the issue of
licences. We will not compromise on public safety, but we will do
everything we can to scrub out the stain of those misguided
sentences.
(Aylesbury) (Con)
The success of our prisons is not about having the highest
possible number of prisoners in them; it is surely about prison
rehabilitating offenders so that there are fewer victims of crime
in the future. I strongly welcome the measures that the Lord
Chancellor has announced today, especially on not putting people
in prison who do not need to be in prison. Does he agree that we
can cut crime substantially with much more effective use of
technology, including the GPS tags that he mentioned, creating
almost a virtual prison? That will be justice for the digital age
under this party rather than for the Victorian era, which the
Labour party seems to prefer.
My hon. Friend speaks clearly and persuasively, with the benefit
of great experience as a magistrate. In my experience,
magistrates courts overwhelmingly want to ensure, of course, that
the punishment fits the crime, but they also want to ensure that
the individual is taken away from the path of crime and
ultimately rehabilitated. So of course my hon. Friend is right.
Other countries have used technology very effectively. Where
there are lessons to learn, we should learn them, but we will not
compromise on ensuring that there is punishment. We can just
deliver punishment with technology even more effectively.
(Kingston upon Hull North)
(Lab)
The Home Affairs Committee produced a report a while ago on the
investigation and prosecution of rape and serious sexual assault,
and we found that those cases were disproportionately affected by
the backlog in the courts. Of course, few cases—less than 2%—are
actually getting to the courts, and even those are taking too
long, so with these reports that judges are now going to delay
sentencing, what does the Lord Chancellor have to say to the
victims of rape and serious sexual assault who wait far too long
for justice? It seems like it is going to be an even longer
wait.
The right hon. Lady is right when she says it is important to try
to reduce the period of time that people are waiting. I
absolutely get that point, but in the interests of balance, it is
equally important to note the following. More people are being
prosecuted for rape than in 2010, and a higher proportion are
being convicted; the sentences are a third longer, and defendants
are spending a higher proportion of those sentences in custody;
we have introduced reforms that mean that complainants can
pre-record their evidence; we have rolled out over 800
independent sexual violence advisers to support people; we have
created the offences of coercive and controlling behaviour and
have stood up a 24/7 rape support helpline. All that we do and
more.
I can tell hon. Members that compared with when I was prosecuting
this stuff, the difference in the experience and the rights of
victims of sexual violence is night and day. As I say,
complainants now have the right to make pre-recorded evidence;
they can have court familiarisation visits; and they have the
right to an ISVA, to seek a redetermination in the event that the
CPS decides to reduce a charge, and to make a victim personal
statement. We do all this because we care passionately about
wanting to support victims of sexual offences, and we will
continue to do so.
(Wokingham) (Con)
I strongly welcome the proposal to deport more foreign criminals,
and I also support the idea of finding something better than
prison for non-violent offenders. Will that include, wherever
possible, their need to have a job legally and to pay
compensation to those against whom they have committed fraud,
theft and other financial crimes?
My right hon. Friend makes two excellent points. It is worth
reflecting on the fact that since 2019, we have deported around
15,000 foreign national offenders. A huge amount of work has
taken place, and that will continue, albeit at an even greater
pace.
The second point he makes is fundamental. Judges already have the
power to impose a compensation order in the event that someone is
convicted of a crime, but their ability to do so is determined by
the funds that are available to that individual. How much better
it is if the individual can go out and do an honest day’s work to
generate more income, so that they can, in a small way, put right
the crime they have committed and the damage they have done.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for his statement and his
comments. I am mindful that this is about England and Wales, but
I have been contacted over the past few years by a number of
people who have been victims of perpetrators of some of the most
bestial crimes in the country. The Government and the Minister
have replied to some of the questions I have asked and some of
the comments I have made to his Department, but can he tell me
today whether those victims will be elevated to a more prominent
position, and whether looking after them will be given greater
priority? Their feelings—how those crimes have hurt them—must be
a priority for Government.
As is so often the case, the hon, Gentleman is absolutely right.
We have to ensure that victims are not spectators in the criminal
justice process, but participants in it. That is why we have
rolled out the victims code, which contains 12 core entitlements
to ensure that victims can be kept updated about the progress of
the case and informed about special measures and how they give
their evidence, as well as the right to court familiarisation
visits, the right to make a victim impact statement and a right
of review, as I have indicated. We have also ensured that
victims’ funding has been quadrupled since 2010, we have doubled
support for rape support centres, and so on. That is over and
above creating the new offences to ensure that those victims can
get justice. All this we do and more, and we do so because we
want to put victims first.
(Rother Valley)
(Con)
Rape, and child rape in particular, is an abhorrent crime.
Ensuring that those perpetrators serve their full sentence in
prison will clearly act as a deterrent and reassure the public,
but what steps is my right hon. and learned Friend taking to
ensure we have the prison places to lock up dangerous rapists and
child rapists in particular, so that victims know that those
perpetrators are always behind bars?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those are some of the most
appalling crimes, which shatter not just the lives of the
victims, but potentially those of so many others, including the
victims’ friends and families, and he is absolutely right that we
need to make sure there is always sufficient custodial capacity
for that to take place. That is why I am announcing today that we
will roll out a programme to buy the very locations we need next
year, with additional money, to ensure that, well in advance of
the prison builds needing to come on line, we have the planning
permission in place so that there is the pipeline of places to
ensure that justice can be done.
(Easington) (Lab)
To be fair to the Lord Chancellor, from the length of his answers
there is no doubt he is against shorter sentences.
[Laughter.]
My question is about overcrowded and understaffed prisons that
make rehabilitation almost impossible. Many prisoners now leave
jail more criminalised, more traumatised and, indeed, more
dangerous than when they first arrived. While the measures
outlined today may make a positive impact, the Government must go
further. Will the Secretary of State commit to tackling the
crisis in prison officer retention by starting with the Prison
Officers Association’s key demand to reduce the pension age,
which it insists has a massive effect on morale and, therefore,
on the retention of prison officers?
I thank the hon. Gentleman. In fairness, that was quite a good
joke; it was not bad—
Sir (Rhondda) (Lab)
Too long![Laughter.]
The hon. Gentleman made some fair points, and I will get back to
him.
Sir (New Forest East) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor is clearly well on top of this subject, so
may I bowl him a couple of googlies? What safeguards will there
be to prevent deported foreign criminals from coming back here if
they are not imprisoned overseas? Will he be very careful before
going down the road of plea bargaining, as in the States, whereby
there is a perverse incentive for the innocent to plead guilty
because of the huge disparity in the sentences they may
receive?
To take the second point first, I am so pleased to hear my right
hon. Friend say that. There are certain things that really are
important in our jurisdiction: first, we do not do plea
bargaining; secondly, we do not have political appointment of
judges; and, thirdly, we have a jury system. These are incredibly
important things. We do not talk about them enough in this
Chamber, but they are immensely important to our basic freedom. I
was delighted to hear that and, yes, he can be sure that we are
not going down the road of plea bargaining.
On the point my right hon. Friend makes about ensuring people
cannot come back, that is precisely the point. It is not just and
it is not sensible to have people costing the taxpayer a huge
amount of money in British prisons if, when they are out, they
are never coming back anyway. That is central to our plan to
ensure that, as we expand the ERS window, we put in place every
necessary measure—in compliance or in consultation with our
international counterparts—to ensure that once people are out,
they are never coming back.
(Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
(PC)
The second largest prison in Europe is HMP Berwyn in north Wales.
As of today, I understand that it houses 1,989 prisoners. Any
solution to the well-documented problems of violence at HMP
Berwyn since it opened six years ago is continuously undermined
by the failure to retain staff because working conditions are so
extreme. Will the Secretary of State recognise that warehousing
offenders in gargantuan prisons creates chronic problems and is
not fit for purpose?
I am very glad the right hon. Member has mentioned Berwyn. I went
to Berwyn, and she is right that we always want to recruit more
prison staff, but let us pause for a second just to note how
fantastic some of the work is in that prison. I was there in the
jobcentre—in effect, there is a jobcentre within the prison—and
people were having Zoom interviews with their potential employers
on the outside. That is one of the reasons why reoffending has
dropped while we have been in government from 32% to 24%, and it
is one of the reasons why crime is down overall. She mentions the
1,900 or so people, but let me say—lest we forget—that the Labour
party promised, before it left office, that there would be three
Titan prisons with 2,500 people in them. Did they happen? Did
they heck.
Hon. Members
Ooh!
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. I think that was quite mild. It is all right. It could
have been worse.
(Buckingham) (Con)
There was a great deal to be welcomed in my right hon. and
learned Friend’s statement, but can I unpack the capacity
question? When he is successful in deporting more foreign
national offenders, that will free up capacity. When he is
successful in the home detention curfews and better use of
technology, that will free up prison capacity, leaving the spike
as the covid backlog is caught up with creating a temporary
problem in capacity. Therefore, would it not be better to meet it
with the temporary provision of cells in the existing prison
estate, rather than going the whole hog and devastating
communities such as mine in Grendon Underwood and Edgcott by
building mega-prisons?
May I first put it on the record that no one could be a more
doughty defender of the interests of the people of Buckingham
than my hon. Friend, who raises with me time and again the
concerns of his constituents about Grendon Springhill? I will
continue to have those important conversations with him, knowing
fine well that his constituents’ interests are being vigorously
advanced.
Sir (Rhondda) (Lab)
The ministerial code says that all major announcements of
Government policy should be made to the House first, yet half of
what has been announced today was preluded by an op-ed written by
the Secretary of State and in briefings to national newspapers
over the weekend. That is a breach of the ministerial code, and
when I asked Sir Laurie Magnus, the independent adviser on
ministerial interests, whether he would investigate such
breaches, he said, “Yes, in theory.” Would it not be a good idea,
especially considering that the Secretary of State thinks that
short and minor sanctions lead to recidivism, if there was a
substantial sanction against Ministers who do that, and he
reported himself to the independent adviser?
I am afraid that I do not accept that point.
(North West Hampshire) (Con)
May I say what a pleasure it was to hear the Lord Chancellor’s
statement, which represents a big step forward for our criminal
justice system? He and I have long shared the view that we do not
lock up the violent for long enough and there are smarter ways of
dealing with the non-violent. On that note, I applaud his
expansion of the tagging programme. I have two questions. First,
on GPS tags, does he intend to expand the acquisitive crime
pilot? Currently, in 19 police force areas every burglar and
robber released from prison is GPS tagged to reduce reoffending.
Secondly, while we are not short of sobriety tags, which he will
know I am extremely keen on, the problem is that judges are just
not using them, so what steps will he take to expand judicial
enthusiasm, given how much alcohol drives low-level crime?
My right hon. Friend did exceptionally important work in ensuring
that the supply and roll-out of alcohol sobriety tags, and indeed
other tags, proceeded at huge pace, and they make a significant
difference. On his point about uptake, plainly sentences are a
matter for the independent judiciary, but I do think that more
can be done to ensure that judges and magistrates are aware of
the sheer extent of the technology available, and the steps that
can be taken to properly curtail people’s freedom in appropriate
cases by way of punishment, and to ensure that they have the tags
to steer people away from addiction. Ultimately, that can be the
best way to ensure that people are properly rehabilitated and
become contributing members of society once again.
(Huddersfield)
(Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State reminds me of the unfortunate astronaut
who by mistake is still circling the moon somewhere, out of
touch, when he only expected to be up there for three months.
Those of us who have been down on planet Earth for the last 13
years know about the resources devoted to the Ministry of
Justice, which has faced the worst cuts of any Department. Is he
aware that we have been promised a royal commission on justice
three times in the Queen’s Speech, which will now be the King’s
Speech? Today’s statement was supposed to be an update on prison
capacity. He has covered far more than that. Is he aware, for
example, that joint enterprise is responsible for 1,000 young
people who should not be in prison being in prison? Why can he
not wake up and do something about them?
I know that the hon. Gentleman cares passionately about joint
enterprise, but I must tell him this: joint enterprise is the
legal doctrine that means that the getaway driver is culpable, or
that the person who supplies the firearm in a murder is held
properly accountable and found guilty. Those are important tools
that the Court of Appeal considered carefully in the case of
Jogee. Getting rid of joint enterprise would mean that a lot of
people who have helped or encouraged the commission of offences
get away—in some cases, with murder.
(Devizes) (Con)
I declare an interest as the founder and chairman of a charity
that works in prisons. I very much support today’s announcement
of an expansion of prison capacity and tagging, both of which are
necessary and right. I understand that the Lord Chancellor was
inspired by Texas prisons. I visited some Texan jails and saw
that they are doing two things right. The first is sentencing,
with tough justice ensuring that people get the sentences that
they deserve. The second thing that they are doing in Texas to
reduce the jail population is getting rehabilitation right and,
crucially, relying on civil society—outside organisations get
access to prisoners before they are released and then support
them afterwards. I think that the Government are getting it right
on sentencing, but does the Lord Chancellor agree that we need to
do more on rehabilitation, particularly by involving civil
society?
My hon. Friend is completely correct. We in this Chamber all know
that the context for offending—not an excuse, but the context—can
be deep-seated problems of addiction, homelessness, relationship
breakdown and so on. One thing I am pleased about is that the
Department of Health and Social Care is investing over half a
billion pounds, with more than 1,600 additional staff, to ensure
that drug treatment is available to those who need it. For our
part, we in the Ministry of Justice have launched a pilot of
three intensive supervision courts in the Teesside and Liverpool
Crown courts to ensure that those whose offending behaviour is
driven by substance misuse can get the treatment they need to get
them off drugs and off the driver of their offences.
(Slough) (Lab)
As my constituents have pointed out to me, there is a shoplifting
epidemic under the Conservative Government. The police often do
not deal with burglaries and other such crimes because of a lack
of resources. Conviction rates for rape and sexual violence are
at record lows. Now that our prisons are full, the Government
propose to release prisoners early or try to ship them abroad.
That is all because of a lack of foresight and action. Why are
the Government so weak on law and order, and when were they first
warned about a crisis and a lack of places in prisons?
There are more people in prison than ever before, which rather
suggests the opposite of what the hon. Gentleman says. He also
says that the conviction rate for rape is lower, but that is
completely wrong—it is higher. Does he know who was Director of
Public Prosecutions before? The Leader of the Opposition.
(Eddisbury) (Con)
Despite resulting in lower reconviction rates, the use of
community orders has halved in the last decade, so will today’s
announcement start to reverse that trend? In trying to do so,
will my right hon. and learned Friend consider increasing the use
of pre-sentence reports and speeding up the roll-out of community
sentence orders where we are trying to get people treated?
That is an excellent question. In appropriate cases, pre-sentence
reports are vital because the probation service can provide the
sentencing judge or magistrate with all the surrounding
information about the offender so that they can impose a sentence
that meets the seriousness of the case while also being
rehabilitative and appropriate. That requires trained probation
officers who are experts in their area. That is why we have
invested £155 million in addition, each and every year, to ensure
that the probation service has the resource it needs. I know from
my time as a practitioner that the reports the probation service
provides are essential to ensure that justice can be done.
(Warrington North)
(Lab)
The Times reports that
“Lord Justice Edis, the senior presiding judge for England and
Wales, has ordered that sentencing of convicted criminals who are
currently on bail should be delayed”
from today. According to that report, the order did not
specifically exclude rape convictions, which judges have
expressed alarm about, given the already abysmal conviction rates
of well below 2%. What message does the Secretary of State think
such an order sends to victims of sexual violence who are
deciding whether they have enough faith in our broken justice
system to come forward? When do the Government expect sentencing
to restart?
It is incredibly important that no one from this Chamber
deliberately or inadvertently gives the impression that rapists
are not going to be sentenced. They are going to be sentenced;
the sentences imposed will be, on average, a third longer than
those imposed in 2010; and they will serve a higher proportion of
those sentences in custody. We are prosecuting more people for
rape than in 2010 and, as I say, they are being punished more
severely, so let the message go out that people who offend
against women—and it is overwhelmingly against women—and behave
in such a barbaric way can expect not just to hear the clang of
the prison gate, but to be reflecting on their actions for a very
long time.
(Bury North) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give the House a guarantee
that judges or magistrates will retain the discretion to impose
short-term custodial sentences in the interests of public justice
and public protection? In the circumstances, does he foresee a
change to the sentencing guidelines for the raft of offences
covered by the 12-month sentencing threshold? Does he foresee
that all such offences will now be sentenced according to the one
test he has outlined?
My hon. Friend has been a practitioner in the courts, so he
understands, as all practitioners do, that there are offenders
who, I am afraid, show themselves unwilling to abide by the order
of the court, or incapable of doing so, and even if the court is
prepared to say, “There should be a suspended sentence in your
case,” they will breach it. In those circumstances, magistrates
and judges must have the power, in the final analysis, to send
that person to immediate custody. We will always ensure that they
have that power. That is important for the rule of law and to
send the message that there will be consequences if a person
flouts an order of the court.
(Ellesmere Port and Neston)
(Lab)
I want to ask about licence conditions, and particularly those
that prohibit the offender from contacting certain people or
entering certain postcodes. It is obvious that such conditions
are about protecting victims and their families. My concern is
that the Lord Chancellor’s statement did not make it absolutely
clear that breaching such conditions will lead to a return to
custody. It is important for victims to hear that those kinds of
transgressions will result in an immediate return to custody.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful and appropriate query
on behalf of his constituents. In any case, before an individual
falls to be released under the sentence that has been applied—in
other words, when they get to the end of the custodial element of
their sentence—probation officers will sort out, in advance, the
package of licence conditions, which could include, as the hon.
Gentleman indicated, instructions not to contact someone directly
or indirectly, a residence condition, or a condition on contact
with probation officers and so on. The point is that if they
breach those conditions, they are liable to be recalled and—here
is the important point—not just for the period of that release
but for the entire balance of their sentence. In other words, if
somebody was sentenced to 18 months and fell to be released at
the nine-month mark, but a week later they breached the probation
conditions, they would fall to serve the entire balance of the
sentence of nine months. That is important. Metaphorically
speaking, that sword of Damocles is hanging over that offender to
ensure that they stay in line and do not commit further
offences.
(Don Valley) (Con)
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his statement. I
believe in zero tolerance and long sentences for the most serious
crimes, but I also believe in prevention rather than cure. With
96% of the prison population being men and many young boys
destined to spend their lives in and out of prison, will the Lord
Chancellor use his position in Cabinet to work with his
colleagues on reducing the number of boys who are on that path?
Will he also back my campaign for a Minister for men? We are
letting boys and young men down and it simply is not fair on men
or women, or on the taxpayer as a whole.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we want to ensure that
all prisoners, and certainly young men, are steered away from
crime. We now have a much better understanding, as a nation, of
some of the drivers of some offending. That is why, under our
watch, when prisoners come into jail there will be a
neurodiversity assessment to explore their background. We could
potentially discover a brain injury—the hon. Member for Rhondda
(Sir ) has gone, but I know that he
takes an interest in that subject. The whole approach we are now
taking is to ensure that those who can be redeemed are redeemed,
but that those who are frankly beyond redemption and are a threat
to society are locked up, and locked up for longer. That is the
right approach.
(Hammersmith) (Lab)
In a parallel Government universe, the Secretary of State’s
proposals for directing short-term prisoners into community
sentences might be an idea whose time had come, but it requires
experienced probation staff in post, properly organised and
challenging community work, and genuine rehabilitation
initiatives. His Government’s evisceration of the justice system
means that none of that is available, and he is doing it now only
because of their mismanagement of the about-to-burst prison
estate. Has he not been set up to fail?
No, that is wrong. The first part—that this is an idea whose time
has come—is correct. I spoke about this when I was a Back Bencher
in a speech at the Conservative party conference, of all places.
I have come to this as a realisation for some time. What is
encouraging is that the Government are putting enormous
additional resource into the probation service, because I reckon
that it is ultimately critical to the success of community
orders; it does a phenomenal job. We are putting more resources
in and recruiting more, and we will do everything we can to
strengthen the system.
(Warrington South) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend knows that magistrates think
carefully before they commit anybody to custody, because they
know that once somebody is sent to prison for a short sentence,
their life can spiral downwards very quickly: they can lose their
home, their job and, often, their family. Does he agree that more
robust community sentences are needed, particularly in relation
to drug rehabilitation, which is the root cause of so much
offending? Will he set out what steps he is taking to ensure that
those on community sentences are suitably supervised?
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. His observation that
magistrates do all they can to avoid sending someone to custody
and do so only when absolutely necessary was well made. The
reason why this reform will be so important is that under a
suspended sentence order, the magistrates are saying in effect to
that individual, “You must engage in a sensible and productive
way with drug rehabilitation. If you don’t, you will go to
prison.” That provides the most powerful incentive for that
individual to break the cycle of offending while not locking them
up, which, as my hon. Friend indicated, would mean they could
lose their universal credit, not get the mental health treatment
they require and break the family relationships that can be so
important to keeping people away from crime.
(City of Durham) (Lab)
Four years ago, the Secretary of State’s Department announced
limits on short-term sentencing, which were then scrapped, and
now they are back. That is four years wasted; years when
Ministers sat on their hands, ignoring a crisis of their own
making. Meanwhile, prison officers have had to deal with the
consequences of health and safety concerns, overcrowding and
violence, all undercut by low pay and poor terms and conditions.
Will he apologise to prison officers—especially those in the City
of Durham—and will he lower the retirement age?
Prison officers in the City of Durham and elsewhere do an
exceptionally important job. That is why I was pleased to accept
the recommendation of the independent pay review body to ensure
that the pay uplift was fair and decent, and recognised the
stunningly important work that they do. That is why we have
rolled out £100 million in prison security to ensure that prison
officers have body-worn video cameras and other security measures
to keep them safe. We will always do everything we can—whether
with recruitment, pay or helping to drive retention—to keep
prison officers safe and our prisons well resourced with prison
officers.
(Elmet and Rothwell)
(Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that I have been
notified that HMP Wealstun in my constituency will get new cells.
Will he write to me on when those will be completed by and what
conversations he has had with the governor on being able to staff
them to capacity? Many of the prison officers are constituents of
mine.
I thank my right hon. Friend for the care and attention he takes
in respect of this matter. I will be delighted to write to him in
the terms he suggests.
(Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Earlier this year, I secured a Westminster Hall debate on the
criminalisation of ethnic minority and migrant women who are
themselves victims of violence. Sadly, 57% of women in prison or
under community supervision are victims of domestic violence—a
shocking statistic. Will the Lord Chancellor commit to amending
the Victims and Prisoners Bill to ensure statutory defences for
those victims of domestic violence accused of offending, to
prevent more unjust convictions?
I thank the hon. Lady for the care and attention she gives to
this topic. It is worth reflecting that around 5% of the overall
prison population are women, so it is overwhelmingly men who are
in custody. On the point she raises, she will be aware that there
are already defences available—duress, self-defence and so
on—that can be invoked by individuals facing charges. We think
that strikes the right balance, but I am of course happy to have
a conversation with her about any representation she might wish
to make.
(Chelmsford) (Con)
A rapist should be prosecuted, they should be sentenced and they
should serve that sentence, and I thank the Lord Chancellor for
making that very clear today. In Chelmsford we have a small
number of people who have been charged with antisocial behaviour,
a low-level crime, and are waiting to go to the magistrates
court, but they are causing havoc on our high streets as they
reoffend. Can he assure us that those persistent offenders will
still be judged? I know that, as an Essex MP, Madam Deputy
Speaker, who was here earlier, will have wanted to know about the
situation in our local prison at Chelmsford: there were 708
prisoners there last night, so only 15 empty spaces, but there
are 27 cells that could be repaired. Could the Lord Chancellor
possibly look into repairing those cells?
On that last point, we have put a great deal of funding into the
maintenance of Chelmsford prison, but also HMP Liverpool and
Birmingham in particular. On the first point my right hon. Friend
raises, about recidivist offenders, it is precisely because we
are concerned about people committing so-called low-level
offending that we want to ensure that magistrates retain the
power to send people to prison. If people show defiance and that
they are incapable or unwilling to abide by the terms of the
order of the court, there is a simple answer: they will go to
prison and they will learn to reflect on their actions in
custody.
(Kingston upon Hull East)
(Lab)
I welcome some of what the Justice Secretary said in his
statement, especially on the implementation of the
recommendations of the Justice Committee on IPP sentences. They
were always a terrible idea, in my view, and they have been used
badly. However, it should not be a surprise to anybody that,
after 13 years of deliberate and savage underfunding, the
criminal justice system is on its knees and our prisons are full
to bursting. If it is right that the senior presiding judge, Lord
Justice Edis, is saying to sentencing judges, “Adjourn sentence,”
is that his fault, or is it the Justice Secretary’s fault?
The first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, on IPPs, was
absolutely right, and I am delighted to hear that he agrees.
However, he is making a bad political point on the second matter,
and it is not borne out by the arithmetic. In 2010 the total
number of cases was around 48,000—he is shaking his head; we can
argue about opinion, but this is fact. The position prior to the
pandemic was around 40,000. The position we have at present is a
function of that pandemic, and we are frank about that. That is
why we are taking steps not just to increase the number of
judges—we have recruited an additional 1,000—but putting up to
£141 million into legal aid, something he should support. We will
do everything we can to expand capacity in the system to ensure
that we can deliver justice for all.
(Worcester) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s statement and his
focus on protecting the public. He mentioned that we are changing
the law to make whole life sentences the default for the most
heinous types of murder. He will be aware that one of the cases
that led to that change in the law was the release by the parole
board of the “monster of Worcester”, David McGreavy, a multiple
child murderer. Unfortunately, last week, Worcester Crown court
saw the sentencing of another monster of Worcester, Anthony
Roberts, for a savage sexual assault on a 71-year-old woman. He
had previously been sentenced to life for attempted murder of a
15-year-old girl. Will my right hon. and learned Friend meet me
to hear the concerns of my constituents about this appalling case
and about the case to be made for attempted murder, aggravated by
sexual assault, to be treated alongside those heinous
murders?
Of course I will—what an appalling case. I would be delighted to
meet my hon. Friend. On the changes to whole life orders that we
have introduced following the dreadful Sarah Everard case, where
there was sexual violence followed by murder, it is in such cases
that we insist, as a matter of fairness and basic natural
justice, that someone who behaves in that way should expect to
end their days in custody. That is what the British people think,
and that is what we think too.
(Birmingham, Hall Green)
(Lab)
My constituents are increasingly victims of the scourge of
dangerous and antisocial driving. They have contacted me
demanding tougher penalties for those who cause death by
dangerous driving. I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s statement that
sentences have been increased for offences including death by
dangerous driving to a maximum of life imprisonment. Will he
confirm that prison capacity is not an obstacle to ensuring that
dangerous drivers serve the prison time they deserve?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point.
Dangerous driving shatters lives and families, which is why we
thought it was right, in recognition of the sheer harm that it
causes, that the maximum sentence should go from 14 years to
life. I make the point, gently, that we would have welcomed
support from the Opposition, which unfortunately we did not get.
Notwithstanding the point that he raised, it is important for
independent judges to decide on the facts of the case. We welcome
the fact that the Sentencing Council is in place to impose
guidelines to ensure that judges have everything they need to
ensure consistency but also condign punishment.
(Bournemouth East) (Con)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s statement today, and I
congratulate him on clearly being on top of a difficult brief,
and on confirming today that those serious and violent criminals
are being locked up for longer. Could he expand on the
reoffending rates of those on short sentences versus community
sentences? Does he believe that the general public—and victims,
potentially—might support them, because those convicted are seen
as doing good when they complete their community service in
public?
I thank my right hon. Friend for getting absolutely to the heart
of it. Those who are sentenced to short custodial sentences—under
12 months—statistically go on to reoffend 55% of the time. Yet
for those who have suspended sentence orders with conditions—such
as unpaid work or to address mental health issues or whatever—22%
commit further offences. There is a massive reduction. We want to
ensure that once people have served their sentences and atoned
for the crime they have committed, they can go on to become
law-abiding, contributing members of society.
(Eltham) (Lab)
Last man standing, Mr Deputy Speaker. No early release for me.
The Secretary of State’s statement would be all the more
impressive had it not come after 13 years of continuous
Conservative Governments. They promised to create 20,000 extra
places by the mid-2020s, but we have seen a net increase of 300.
We have lost some places to dilapidation, and those that have
replaced them amount to a net increase of only 300. Only a few
weeks ago, we were told that the Government were implacably
opposed to early release. I take it that he has dropped his idea
of buying places in foreign prisons. The truth is that the
management of the system has been completely chaotic for 13
years. When will we see the increase in prison places that the
Government have been talking about?
The first thing to say is that our prison programme is the
largest since the Victorian era—20,000 places. If I may say so,
that stands in stark contrast to Labour. stood at this Dispatch Box and
said, “We will build three titan prisons, each one of them
2,500”. Did it happen? No, it did not. This is the party that has
put the money behind it. In fact, it was this Prime Minister, as
Chancellor, who did that. We are rolling them out. By the way, I
will make no apology for taking offline old and inadequate
accommodation and replacing it with modern, secure, decent
prisons. That is something the hon. Gentleman should welcome.
(Thurrock) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be well aware that people who have been
through the care system are overrepresented in our prisons, as
are people with neurodiverse conditions, as he has mentioned, and
many existing victims of crime and abuse. It is a mark of a
civilised society that when those people first touch the criminal
justice system, we take the opportunity to support them to make
them functioning members of society, not simply lock them up and
throw away the key. We have heard all that across the Chamber,
but that message does not survive the retail nature of our
politics. Will he assure me that the Government will continue to
walk the walk and talk the talk on those messages?
More than many people in this place, my hon. Friend combines
compassion with clarity of thought. She absolutely demonstrated
that. It is incumbent on all of us to advocate for basic fairness
and decency and what works, and I can think of no more powerful
advocate than my hon. Friend.
(Ashfield) (Con)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s statement that foreign
criminals—who, by the way, cost the taxpayer an absolute
fortune—will be taken out of their comfy cell, put on a plane and
sent back to where they came from. What assurances can he give me
that those planes will actually take off the tarmac and not be
blocked by lefty lawyers, human rights campaigners and silly
letters signed by that lot over there?
As always, my hon. Friend makes a robust point. It is not right
that the British people, having suffered the crime in the first
place, should then have to pay for the privilege of locking
people up for longer at a cost of £47,000 a year. We will send
them back. The only people who will try to block it—who will try
to block rapists, murderers and grievous bodily harmers—will be
the Labour party. And we know that because they have tried to do
so already.
Mr Deputy Speaker ( )
Last but not least, I call .
(Bracknell) (Con)
May I thank the Lord Chancellor for his pragmatic statement? I
also thank the prisons Minister for his engagement over the
weekend. I really welcome progress with IPP sentencing, on which
I have a clear constituency interest, but what I really want to
ask about is custodial sentences of less than 12 months being
suspended. Is there a presumption that those needing to pay a
debt to the community will do so in the very communities in which
they offend?
What an excellent point to end on. It is critical that where a
community is offended against, the offenders make that community
whole—in other words, that they do the work, whether it is
scrubbing graffiti, clearing wasteland or planting trees, in the
community to try to atone for their guilt and to repair some of
the damage they have done. I am delighted that, increasingly,
police and crime commissioners are working together with local
probation services to identify the stuff that needs doing in
their community so that when defendants go straight, they also
look after the community that they have wronged so badly in the
first place.
Mr Deputy Speaker ( )
I thank the Lord Chancellor for his statement and for answering
questions for just a minute short of one hour and 20 minutes.
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