Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debateMonday 10th January 2022
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberPolice, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 72-V Fifth marshalled list for Report - (10 Jan 2022)
16:27 - Division on Amendment 90A - Ayes: 198 / Noes: 163 - Amendment 90A agreed.
17:59 - Division on Amendment 95A - Ayes: 215 / Noes: 177 - Amendment 95A agreed.
19:07 - Division on Amendment 97 - Ayes: 99 / Noes: 169 - Amendment 97 disagreed.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew. As some noble Lords will know, I spoke on issues relevant to this amendment at an earlier stage of the Bill.
In quoting the Taylor review, the noble Lord, Lord German, made the case for his Amendment 90A. It would be singularly inappropriate—I think this was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—to debar all local authorities from setting up appropriate provision simply because of the use of the word “academy”. This is wrapped up with other aspects of educational policy. If the local authority is capable of providing what would manifestly be the best institution and provision for this group of young people, who need absolutely the best quality of education that can be afforded to them, it should do so. I take the view that the provision in Amendment 90A should categorically be in the Bill to ensure that we do not debar any local authority from engaging in the process to set up an institution. As has already been said, this does not require that local authorities should do it but it does not debar them; debarring them would be unreasonable.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)
My Lords, this group of amendments covers Part 9 of the Bill. I will cover the group in two parts, if I may.
Amendment 90A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German, would allow local authorities to establish and maintain secure academies either alone or in consortia. The noble Lord kindly mentioned the sustained engagement that he has had with me and others on this matter; in turn, I acknowledge my gratitude to him for his time and commitment. As he mentioned, I wrote to him and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, outlining that, in our view, it would be legally possible for a local authority to set up an entity capable of entering into academy arrangements directly with the Secretary of State, and that this is not prevented by the Academies Act. Therefore, as I set out in that letter, there is no legal bar to what the noble Lord wants to happen. I understand that, as he said, he wants to put the matter “beyond any doubt”, but I have explained in writing that there is no legal doubt on this point at all; indeed, I think I heard him accept this afternoon that it is “clear” there is no legal bar. I therefore say to him and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, that there is no issue of being debarred here. I suggest that the amendment is therefore unnecessary.
I accept that the Government’s policy remains that academy trusts are not local authority-influenced companies and that our position on secure schools is to mirror academies’ procedures. However, I can confirm that, when considering the market of providers of future secure schools, my department will assess in detail the potential role of local authorities in running this new form of provision. We of course recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, noted, that local authorities have a long-established role in children’s social care and the provision of secure accommodation for children and young people. In particular, the secure children’s homes legal framework may present a more straightforward route than the 16-19 academies framework for the expansion of local authority involvement in the provision of secure accommodation. However, I reiterate that there is no legal bar here. I therefore suggest that the amendment must necessarily be unnecessary.
I now turn to Amendments 90B to 90F, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. Local authorities have a duty, under the Children Act 1989, to ensure sufficient, appropriate accommodation for all the children they look after and to ensure sufficient children’s homes for other children whose welfare requires it, whether or not they are looked-after children. I recognise that some local authorities have sometimes found it difficult to access the most appropriate accommodation, particularly for children with the most complex needs. It is right to say, both from the judgment of Lord Justice Baker, which was mentioned, and indeed from other judgments, that some of these children have extremely challenging and very complex needs. It is also the case that, sometimes, children are placed in locations away from home when they may be better served by a placement in their local area if one were available. We are looking carefully at that, not only in my department but in others as well.
We are taking significant steps to support local authorities to fulfil their statutory duty. We have started a programme of work this year to support local authorities to maintain existing capacity and to expand provision in secure children’s homes to ensure that children can live closer to home and in provision that best meets their needs. In the spending review we announced £259 million to continue this programme to maintain and expand capacity in both secure and open residential children’s homes. We acknowledge, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said, that it may take—I will use the same phrase—some time to see all the benefits of that capital investment, particularly when you are talking about new builds, but it is the case that the capital programme will also result in increased capacity in the secure children’s home estate in the shorter term as we seek to create more beds through investment in a range of projects, including extensions of current buildings, refurbishments and rebuilds. I know that in the judgment referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Justice Baker used the phrase “urgent attention”, and that is what we are giving this problem.
Ofsted has also taken steps to support local authorities in this area. It has an amended process to make it easier for local authorities or other providers to apply for registration of children’s homes in emergency situations. It is also now easier to open and run a single-bed children’s home, which can be one of the most commonly needed types of accommodation when the child has very complex needs. It can be almost impossible, sometimes, to have more than one child in that location. Ofsted has now published guidance on these changes, and I hope that will help as well.
Before I sit down, I should also remind the House of two other relevant pieces of work ongoing in this area. First, the independent review of children’s social care, which commenced in March last year, is looking at this whole area in a fundamental way. Secondly, also in March last year, the Competition and Markets Authority launched a market study examining the lack of availability and increasing costs in children’s social care provision, including children’s homes and fostering. It has proposed a number of changes, of which I will not go into detail now, but they are important. We will look at the full reports when they come out. I expect both of those pieces of work to be serious and substantial reports.
I recognise the aims of all noble Lords who have supported these amendments; we all share the same aims here, but I suggest that we have existing statutory requirements and significant, wide-ranging and independent reviews under way, looking at the whole care system, alongside that CMA market study. For those reasons, I hope the noble Lord, Lord German, will withdraw his amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, will not press his. I urge them to do so.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I am deeply grateful to all who have contributed and to the Minister, who has not been able to go beyond the text of the letter that he sent to my noble friend Lord Marks. Although I understand that, it just reinforces the position that I outlined at the beginning.
To reiterate the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, we are seeking the best, and to not leave out a potential bidder who could be one of the best is all that this amendment is about. It is simply to make sure beyond doubt. We understand that there is a legal route through this. I did not read out the exact words that the Minister repeated, but there is a route through—although he does say that it would place burdens on local authorities. Interestingly, and moreover, he said earlier that it also conflicts with the policy of academies.
The one thing the Minister did say, both in replying and in his letter, was that they will keep this issue under review. The problem with keeping something under review is that the process will already have started, and keeping it under review does not mean that there will necessarily be any changes or any scrutiny in this House.
The noble Lord said that there are two routes: the academy route, which local authorities will be excluded from, and secure family accommodation, which they want to encourage local government to do. Charlie Taylor’s review and report seek integration, not silos. It would be sensible to make sure that, at this point, there is absolutely no doubt. For the simple reason that we have to be able to search for the best and get the best, this amendment should be part of the Bill and not part of some future discussion—which may or may not produce a sensible outcome, as far as I am concerned. I am therefore minded to seek the view of the House on this matter.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, all of us in the Chamber are united by our desire to tackle violent crime, target police resources better and see fewer victims of crime. If we look at the Government’s own statistics with respect to this, it is worth reminding ourselves that to be fair to the Government, this is what they are seeking to try to deal with. In the impact assessment we see that offences involving knives increased by 84% between June 2014 and June 2020, homicides increased by 38% and gun crime rose by 28%. In the year ending June 2020, 262 people were stabbed to death, with 4,800 admissions for assault by a sharp object. Just recently, we have seen the horrific figure of 30 young people murdered on the streets of London. You can see why the Government are seeking to do something.
Any Government would want to do something, but what is being said to the Government is: are the serious violence prevention orders and the way in which they are set up the way to deal with that? That is the purpose of many of the amendments, many of which we support. The purpose of the amendments today—again, we have heard many arguments from many noble Lords in this House—is to raise those concerns and air those issues about how the orders will be used and the breadth of who they can be applied to. There is some difference of opinion, as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, in his view of stop and search without suspicion and its use, and others have very serious concerns about it.
If the measures—these orders—are to go ahead, the crucial thing for this House is to ensure that the pilot that the Government have said they will carry out with respect to these orders is absolutely right, and to make sure that it is not just a tick-box exercise that the Government can use to say, “There you are—that proves what we said in the first place.” In particular, we need to look at whether the issues that have been raised, quite rightly, actually occur, in which case the orders would be inappropriate. Most important of all: do the orders work? Will they actually bring down those horrific figures that I just mentioned in the way that we would all want? Do they reduce and prevent violent crime, are they successful at diverting people away from crime and the criminal justice system, and are they a good use of police resources?
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Armstrong who, for good reason, cannot be with us today, for her Amendments 90K and 90L, and to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester for her support for them. They raise the issue of women and girls who have been exploited in gangs and are likely to be caught up in the provisions of these serious violence prevention orders, in particular where, in the phrase we have heard from many noble Lords, they “ought to have known” that a companion was carrying a knife. Notwithstanding what has been said, my own experience of this is that “ought to have known” ignores the reality of the coercive and abusive nature of many girls’ involvement in those gangs. It is not the “ought to have known” that we would all think about when we talk about the lives we lead. In the chaotic lifestyle of those gang members, “ought to have known” is an unreasonable expectation. It is absolutely vital that the pilot looks at how those provisions impact on violence against women and girls and their impact on vulnerable and exploited women.
Therefore, because of the importance of the pilot, we strongly support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick: Amendments 95A, 95B and 95C. Amendment 95B in particular brings all of these debates together in ensuring that Parliament not only gets a report on the pilot but a detailed answer from the Government on any issues that the pilot raises. Not many amendments could be quite as reasonable as that. It would provide simple parliamentary scrutiny and allow Parliament then to make a decision on whether these orders work and should be rolled out and on whether the issues that many noble Lords have raised are right.
Amendment 95C ensures the pilot is a genuine evidence-gathering exercise and considers, as I say, all the important issues raised. I raised the issue of parliamentary scrutiny in Committee, as did others, and I am grateful to the Minister for writing to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in response to the points raised and copying it to other noble Lords. At the moment, the Bill would provide that certain details of the orders are provided in regulations that would be subject to the affirmative procedure, which is welcome. The amendment would take this one step further—quite rightly, which is why we support it. It would ensure that the decision over whether to introduce the orders, once we have genuine evidence on how they have worked following the pilot, is taken by Parliament and not just by the Home Office. I respectfully suggest that that would not be too big an ask. The Government have already accepted that these orders need to be piloted, so if the principle of piloting has been accepted, surely Parliament should be able to scrutinise whether the pilot has been a success and whether the issues raised by noble Lords and indeed others in the other place are right.
All of us are united by a desire to tackle serious and violent crime, but that does not mean that we should just take any action that this Parliament considers necessary without considering the consequences. Stop and search without suspicion is probably one action that highlights that more than any other, but there have certainly been other issues related to women and girls as well. I ask the Minister to consider parliamentary scrutiny and whether these orders should go forward. I would suggest that is a perfectly reasonable response for this Chamber and others to make.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, as we have heard, these amendments are about two things: serious violence reduction orders and stop and search powers more broadly. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for setting out the case for their amendments, and to other noble Lords for promoting the points of the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, in her absence. We wish her well.
Amendments 90G, 90M and 91C would raise the threshold for the standard of proof required to impose an SVRO from the civil to the criminal standard. SVROs are civil orders introduced to protect communities and deter offenders from future offending. As such, we think that the civil standard is appropriate to enable a court to consider a wide range of evidence from both the offender and the prosecution when considering whether to make an SVRO.
Amendments 90H, 90J, 90K and 90L all seek to limit the circumstances in which an SVRO may be made. As regards Amendment 90H, it is the Government’s view that an SVRO should be available when an adult has been convicted of an offence where a knife or offensive weapon was present, whether it was used in the commission of the offence or not. But this does not mean that an SVRO will be applied for, or made, in all such cases. The prosecution would first need to consider whether it was appropriate to make an application to the court for an SVRO. The court must consider it necessary to make the SVRO in order to protect the public or prevent reoffending, and it would be very difficult to see how a court might consider an SVRO to be necessary if there was no evidence of risk of harm involving a knife or offensive weapon or risk of knife or offensive weapons offending; the bladed article was not relevant to the offence; or the individual was in possession of a bladed article with a reasonable excuse such as for use at work or for religious purposes—the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester gave an example of the church picnic.
Amendments 90J, 90K and 90L would remove provisions in the Bill that would allow an order to be made if another person who committed the offence used or had with them a bladed article or offensive weapon in the commission of the offence and the offender knew or ought to have known that this would be the case. I reiterate that, for an SVRO to be made in any circumstances, the individual must have been convicted of an offence where a bladed article or offensive weapon was used in the commission of the offence or was with either the offender or another individual who was also convicted of an offence arising from the same set of facts. This provision would capture a situation where more than one person was convicted of an offence arising from the same set of facts, but not all the individuals used a bladed article or offensive weapon in the commission of the offence, or had such an item with them when the offence was committed.
In these circumstances, an SVRO may still be necessary to protect the public or any particular members of the public, including the offender, from the risk of harm involving a bladed article or offensive weapon, or to prevent the offender from committing an offence involving a bladed article or offensive weapon—for example, a fight or robbery where the offender in possession of a knife and the offender not in possession of the knife are convicted of offences arising from the same facts. In any such case, the prosecution must consider whether to make an application for an SVRO and the court must consider whether to grant that order. I think the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made that point. Both the prosecution and the court therefore retain discretion to determine the appropriate course of action on a case-by-case basis. On my noble friend Lord Moylan’s point about “ought to have known”, I will undertake to ensure that we address that point in the statutory guidance; it is a good point. I also add that the phrase is used in other legislation, so it is not a new concept that is unknown to the courts, albeit that it is used in different circumstances. I will take that one back.
“(8A) The court may adjourn any proceedings on an application for a serious violence reduction order even after sentencing the offender.(8B) If the offender does not appear for any adjourned proceedings the court may—(a) further adjourn the proceedings,(b) issue a warrant for the offender’s arrest, or(c) hear the proceedings in the offender’s absence.(8C) The court may not act under subsection (8B)(b) unless it is satisfied that the offender has had adequate notice of the time and place of the adjourned proceedings.(8D) The court may not act under subsection (8B)(c) unless it is satisfied that the offender—(a) has had adequate notice of the time and place of the adjourned proceedings, and(b) has been informed that if the offender does not appear for those proceedings the court may hear the proceedings in the offender’s absence.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes it explicit that, if an application for a serious violence reduction order is made, the court may adjourn proceedings on the application after sentencing the offender.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment widens the power to issue guidance in new section 342J of the Sentencing Code so that guidance may be issued on any matter relating to serious violence reduction orders.
“CHAPTER 1AKNIFE CRIME PREVENTION ORDERSKnife crime prevention order on conviction: adjournment of proceedings
(1) In section 19 of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 (knife crime prevention orders made on conviction), after subsection (9) insert—“(9A) The court may adjourn any proceedings on an application for a knife crime prevention order even after sentencing the defendant.(9B) If the defendant does not appear for any adjourned proceedings the court may—(a) further adjourn the proceedings,(b) issue a warrant for the defendant’s arrest, or(c) hear the proceedings in the defendant’s absence.(9C) The court may not act under subsection (9B)(b) unless it is satisfied that the defendant has had adequate notice of the time and place of the adjourned proceedings.(9D) The court may not act under subsection (9B)(c) unless it is satisfied that the defendant—(a) has had adequate notice of the time and place of the adjourned proceedings, and(b) has been informed that if the defendant does not appear for those proceedings the court may hear the proceedings in the defendant’s absence.”(2) Regulations under section 178(1) which bring subsection (1) into force only for a specified purpose or in relation to a specified area may—(a) provide for that provision to be in force for that purpose or in relation to that area for a specified period;(b) make transitional or saving provision in relation to that provision ceasing to be in force at the end of the specified period.(3) Regulations containing provision by virtue of subsection (2)(a) may be amended by subsequent regulations under section 178(1) so as to continue subsection (1) in force for the specified purpose or in relation to the specified area for a further specified period.(4) In this section “specified” means specified in regulations under section 178(1).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes it explicit that, if an application for a knife crime prevention order is made following a defendant’s conviction of an offence, the court may adjourn proceedings on the application after sentencing the defendant.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate because I have been making speeches on this topic for 12 years. I believe, if memory serves, that I was the Front-Bench speaker in the other place who proposed the amendment to the LASPO Bill. It is quite extraordinary. I think it is now 22 years since this was first suggested and, as others have said, we have had the Corston report. We cannot have a debate on women in prison without reference to my noble friend Lady Corston—Jean Corston—and the work that she has done. The idea of a women’s justice board has been around for so long because it is such a good idea. There is so much evidence of the impact, and probably the savings, that it would make, should we take that path.
There is a long-accepted problem—and I know the Minister accepts that there is a problem—with the failure of the criminal justice system properly to address the needs of female offenders. This leads to poor reoffending rates and devastation for families, with children often bearing the brunt. The social and economic cost is enormous. Women make up only 4% of the prison population and are still too easily overlooked in policy, planning and investment decisions for the reasons that my noble friend Lady Kennedy outlined so well. Female offenders are different from male offenders: they have different health needs, including pregnancy, miscarriage, breastfeeding and menopause. We know that these issues are neglected, and we know the failure to tailor provision for women affects reoffending rates.
The frustration is that the Government agree with all this, yet they seem constantly to fail to move the dial. Unfortunately, according to the excellent work done by the Prison Reform Trust, fewer than half, I think, of the commitments made in the Government’s Female Offender Strategy, which was published in 2018, have been met so far. We know that community sentences can be more effective than short prison sentences, yet the use of community sentences is dropping—it has dropped by two-thirds since 2010. Community provision for women needs to be so much better, and the quality everywhere needs to improve. There are many excellent projects, but provision is way too patchy. One of the functions of a women’s justice board, like the Youth Justice Board, would be completely to transform that.
The Government’s Female Offender Strategy is not being delivered quickly enough. This leads many of us to conclude that a new lead organisation for female offenders would make the difference. Since my noble friend Lady Corston’s report, understanding of female offending has improved so much—this is a real positive—and the Government have played their part in this. I believe Ministers want to act and want female offending to improve. I hope the Minister is not just going to stand up and say “We are making progress—bear with us”, because we can all see that it is inadequate. Nothing that has been done so far is making a sufficient difference. Interventions in this space are too often short-term. They leave the fundamentals of substance misuse, mental health, housing, financial literacy and domestic violence unaddressed. We know that self-harm in women’s prisons has reached record levels. The situation is getting worse, not better. More than 20% of self-harm incidents involve women, with 12,000 incidents in 2020 compared to around 7,500 in 2016. A strategy is great, and we need a strategy, but we need leadership to ensure that delivery takes place. A women’s justice board would provide the strategic framework to identify and prioritise the specific needs of women within the criminal justice system.
Having been around this a few times now, the Government have previously argued that this can be achieved through ministerial working groups or strategies, and it could have been done, but the truth is that so far it has not. Many of us will have visited women’s prisons and seen what happens. One of the most upsetting things I have ever seen was when I was present for visits where women were interacting with their preschool children. The response of the women and the children was difficult for prison staff as well. That was an annual thing in that prison—once a year that happened. There is no central co-ordinating body able to identify best practice and make sure it happens everywhere. We fail on that because the Government do not have that central body. Women are going out; they are not making progress—reoffending is as bad as it has ever been. I feel we have come to a point where it is time to bite the bullet and accept the idea of a women’s justice board.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, as noble Lords will be aware, we debated these amendments in Committee. At that time, they were withdrawn without a vote, although I acknowledge that, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, fairly said, those who spoke in Committee overwhelmingly supported the amendment.
I have of course listened very carefully to the various speeches and points made around the House this evening. I think it is fair to say that the arguments in support can perhaps be distilled in four points. I set them out not to make the case against me stronger but perhaps at least to reassure the House that I have understood it. First, the Youth Justice board model has been a success in reducing the number of children entering the youth justice system or custody and, therefore, it is an appropriate model to follow as the needs of women are distinct. Secondly, sometimes their needs are similar, for different reasons, to the needs of children. Thirdly, women are often victims as well as offenders and largely commit non-violent and low-level crime. Fourthly, a women’s justice board would provide the effective leadership and drive to address the particular needs of women in the criminal justice system and divert them before they come into contact with that system by preventing offending in the first place. The House should therefore be reassured that the Government and I have understood and considered carefully the case. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, we have had a number of very helpful discussions about it.
The Government recognise that women who are in or at risk of contact with the criminal justice system have distinct needs that require a distinct approach, and we have acted in a practical sense on that recognition. We published the Female Offender Strategy, which sets out a comprehensive programme of work to respond to those needs, and we remain committed to its delivery. The Advisory Board on Female Offenders provides external and independent oversight of the strategy, but my ministerial colleague in the other place, Minister Atkins, has also asked officials to review the wider governance arrangements for the strategy to ensure that they are fully fit for purpose to support the work across government which is vital to deliver the strategy.
I explained in Committee why the Government are not persuaded that the Youth Justice Board is the right model for addressing the needs of women. To take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and others, I again underline that I agree and accept that the Youth Justice Board has done extremely good work in its area. There is a short point here, but I suggest it is very important. We have a separate youth justice system. The Youth Justice Board is a reflection of that different system. It is a specialised justice board for a specialised and separate justice system. That is not just to make the physical point that children are still maturing, so the justice system applies to them differently. It is to make the point that the youth justice system is significantly different from the adult justice system in a number of respects.
Let me set out a number of them. First, with youth justice, there is a statutory aim
“to prevent offending by children and young persons”.
That is from the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. There is a greater focus on prevention and diversion. Custody is used as a last resort, as it is in the adult system, but there is greater focus in the youth justice system because there are separate community services provided by youth offending teams, which are part of local authorities. There is a separate youth court with specially trained magistrates with different sentencing powers. There is a separate sentencing framework for children that does not apply to adults. Of course, there is also an entirely separate custodial estate, which is managed in an entirely different way.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I too will be relatively brief. This debate is about balancing rights and balancing vulnerabilities, and I have been following it over months if not years. Unfortunately, I did not go to the teach-in organised by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson. However, I have been to other events on Zoom where I have spoken to prison officers and the people involved in managing the situations discussed here. It is apparent to me that there has been an evolution in the prison officers’ and governors’ approaches. I have spoken to a number of them several times. I spoke to one women’s prison where transgender units operated for a period, and the way they were operated was later changed. I have to say the governors I spoke to seemed—I do not want to use the word “relaxed”—to think that they could manage the situation. That is what I was told, and I have every reason to believe in their professionalism in dealing with an evolving situation—as we have heard from noble Lords, there is an increase in trans prisoners; the figure of 20% since 2019 was mentioned.
I have visited quite a few prisons over the last 10 years and I am always impressed by the quality of the prison staff, the governors and the prison officers. The basis of my view is that I trust them to make the right decisions. I think they are dealing with very difficult circumstances and I think that they can manage risk. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said, they have policies which have evolved over a period, which include the safety of the prisoners and the staff. I was pleased to hear that during the teach-in the Minister said that he is willing to support further research into this matter. It is an evolving situation, but for my part I am content that the current complex case boards that make these difficult decisions should continue to do their work.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, this amendment relates to the management of transgender prisoners. The result of the amendment would be that transgender prisoners would “ordinarily”—and that word is used twice in the amendment—be held in a prison matching their sex as registered at birth. I will come back to that word “ordinarily” later on.
I should first record my sincere thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for his time. I am pleased that he found the teach-in with officials from the MoJ and HMPPS to be helpful. I am grateful also that my noble friend Lord Cormack and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, were able to attend the teach-in. I am conscious, from what they said then and this evening, that I did not persuade them at that time. I am not sure that I am going to persuade them in the next few minutes, but I am going to try.
I am not proposing to refer to anything said on Twitter. That is despite the fact that I think I am one of the few ministerial twitterers—or is it tweeters?—around. My tweets have become a lot duller since joining the Front Bench, but I can say that on this subject Twitter exhibits heat and no light whatsoever. I am grateful for the relative safety and sanity of your Lordships’ House.
Under the amendment, transgender prisoners who are not held with prisoners matching their sex as registered at birth would be held in separate accommodation such that they have no contact with people of their acquired gender. That is the inescapable result of the amendment. I suggest that it is unnecessary. Transgender prisoners can already be held in prisons in matching their sex as registered at birth where this is assessed as appropriate. In practice, the vast majority of transgender prisoners are already held in prisons matching their sex as registered at birth. The small number who are held otherwise have been through a rigorous multi-disciplinary risk assessment process. There is already provision, as I will explain in a moment, for transgender prisoners to be held separately from other prisoners of their acquired gender if doing so is deemed necessary.
We take the allocation of transgender prisoners extremely seriously. This is a subject which, as the last hour or so has demonstrated, arouses a lot of controversy and passion. But the approach we have put in place allows us to strike an appropriate balance—the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, put his finger on that as the right word, as it is a balance—between the safety, rights and well-being of transgender prisoners and that of all other prisoners in the estate.