Lord Moylan
To ask His Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the recommendations in the report by the Howard League for Penal Reform entitled Ending the detention of people on IPP sentences: expert recommendations, published in June.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)
This Government welcome and share the Howard League’s determination to support those serving the IPP sentence, but we cannot take any steps that would put the public at risk. For that reason, we remain firmly of the view that the Parole Board must determine that a prisoner serving the IPP sentence is safe to be released, having regard to the statutory release test, and that the IPP action plan is the best way to prepare offenders for release. The report includes a range of additional, complex recommendations which we are exploring in full.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the new Justice Secretary, David Lammy, wrote to a constituent in 2021:
“As IPP prisoners spend longer and longer in prison without any prospect of release, their mental health continues to decline, and they start to display behavioural traits which makes their release even less likely”.
So he gets it. The Howard League report, which has a foreword by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, makes innovative recommendations as to how the residual prisoners—those who have never been released; there are about 1,000 of them—could make progress through the Parole Board systems. Will the noble Lord agree to discuss this with his new colleague and to make a formal response to the Howard League report, ideally in writing?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister, my new boss, shares my determination to do all we can for those serving IPP sentences and their families while ensuring that we do not take any steps that put the public at risk. Having visited prisons for over 20 years and met many IPP prisoners, I completely agree that a number of them need support with their mental health. That is why the IPP action plan is the right place to support those people, especially as we updated it on 17 July, and the progression panels with senior psychiatrists are already making a difference. In the last year, 154 IPPs have been released who have never been released before. But we have a lot more to do, and I will write to the noble Lord in due course.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister inform the House of how many of these prisoners are now refusing to engage with the processes required to satisfy the Parole Board’s current tests for release because they have lost confidence in the system? If they have, is it not time to think again?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
The Parole Board is the best way to determine whether someone’s risk is sufficient to be managed in the community. It is important that when IPP prisoners go in front of the Parole Board, they are prepared in a way to have a successful release. That is why the IPP action plan is the right way to go, and why we are seeing significant increases in the number of people released and rereleased. We need to make sure that the IPP action plan works but also—this is one of the things I am doing for most of my days—that our prisons are good prisons that rehabilitate people and that when they leave, they do not come back.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, can I commend the Minister’s approach? There are two sides to this story. One of them is obviously the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, about the difficulties faced by people who are indefinitely detained, but the other, which the Minister has, thankfully, mentioned every time he has had to speak on this issue, is the interests of the public and public safety. Therefore, the action plan, which tries to balance those two interests, is exactly the right way to approach this.
Lord Timpson (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for his comments. What is important is that the Parole Board is doing a fantastic job; its staff are fantastic public servants. The release decisions are steady: 45% of hearings over the past five years have led to a positive release. The reason why I think that this is going in the right direction is that these people are increasingly complex individuals. That is why the IPP action plan is working; we need to keep the pressure on. One thing that I bring from my experience of running a business is improving everything, having targets, having real focus and holding people to account.
Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)
My Lords, as the Minister well knows, much of the pressure on our prisons, including on IPP prisoners, comes from the constant probationary pressing of the panic recall button. I know that the Minister’s folder will say, “Don’t say anything negative about probation”, but might he consider something in the Sentencing Bill that allows the power of recall to rest with the courts and not with probation officers, who, as we discovered on Thursday in HMP Belmarsh, are sending people back with such excessive frequency that it is unjust?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
The Sentencing Bill implements the independent sentencing review. IPPs were not in scope of that review because it focused on sentences that are still on the statute books. I do not want to repeat myself, but the IPP action plan is the best way to prepare those people for release. I am really pleased that the noble Lord and others enjoyed the visit to HMP Belmarsh on Thursday; we had a really good opportunity to meet a number of prisoners, including an IPP prisoner.
What is also important, as the noble Lord mentioned, is our Probation Service. It is where the heaving lifting in the justice system is done, which is why I am proud that we are increasing the funding for probation by £700 million—a 45% increase.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, the current system is failing both prisoners and the public. It keeps prisoners in indefinite limbo, as we saw on our visit to HMP Belmarsh last week. It offers no clear route to safer release. My question is specific: what is wrong with the proposal for a two-year conditional release process?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his question and for coming along on Thursday. The Parole Board is the best body to decide who is safe to be released, because public protection is our priority. If we went with the Howard League’s suggestion, it would mean people being released without their risk being assessed, which is not something that we are prepared to do.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
Sorry—a lot of us are very keen to speak up on this matter.
The six recommendations in the report are a brilliant way to ensure that IPP prisoners can be looked after properly and released safely. One recommendation that particularly struck me was one that I had moved previously: recommendation 4, which recommended that the aftercare duty provided under Section 117 of the Mental Health Act be extended to all ex-IPP prisoners. If someone happens to be sectioned under that section, many safe and timely ways to give additional help to high-needs individuals are available so that they can be released safely and remain in the community. Why not give the rest of them the same multiagency support as they would have received had they been incarcerated in a mental hospital?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
We have 233 IPP prisoners in secure mental health hospitals. From having been to the hospitals and met the individuals, I know that the care that they get from our nursing professionals is exceptional. It is also important that when they come back into the prison system, they have a soft landing and not a hard landing. That is an area that I am working on as we speak. Also important is that when people leave prison, they go to an approved premises. We have a trial going on where we are extending them going there from 12 to 16 weeks but also having a dedicated individual psychologist to support them. That is already having gains now.
Lord Garnier (Con)
Does the Minister accept that the current recall system for IPP offenders is confused, confusing, overly bureaucratic and irrational, and that it creates injustice and just increases the number of mentally ill people and those without any hope in custody? Would he please accelerate his efforts to mend it?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
I thank the noble and learned Lord for his question, and for the work that he and the noble and learned Lord Thomas have done on this area. It is really important, and the focus has been very helpful. Already, the documents are clearer and more focused. Senior managers now oversee all recall decisions. From 3 November this year, we are extending the post-recall timeframes to improve planning and decision-making. That is thanks to Shirley Debono, who has helped us on that as well. The multidisciplinary progression panels are the way to do this, because we need to make sure that everybody who is in prison on an IPP sentence has hope, engages with the action plan, gets out and stays out.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister explain why IPP prisoners have to go to such lengths to prove that they are safe to leave custody before being released, while others in prison for similar offences do not? Does he agree that this difference in treatment is a further injustice against IPP prisoners, and that it is vital and urgent that we make progress in this area?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
The Parole Board are the experts in deciding who is safe to be released. The release tests that it has are robust and fair, but we need to make sure that when people are in front of it, they are in a really good position to be released and released safely.