Separation Centres: Terrorist Offenders

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Separation centres protect the public from the most serious offenders. A small number of prisoners are held in these centres. The regime is purposeful activity, limited association and rehabilitation; the noble Lord will know that rehabilitation is really important to me. Having met the staff who work in separation centres, it is very clear that they are not all classically trained prison officers. A number are psychiatrists, psychologists, experts in security and so on. There is a team effort to make sure we run good regimes that have a real focus on rehabilitation. I look forward to getting into more of the detail on Jonathan Hall’s report when it and its recommendations are published because it will be very helpful to us as we look to the future of how we run these very specialist areas of the justice system.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Does my noble friend agree that there is no inconsistency between having adequate separation of terrorism offenders and complying with our most basic and fundamental human rights obligations? In the light of the question from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and, crucially, the decision of Mr Justice Sheldon last week, all we need to do is to ensure that appropriate mental health provision is made for any offender, particularly those who are isolated for long periods in the day. I know my noble friend is an expert in these matters.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. We are carefully considering the High Court ruling on the Abu case, including considering appealing the decision. Our decisions are based on risk, and the proportionality of our response to that risk is how we make our decisions. Someone’s mental health throughout the justice system is a very important factor in how we manage everyone’s risk, whether they are on the first night of their first time in prison or they have been in the system for a very long time.

I am proud of so many of my colleagues who spend so much of their time in our prisons, and of our probation staff, who go out of their way to support people with their mental health requirements. The support we give our NHS and health providers in our prisons is clearly important too. We need to enable them to have the right space and time to work with people who are often very vulnerable.