Prison Sentences

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

Rehabilitation is of course an important aim, but it is not the sole aim in the context of criminal justice. At present there are no plans to end short-term prison sentences. Of course, short sentences do not help some offenders turn their backs on crime, but protecting the public has to be our priority.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, is the Minister satisfied that the rehabilitation provided during a short sentence can be sufficient to enable an offender to learn to live a better life, rather than learn to do crime better?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

It is very difficult to estimate the extent to which rehabilitation can be effective during a short prison sentence. Indeed, where someone is sentenced to a period of less than six months in prison, the median period actually spent in custody is about six weeks.

Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 24th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard some powerful and thoughtful speeches, but that is what this House does well. I do not want to add to the debate on the retrospective effect of the legislation and the distinction between sentences imposed before and after these provisions come into force—there has been a lot of discussion about the jurisprudence—but I have wondered why we are using the term “retrospection” rather than “retroactive”. However, how the step is perceived by an offender, their family and their community seems to me to be particularly important and worth pausing to consider for a moment. Human rights compliance must seem less of an issue than what is perceived as further punishment.

I want to say a word about why it is necessary to look at the response to individual offenders who are going to be released at some point. Many noble Lords have said, quite rightly, that the can may be kicked down the road but it will not be kicked terribly far. I do not mean the knee-jerk—to use the term of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham—“Let’s bang them up for longer because prison works,” or as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, put it more delicately, “in response to public pressure.” The violence both in our prisons as well as outside gives the lie even to prison working for the period that the prisoner is inside.

Most of the discourse has been about punishment—this is bound to be regarded as an extension of punishment—but what about rehabilitation? I was taught that there are three connected objectives in the sentencing of offenders, which ironically the victims of the Fishmongers’ Hall attack would have learned as students at the Cambridge Institute of Criminology.

We all recognise that this is not easy territory. Clearly, the process of deradicalisation, if that is the way to put it, is hugely complex. Can it be the same for each individual in their circumstances? What are the factors at play in each case and what are the risks? After the Fishmongers’ Hall attack, Usman Khan’s solicitor was reported as saying that none of the programmes to which his client was exposed tackled the underlying ideology and that he wrote to organisations outside the prison system requesting help for his client. So this must be a moment for focusing on the programmes by investing in research into what has the best prospects of success and investing in specialists who can administer them. The Minister must know as well as anyone from a department which has suffered 40% cuts that the probation service is buckling, and in any event, this is a very specialist area. We should share the success stories too. In summary, we should evaluate where we are and where we should be going.

The Parole Board, too, carries a huge responsibility. I acknowledge its expertise, but what extra support based on the best developing research and advice will it receive? Some risks are known within the system, as we have been discussing; otherwise, Sudesh Amman would not have been under close observation in Streatham. That must have been a huge cost, and as the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, reminded us, the resource is finite.

Like others, I am puzzled about the non-use of TPIMs, although I have heard the criticisms of them. And what about the conditions in our prisons, which are widely thought to be breeding grounds for radicalisation? This measure will add numbers—not that many and probably not for very long—to an environment which of itself is a risk, putting in danger those who are susceptible but who have been convicted of low-level offences or, indeed, completely unrelated offences.

What does the impact assessment for this Bill tell us? First, as regards the Prison Service, each additional prison place will incur annual running costs of around £63,500. We are told that that will not cover “additional rehabilitative activities”, so what will they be? Indeed, will there be any? On the Parole Board, the impact assessment says that the additional workload

“will be carried out largely within the current resources.”

Is that it?

I have said that there are success stories, as there are in some other countries. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, drew our attention to this. I do not suppose that all programmes are fool-proof, but we should not dismiss them out of hand. Can the Minister tell us what is being done to learn from these and, dare I ask, to replace the partnership and co-operation agreement between the EU and, I think, six south-east Asian nations? I mention this because, apparently, a very successful programme is being applied in Malaysia for bringing people home from Syria. Alok Sharma, in a previous ministerial incarnation, said that Malaysia is a key counterextremism partner because

“it is a modern and moderate Islamic nation.”

The noble Lord, Lord Blair, mentioned a “deep dive”. When will that deep dive take place? It is in the nature of our role that we are generalists—or at least most of us are, although I accept that the lawyers among us are specialists—and one of the objections to fast-tracking legislation is that there is no opportunity for stakeholders and specialists to influence it. Earlier today, I was very glad to attend a meeting, or what I would call a seminar, organised by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, which was tremendously helpful. We heard a range of views from people with a lot of experience. There is no opportunity for considering evidence, including evidence from government, to Parliament’s committees—which, like the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I am amazed are not yet set up, but that is the way the other place operates. There is no opportunity to consider why the legislation is not to be extended to Northern Ireland, although I hear what has been said about that coming along with the next Bill. I am not sure whether those in Northern Ireland would regard that as satisfactory.

The cliff edge at the end of a sentence with no licence period is not the only timing issue, but a cliff edge with no licence seems to be very unwise—as decisions taken to show that “Something is being done” without time for consultation and consideration often can be. The powers of the probation service regarding someone on licence can be very tough, including recall to prison, so limiting or excluding that possibility cannot be appropriate.

I do not want to be glib, but in summary, and to follow the analogy made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, will the bleeding start again once the sticking plaster is removed? Indeed, are we dealing with evidence-based policy or policy-based evidence?

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am looking around but it would take a brave person to speak in the gap after such a long debate. It is no surprise that the expertise and passion of noble Lords has been evident in this debate, together with an appropriate dose of questioning and scepticism. It has been so wide-ranging that I will not attempt to refer to individual speakers or speeches—I do not envy the Minister her task in winding up—except to congratulate and welcome the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. I am sure they will remind us in the debates to come of those two great places and, no doubt, will both play quite a part in Home Office legislation.

Oven-ready or ready to pop into the microwave? One method cooks from the outside in, the other from the inside outwards—and, as we have been reminded, some things are left to simmer on top of the stove and cause an awful mess when they boil over. These are very different approaches to policy-making: imposition or development in consultation with the people affected.

I want to talk about immigration, which is so important to our society and our economy. The Government put that dish into the oven some months ago. We were told—I learned it authoritatively from the Home Office website well before the election—that we were to have an Australian-style points system. Of course, the Migration Advisory Committee is yet to publish its advice on this, but I have forgotten how much immigration law is created by ministerial fiat, through rules which do not even get the scarce scrutiny of secondary legislation. Perhaps that feeling had rather leached over. Every sort of policy benefits from consultation. That was acknowledged earlier today when one noble Lord spoke about victims. Things look very different when you have an informed or personal take on them, as we were reminded by recent reports of Her Majesty’s concerns about visas for polo events. Who had thought about polo events?

The tagline “Australian points-based system” does not tell us whether the points will be driven by the Home Office or by employers, or whether there will be an overall cap on numbers. There are many questions. The Home Office has not made a success of being both policymaker and administrator—or processor, if you like. Departments closer to the various sectors understand their needs and, one hopes, are able to unpack that awful phrase “the brightest and the best”. To me, that always raises the question: “Best at what?”

There is so much to understand about, for instance, different employment needs. I learned recently that seasonal workers are needed in far more sectors than agriculture, including at Christmas and during heatwaves and cold snaps, both of which put a strain on the health service. There are big, short-lived demands prompted by a duchess’s dress. Kim Kardashian tweeted about a lipstick and that was work for 400 people for three or four days. These things are not straightforward and they are not uniform across all the nations and regions of the UK.

I have been told that Australia has 90 different visas. I counted 74 online plus 46 which had been repealed. Am I being unnecessarily gloomy in thinking that having visas with different restrictions attached to each application will make the whole process a challenge for the Home Office? Individuals caught up in the Windrush scandal have understandable views about the efficiency of Home Office schemes. Apparently we now require legislation which will not, we are told, affect the operation of the existing compensation scheme —not even to speed it up? The Windrush experience inevitably worries EU citizens subject—or subjected—to the Home Office and we will of course debate this more next week. However, given that the Conservative manifesto proclaims—I think this has been quoted already—

“We want EU citizens who came to live in the UK before Brexit to stay”,


we will continue to try to turn that into reality. The Government’s response that the UK does not issue pieces of paper, something for which EU citizens have been pleading, does not meet the point. It defies credibility that 40% of those who have applied for settled status are entitled only to pre-settled status, which is what 40% have been granted.

Having been critical, I will say that I was glad to see an announcement before the election about the length of post-study visas and to see that there will be a boost for English language teaching. How will this be paid for? Please do not lay it on local authorities. This will be for “existing migrants”, so who qualifies?

Refugees are generally very keen to learn English. I want to say a word about refugees and asylum seekers, adults and children, families and lone young people, because so much of the election seemed to focus on little England. I want to remember that there are issues of morality as well as practicality, such as the importance of a safe rather than a hostile environment. We are part of a world community. I am worried, as other noble Lords have been, about the proposal for DfID to become part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Its work must not be downgraded. One reason—only one of many—is because of the impacts that conflicts and climate change will have on the movements of people.

The issues I have mentioned are in one policy area in one of the topics of today’s debate, so I will allow myself one point on each of those topics to pick up some threads from the debate. Regarding a royal commission on criminal justice, we have had some mention of the proposals which the Government have already announced through the manifesto. Is that not rather pre-empting a part of the work of a royal commission? What is the basis for thinking that more years added to a long sentence will deter or reduce the risk of terrorism? There are too many dog whistles and too much that is simplistic. On home affairs, the National Crime Agency is to be strengthened but I have not heard what that actually means. I appreciate that the Minister will not have time to go into this tonight but should our priority not be to ensure that we are involved as possible—as we currently are—in contributions to and benefits from Europol, Eurojust, ECRIS, Prüm, Schengen and European arrest warrants? On the constitution, references have rightly been made to the rule of law. I just say: yes, along with and part of that are human rights.

I end with perhaps the gloomiest thought of all, but clearly I am not alone in this: it is the paradox of the Conservative and Unionist Party so endangering our precious union.