Imprisonment for Public Protection

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Ludford]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address the continued detention of individuals serving Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences beyond their original tariff periods.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

In the two years since being in government, we have made significant progress to support IPP prisoners. We have reduced the number of never-released IPP prisoners by 21% and the number of IPP offenders in the community by 70%. IPP recalls fell by 31% in 2025 compared to 2024, and we have also changed the law through the Sentencing Act. Around 100 IPP offenders became eligible for earlier licence termination when these changes were implemented on 1 June.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister has just confirmed, he said in the exchange with us on July 6:

“Noble Lords who know me will know that I do not lack ambition”.—[Official Report, 6/7/26; col. 11.]


He has again shown that is true. However, the pace of release of IPP prisoners is still too slow. Prospective new Prime Minister Andy Burnham spoke on Tuesday in the other place of the need to

“change the way this country thinks about and works towards justice”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/7/26; col. 891.]

After this clarion call, does the Minister expect the new Government to match his ambition with greater resources, resolve and courage, so that by 2029 at the very latest the legacy of the shameful injustice of IPP sentences will be no more?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will not be surprised that everybody I meet in prisons and probation, and around the whole justice sector, is ambitious for IPP prisoners. We are committed to ensuring that they get the support they need to progress. I am still ambitious, so that is why we are supporting the hardest to reach, especially IPP prisoners, those who we know are really stuck in the system. We are trialling a new IPP advocate role and giving IPP prisoners more experiences so they can progress, with specialists working with them, and when they go to approved premises, they are staying there longer and have more support. All these initiatives will help, but we need to remain ambitious, because I know, as many of us do, that IPP prisoners can get through. Having employed many of them myself, I believe in second chances and that they can get through.