Sentencing Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it is extremely difficult to speak after two such very powerful speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Woodley, has advanced again the resentencing option which was originally proposed by the Justice Select Committee in the other place, under the chairmanship of Sir Bob Neill when he was a Member of Parliament, on a unanimous, cross-party basis. It therefore cannot be dismissed as some reckless and trivial proposal; it should be taken with great seriousness. However, I am not going to elaborate further on it now because it has been debated already. The noble Lord has an extant Private Member’s Bill which would give it effect.

It is fair to say that the proposal from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, is new at debate in your Lordships’ House and it emanates, as he said, from a report produced by the Howard League. There are two points in what the noble and learned Lord said that I want to present in my own way. The first relates to the action plan, which has been excellent in many ways. It has achieved a great deal but, as I said at Second Reading, the difficulty with it is that there is a large number of people—nobody can put a figure on it, but consensually there is an idea that it is several hundreds, maybe nearly 1,000—who are the hard cases left after the action plan has done its work and has resolved the issues in relation to the, if you like, low-hanging fruit. We are left with several hundred people for whom it is clear the action plan is never going to be a solution. If there is no other way out for them than the action plan, then, in effect, the Government are saying that they will stay in jail until they die, because what else is there? There is no other route out.

The noble and learned Lord has presented a proposal which would help. The process would be that the prisoner would apply for parole, be refused parole, but then the Parole Board would at that point be obliged to set a date, up to two years later, on which the prisoner would be released.

The second point is that it could be represented that this is, in effect, an automatic release that follows two years after they have failed to achieve release—but that is not the wording of the amendment. I draw noble Lords’ attention to proposed new subsection (5), inserting new Section 28(6B), which says that the Parole Board, having set the date,

“may issue such directions to facilitate the prisoner’s release at the specified future date as it considers necessary having regard to its duty to protect the public”.

This is not a reckless and automatic release that follows without any effort on anybody’s part from the decision to refuse parole. The essential idea is that the machinery of the Probation Service should be brought together and energised under the direction of the Parole Board to provide those tailored services and that tailored support, such as education and courses, and the other measures that are necessary to ensure that that person is safe to be released. That is the objective.

Let us remember that many of the people who will not be released through the action plan are in that group because they have ceased to engage with the system. Having been through the effort to achieve parole in the past and having suffered the severe psychological blow that can arise from having been refused and knocked back, many of them will simply not go through that again. But if you could offer them a date, if you could say to them, “Here is hope, in two years, if you do these things”, perhaps we can get that engagement, and perhaps those people for whom there is otherwise no exit could be engaged and brought to be released, with the approval of the Parole Board and the support they need to get them to that place. If that support turns out to be expensive and difficult to provide and requires a superhuman effort on the part of the Prison Service, the Probation Service, the Ministry of Justice and the other organs of the state, is that not the least we owe those people now? That is why I really hope that noble Lords will be able to support the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, and that the Government will be able to relent. It might need some work in detail, but I hope the whole House will be able to support the principle behind it.

Briefly, there are also amendments in this group, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, which relate to the parallel—and in some senses, almost deeper —scandal of DPP prisoners. Noble Lords will be aware that, in essence, the only difference between DPP and IPP prisoners is that DPP prisoners were sentenced when they were under 18. Those people are still in prison. They almost certainly should not be, but they are. The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, deserve support.

Finally, and I feel this is very much an anticlimax, my own Amendment 109 is almost bloodless in its technical insignificance in comparison with those put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. It is a very modest proposal and entirely administrative. I very much hope that the Minister will support it.

The amendment would allow IPP prisoners, who are in the community already serving a licence, annually to apply to the Parole Board for the discharge of that licence. In the Victims and Prisoners Act, we reduced dramatically the statutory period of the licence, and we made it easier for people to be discharged. Hundreds of prisoners have had their licence terminated as a result of that; it has been the most significant step so far in removing the scandal of IPP prisoners.

However, there are administrative difficulties, whereby if someone misses out on their discharge, they have to wait another whole two years before they can be considered again. What I am simply doing in my amendment is introducing the idea that they could apply—I would expect nobody to do this, unless they were supported by their probation officer—after one year, not two years, to have their licence discharged.

There is no threat to the public in this. We must remember that these people are already living in the community, and all the amendment seeks to do is give them permission to apply for something. The decision whether to discharge their licence finally—not to release them from jail, because they are in the community already—would still rest with the Parole Board. There is no risk to the public at all in doing this. It is a modest administrative change that will help some—not many—prisoners get rid of the stigma of this sentence sooner and resume their lives in the community as free subjects.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, my contribution this evening will be brief, only because there is a long evening ahead for the many noble Lords on the Front Bench and no lack of enthusiasm and commitment to continue working with other noble Lords who have spoken this evening to get this mess sorted out. I thank my noble friend Lord Woodley, who has taken up the cudgel so strongly; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, whose commitment could not be doubted after his contribution this evening; and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who has hunted with me for a very long time now—since I first came to your Lordships’ House, it seems.

Before speaking to my Amendments 116 and 117, I note that the three contributions that have been made already illustrate the urgency of getting this matter resolved once and for all. All three Members have put their finger on one of the tragedies of the IPP sentence, which, ironically, was in part intended to deal with the two strikes that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, mentioned. The tragedy reflected in the action plan wording that the noble and learned Lord read out—what was originally intended was never in the Bill itself; it was a matter of interpretation—was one of the terrible twists of life that we now have to untangle. The main issue I have picked out concerns those people who have been in prison for so long that their mental health has inevitably deteriorated. As the noble and learned Lord said, psychiatrists have accepted that now, in a way that was not recognised in 2003—we should have done that, and they should have done that, but we did not.

On the amendments from my noble friend Lord Woodley and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, I believe that, if we could build in a formula that allowed the transfer of some of those prisoners to a secure medical setting for support to be given—I am not talking about Broadmoor or Rampton; there needs to be an intermediary alternative—then it might be possible to accept the two-year imperative. That would go a long way to meeting what my noble friend is seeking to achieve in his amendment: to move this on rapidly. The commitment to help from my noble friend on the Front Bench is unequalled, and I pay tribute to him. Listening and responding from the Front Bench is not easy—I know that, because I was there for eight years and experienced all kinds of constraints. My noble friend understands what we are talking about, so perhaps, with some creativity, we could think of a way to achieve this aim.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt, but does the noble Lord accept that, in many cases, especially in the early part of the IPP regime, judicial discretion was almost nil? It was not that the judge determined that an IPP sentence was appropriate; rather, the guidelines given to him said that in certain circumstances, where the offence for which the person had been found guilty and an earlier offence for which they had been convicted appeared on a certain table in a certain configuration, they had no choice but to give an IPP sentence. That is how the sentence was imposed in many cases. There were circumstances where two people were prosecuted for the same crime, which they had carried out together. One of them had a history which brought this table into operation, the other did not. One would get an IPP sentence, the other a determinate sentence appropriate to that crime, although they had both been involved. That point, which is of capital importance, has never been fully recognised by the Ministry of Justice. Judicial discretion was not exercised or exercisable in the case of many of these sentences.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Before my noble friend on the Front Bench replies, could he also reflect that this took place on a Court of Appeal ruling two years after the implementation of the Act in 2005? That judgment then determined the hearings and therefore the sentences granted by judges, consequent on that Appeal Court ruling.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their helpful comments, which explain why this is such a difficult and important area. We need to keep the public safe, but we also need to keep working as noble Lords to try to do what we can to address this situation.

I welcome the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, on the importance of supporting IPP offenders.

Imprisonment for Public Protection (Re-sentencing) Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Woodley on bringing this Bill forward and on his powerful speech. Many points have been made this morning that we have made before in this House and will make again until we reach a conclusion and can put this tragedy—for that is what it is—behind us.

I have been pleased that the Minister has taken action, with the support of his colleagues, very quickly to implement the changes that were agreed in the Victims and Prisoners Act, not least, on 1 November, the lifting of the sword of Damocles in relation to licence conditions; the further action that will be taken in February; the framework that was published last week, which helps towards the progression that we all want; and, shortly, the action plan that I hope will have been not refreshed but completely revised. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell us when that is likely to be published, because it will be really important in dealing with some of the issues and the tragic cases that have been mentioned already today.

If the Government feel that they cannot do a wholesale resentencing, for the reasons that the previous Administration and my own Government have spelled out already, there may be a halfway house. It may be possible—I know that my noble friend Lord Woodley will have spoken to Nicholas Cooke KC about this, as I have—that we could pull together a panel of retired judges and senior KCs. I say retired because there is a backlog of 65,000 in the Crown Courts at the moment, so the judiciary is stretched beyond belief. Realistically, speaking as someone who, with good and bad outcomes, had responsibility for the judicial system and sentencing all those years ago, I know the pressure that the Government are under. Still, it might be possible to do a sifting job—one already being done in miniature by cases being referred back. Members of this House will have heard of the Doughty Street Chambers. How could we not? It has been successful on a number of occasions recently where it has returned to the cases all those years ago and the way the judiciary dealt with them. I carried my responsibility heavily, and I hope that sometimes the judges themselves will think about why they did not see IPP as part of a menu. Doughty Street Chambers has been able to reopen those cases and get them rejudged.

We can find a way forward if we want to. Mental health provision needs to be stepped up. Mention has been made of Thomas White and I have been in long-standing contact with his family. We can ensure that, in that sifting exercise, we get people on to the right trajectory to be quickly moved out of prison.

Finally, I agree entirely with those who have said that we have got to stop this nightmare of the return to prison, with the notion that those on licence can be returned for quite minor incidents. Whatever the probation inspection said at the end of last year, its underlying message was “We’ve got to get this sorted”. If my noble friend Lord Woodley’s Bill and the amendments he has already put down are an avenue for being able to do that, so much the better.

Prison Capacity

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I commend my noble friend on getting through his maiden Statement, and in particular for answering the questions so concisely and clearly. He of all people, as he has already referred to, is fully aware of the big challenges of rehabilitation and avoiding reoffending and, therefore, recall. Would he be prepared to talk to his right honourable friend the Secretary of State and, I hope, Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about the very real challenge of additional large numbers being released into local communities in September and October, to avoid homelessness and to ensure that there is not a return to prison, which all of us fear?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. It is crucial that people leaving prison have somewhere to live. Having been in this space for a number of years, I have met too many people who have left prison—I have seen them outside the gate—and there is no one to meet them, they have nowhere to live and nowhere to stay that night. It is not surprising that the revolving door often means they come back in. I will take my noble friend’s questions away and get back to him. I know we are meeting very soon.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

The last of my amendments, Amendment 139, is a simple, technical amendment. I hope there is no risk that anyone will try to do it, but it is to stop the statutory power to alter the minimum period of the licence being moved up as opposed to down. But those are not the critical amendments: Amendment 149A is, and on that, as I have said, I will wish to seek the opinion of the House in due course.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I know that we have had extensive debates on the range of issues on IPP and DPP. I will try to be brief, because everyone will want to reach the Statement on the infected blood scandal.

I want to pay tribute to those on my own Front Bench for their support in some difficult and tricky issues, and for their understanding, and to Peers from every corner of this House who have worked tirelessly together to work out how we can make progress and how we can help both those caught up in prison, those on licence and in fear of recall, and of course the families and campaigners. I too pay tribute to UNGRIPP and those who have been campaigning tirelessly alongside them. It has at last reached the public ear—in broadcast, print and online media there is now real attention to this issue, and a sympathetic hearing. That is a very good thing.

I want to say thank you to the Minister. Thank you for being prepared to engage with those committed, and for the concessions that have been outlined this afternoon in terms of my amendments. Government Amendments 133B, 138ZB, 139A, 139B and 139C deal substantially with my Amendments 41, 42, 134, 138A and 144. I am very grateful for both the sensitivity and understanding, and the ability to give, in a period leading up to a General Election, which is difficult for any Government to do on issues such as these, which are often toxic in the public arena. Together with the current Under-Secretary of State and his equivalent in the Commons, some progress—not as much as we, or those campaigning, would like, but some—has now been made on the Bill.

My Amendment 149—I have agreed with the Minister that we might come back to this when we debate the Criminal Justice Bill—is about a technical readjustment of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act so that IPP and DPP prisoners are not disadvantaged. This afternoon we have made progress on the action plan and how it will be updated and implemented; the progression board and its transparency and reporting; the challenge group that will be overseeing and, as it says, challenging what is happening administratively; and the commitments in relation to parole.

I just want to make one comment about probation. There is a new head of Probation—Martin Jones—who was the chief executive of the Parole Board. He understands these issues very well. I have real confidence in him, as I do in the head of the progression board, Chris Jennings; they get what we have been talking about and will move heaven and earth to make the system work. But the Probation Service has to change its outlook and risk aversion, because we have a situation at the moment, because of the enormous pressure on the Prison Service and the lack of rehabilitation that that brings, where the Government have felt it right to release people early and to slow down prosecutions, while the Probation Service recalls people on licence all the time, filling the places that the Government are unfilling. It is like having a washbasin with the tap on and the plug out.

We have to make urgent progress in both getting release, making those spaces available, and not returning people to prison—not least because Ian Acheson, a former prison governor who has been working with the Government over a number of years, said recently that 50% of those currently in prison are taking illegal substances. When they are adjudged to have taken an illegal substance, their likelihood of being able to get parole is immediately reduced. Should they revert when they are on licence, having been subject to illegal substances while they were in prison, they are brought back into a place where illegal substances are readily available. We have got to stop the cycle and we can do it only with the good will of Ministers, future Ministers and those working in the service, who need to be brave —so thank you for what has been done so far.

I turn to Amendment 149A, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, who has just spoken. I want to draw attention to a court case that took place on 9 May this year, overseen by Lord Justice Popplewell. This was the case of Leighton Williams, who was sentenced in 2008 and who, until 9 May, was in prison under an IPP because he was at the time 19, not 18 or younger. It was judged in that case—and these are all technically difficult cases—that the original judge had misunderstood and applied an IPP inappropriately when the sentence should have been for five years in a young offender institution. That having been decided, Lord Justice Popplewell released Leighton Williams immediately. This cannot be a precedent, but it indicates that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, is right in relation to the test of what is appropriate and proportionate in the work of the Parole Board. I hope that the task force that is now going to be established within the Parole Board will help provide focus. While understanding entirely the position of my own Front Bench and Whips, I feel obliged to vote for this amendment, having added my name to it, believing that it is right that there should be a better proportional test.

I repeat that the campaigns have made a difference to the work that has gone on in relation to worries about mental health and who deals with mental health provision in the service. Is it the provider or the NHS? How do we get it right for individual prisoners who really need intensive support? The campaigners have raised all those issues with all of us, and they deserve credit for it. We are not entirely there yet, but we have made some progress. I am very grateful to the Minister for his understanding and collaboration in making that possible.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and in particular to follow him in expressing a very large degree of gratitude to the Government. Although one is going to end up disagreeing with them on certain narrow points in the course of this short debate, the Government have introduced amendments in the Commons which are extremely helpful to IPP prisoners who are out on licence, and today amendments have been introduced which deal with the very good points made by the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Carter of Haslemere, allowing them to withdraw their amendments.

I do not think it is at all an exaggeration to say that more has been achieved, both operationally and legally, for IPP prisoners in the past few months than in the preceding 12 years. I am sure that a great deal of that is due to the personal efforts of the Lord Chancellor and my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy on the Front Bench. I wish to express my gratitude and a degree of congratulation.

I also want to say—here I find myself again echoing the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—that I am very impressed with the effort and determination of the officials charged with taking responsibility for clearing up this scandal; they really wish to do something. I wish them well, and I hope that that continues for as long as it needs to, whatever the character of the Government in power.

Before I turn to Amendment 145 in my name, I wish to say that there are some amendments in this group tabled by Back-Bench Peers which have not found favour with the Government. My Amendment 145 is one of them, and so is Amendment 140, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, and Amendment 147, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. It is not for me to make their speeches advocating their amendments; I simply wish to say in advance of their doing so that I am very supportive of what they are trying to do in those amendments and of their aims.

Amendment 145 in my name was not actually drafted by me. As noble Lords who were present in Committee will remember, it was in fact drafted by the late Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who felt passionately about this and, coincidentally, whose memorial service is happening later this week. On social media, it has been dubbed the “Simon Brown Memorial Amendment”, as testament to the passion that he brought to this topic and the efforts that he made.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I may be as underinformed as anyone but my understanding is that the classic case of restorative justice is that once there has been a prosecution and a conviction, there is a process for some kind of reconciliatory interaction between the victim and the offender—for example, of the kind that my noble friend Lord Hodgson so eloquently described—in a way which enables both parties to process and come to terms with what has happened. It is not typically an alternative to having a prosecution in the first place, as I understand it, although that might arise.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I know there is an unwritten convention that noble Lords should not intervene when they were not able to be here at the beginning of a group, which in this case was last week, but I do not think that convention prevents me asking a question. Is it not really important that people in the prison system are able to understand what they can do for themselves, and for the victim, by engaging with restorative justice? That is one of the reasons I put my name to Amendment 14. The right honourable Stephen Timms in the other place is an excellent example: he has corresponded with, and is arranging to meet, the perpetrator of the attack on him many years ago. That will, I hope, assist them both—the perpetrator in her release and her future—and give some consolation through her coming together with the victim, who in this case was Stephen Timms.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for his question. I would obviously not dream of making any procedural point, as it is a very fair question. I do not think it is clearly envisaged in the Bill or the code, as it stands at the moment, that it should be the perpetrator who is seeking some sort of restorative justice, rather than it being something that the victim is entitled to. The noble Lord’s point is well made and we should think further about it.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a genuine privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. I was privileged to work with her as the Home Secretary who brought in what was then the original Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill. I am painfully aware of how little progress we have been able to make and how important this legislation is today. I would also like to commend the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on his forthcoming maiden speech and to reconnect with him—I am sure he will make an enormous contribution—and share with my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti the sadness that we are not joined this afternoon by the late and much-lamented Igor Judge and Simon Brown, whom I personally miss greatly.

I will say just a word in following up what the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, said. If there is a sense of commitment and duty, it is embodied in her decision to come back to take on this role. I share what she just said about the issues relating to mental health and what amounts to considerable and persistent anti-social behaviour and abuse by people who, of course, need treatment and support, but we also need to support those who are the victims of it. I have received many letters over the years—and still do—from people who have found their lives as neighbours simply made a misery. So I hope we can find a way of including persistent anti-social behaviour in this legislation.

I also hope—and perhaps the Minister might reflect on this—that we might help those who do not get support from the police; the victims of offences who contest the police’s failure to act and get caught up in internal reviews for which there is no appeal. The reviews by some forces in this country are excellent, and people are informed clearly as to why action has not been taken. But I will give just one example this afternoon: that of the Warwickshire Police force, which, frankly, in my view is an absolute disgrace, and the chief constable cannot even be bothered to write personally to a former Home Secretary. I will take that up another day.

I move now to Clause 48. I welcome very strongly the decision taken by the current Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, and commend the Minister in this House. It is really nice to have people who are prepared to listen and, even close to an election, take decisive decisions. The reduction in the licence period for IPPs is very welcome indeed. I commend everything that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said on this, and I am very glad that he has taken up the cudgel and is leading on these matters.

It surely must be possible to be able to distinguish IPPs from DPPs, and the young people who were sentenced under that particular clause when they were juveniles, as opposed to those who were sentenced as adults, even if the Government are not prepared to take up the challenge of the sentencing. It surely must be possible to provide mentoring and advocates on behalf of those who are caught up in this, as has been described this afternoon. It surely must be possible to pick up the excellent thematic inspection report of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation. I spent the weekend reading it—Christmas is coming late in the Blunkett household this year. The 11 recommendations and its conclusions are excellent, but they need implementation. It is incumbent on all of us to press the Government to make the action plan statutory; to include the recommendations in any iterations of the probation action plan; to take up the challenge, which has already been mentioned this afternoon, of what happens when prisoners are preparing for their appeal to the Parole Board and for release, where the inspection report indicates that there is a woeful lack of support and help for those who are preparing. There is a complete disconnect with offender managers, both inside the service and when people are on licence, partly because of the massive turnover and strange management practices within the service. I commend those to the Minister, and hope that he will be able to respond positively later this evening on those matters.

Finally, it is crucial we understand that, if we are to prevent victims of the future, we need to ensure that the rehabilitation of those who have committed offences is taken as seriously as it is in the debate this afternoon. In seven minutes, I have not really been able to cover the field. There is so much to be done and so much to come together, but in the spirit of what the current Lord Chancellor and the Minister in this House are doing, we might just be able, in the months ahead, to get this right. I sincerely hope so.

King’s Speech

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I make no apologies for saying just a word about the sad death of Lord Judge. Some Members will know how closely I worked with him over the past few years, both on the Elections Bill and primarily on criminal justice measures, including the issue of imprisonment for public protection. I shall sorely miss him personally.

I will not go down the rabbit hole offered by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, except to say that, if a large number of Members are not participating in voting in this House, they might consider why they are still in it. If the Government got Bills right in the first place, we would not have to amend them so frequently. In fact, as the Leader of the House pointed out yesterday, rather tongue-in-cheek, out of the 8,000 amendments tabled, over 2,500 were tabled by the Government. That demonstrates how appalling legislation was in the first place—but let us move on.

This King’s Speech is sadly denuded of anything that will offer Britain hope; it is a last hurrah. I am sad because this opportunity could have been taken to deal with some of the central issues facing the nation, not least on ageing and on the impact that artificial intelligence is likely to have.

The Minister who introduced today’s debate, for whom I have a lot of time, raised a few things with which I agree. One of them is the absurdity of short prison sentences. Led by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee will shortly produce a lengthy and detailed report on this issue, which I hope the Government will take seriously; it will help to accelerate sensible sentencing and support the judiciary to do so.

However, there were murmurs that this King’s Speech was to develop clear blue water between the Government and the Opposition. I fear that this will fail, because some of the measures thrown up in recent times by the current Home Secretary do not really appear at all, and some measures denoted by the Justice Secretary, such as life means life, have been in place for 20 years. The whole-life tariff extension, for those crimes that would warrant it, is likely to have a minimal impact— I should know, because the words “life means life” were ones I issued back in 2003. I hope that, when the Victims and Prisoners Bill reaches this House, we will be able to do something substantive on IPP.

There were many things in the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, with which I agreed; I will not repeat them because we have an indicative time limit. I will say just this: we have had so many Justice Secretaries that it is hard to keep count of them. The present one is a great improvement on the last, and I hope that he will be able, over the next nine months or so, to demonstrate that still further. The Crown Prosecution Service is in meltdown—there are 75,000 outstanding cases, the courts are under enormous pressure and the Prison Service is on the edge of collapse—so what we need is decisive action to ensure that we get this right. Of course we need tough sentences for those who commit the most horrendous and heinous crimes, including those spelled out by the Minister at the beginning of today’s debate, but we also need to use common sense.

My noble friend from the Front Bench mentioned something as simple as shoplifting causing havoc to both retailers and the public, such as in the small shop in south London that last week put up a notice saying, “We are sorry we can’t put the goods on the shelves any more. You will have to ask at the counter”, because of the number of organised thefts that had taken place and the inadequacy of the police to deal with them. These are issues which, alongside the very big ones, affect people day in, day out in our communities, so we should take them seriously.

I will say something about the current Home Secretary. Floating the idea that you should punish those who are homeless on the streets, or even to suggest that those charities which befriend and try to bring some comfort to those on the streets should be prosecuted, is an outrage. I know that many Conservatives agree with that. In fact, the twist here is that the Leader of the House yesterday reminded us of the returned convention of the Lord Chancellor walking backwards. If I were the Lord Chancellor, I would not turn my back on the present Home Secretary either. It is quite clear that some parts of the briefing on the King’s Speech were more about future elections within the Conservative Party than the well-being of the British people—that is very poor. For a Government who may be on their way out, they could at least, in their last breath, show that they care about the real issues affecting the British people.

Imprisonment for Public Protection Action Plan

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on obtaining this short debate, and thank him for the tenacity that he has shown in continuing to harry and expose a situation that we all accept as disastrous. I would also like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, on obtaining the Question this morning. It is important to continue to have a laser-like focus on what is happening to those prisoners who are still experiencing incarceration or the trauma—because it is trauma—of being under the present licensing scheme.

I hope the Minister will appreciate it when I say how much I value that he is always prepared to listen and respond. If he and his opposite number can work with the new Secretary of State, we might just begin to get somewhere. The Secretary of State, who I welcome as the new Lord Chancellor, sent me a very helpful letter recently, in which he described what would happen on the back of the establishment of the progression board and the external stakeholder reference group. This group will consist of a range of interests from outside the Ministry of Justice, including the independent monitoring board. I pay tribute to the unsung, unpaid people who give their time to go into prison, as I experienced in the Easter break when I spent a day in a prison in Yorkshire. They deserve great credit. If this stakeholder reference group is to be of any value, it should meet more than twice a year, which is the current proposition. There should be a very clear line and relationship between the progression board and the work that Chris Jennings—who I also welcome—will lead to make the action plan a reality. The time lags that are built in at the moment are of deep concern.

To save time, I will write separately to the Minister about the Question this morning. Understandably, given my responsibility for some of this, many IPP prisoners are in touch with me. I will communicate with the Minister about David Richardson and Geoffrey Boston; they have found themselves caught up in this terrible spider’s web. It is acknowledged that they are in need of open prison conditions to prepare them for release, but this is being blocked by the Ministry of Justice. Thomas Wallace, who has been in touch with me, is in the erroneous situation of finding even greater restrictions and requirements placed on him now that he is on licence, even though he has been out for a long time and, according to him, has not committed any offence or breach. Difficult as it is for the probation service, with the trauma of the history that we all know about over the last 10 years, part of the action plan will have to look seriously at how it is performing.

The Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee, on which I serve, is undertaking a review of community orders. As part of that, the revelations about the underfunding and real difficulties of the probation service—including the challenge of recruitment now that resource is being put in—have been quite staggering. We need to take seriously how we help the probation service to fulfil its crucial role in carrying through the action plan. The plan will not work unless it does so. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, pointed out, it will be crucial that the probation service understands what is happening to those in its care, including those who are on licence and licence conditions.

Yes, we need more resource for the Parole Board, but we need also to determine the line of approach once someone is out of prison and how we can engage the voluntary and community sector. Many have written to us ahead of today, because every time there is a Question for Short Debate or a Question people quite rightly home in on what we are talking about. The evidence base that is now being collected, including from psychologists and forensic psychiatrists, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to, is crucial in getting the new Secretary of State to be able to address where we go from here. He said on the Second Reading of the Victims and Prisoners Bill that has already been referred to:

“I am considering carefully what the Justice Committee has to say about it”—


“it” obviously being IPP—

“and I will be saying more about it in due course”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/05/23; col. 592.]

I hope that “more about it” means to help us all to find a solution.

Parole Board Recommendations: Open Conditions

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I think I should clarify that this particular advisory function of the Parole Board has no statutory basis. It dates historically to the time when the Parole Board was part of the Home Office. The Parole Board has no operational responsibility for the safety and security of the open estate, nor for the rehabilitation of prisoners, nor for the categorisation of which prisoners are suitable for which prisons. In June 2022, the Secretary of State adopted new criteria for the transfer of prisoners to open prisons and unfortunately, in the Secretary of State’s view, those criteria have not been fully followed by the Parole Board’s advice. Those decisions by the Secretary of State can of course be challenged in the courts.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, in the first quarter of last year, 88 references were made from the Parole Board, and 80 were accepted. The change over the past year can have nothing to do with whether the Parole Board is following the Ministry of Justice criteria, which say

“the prisoner is assessed as low risk of abscond; and … a period in open conditions is considered essential to inform future decisions about release”.

The Parole Board is following the criteria laid down by the MoJ, but the MoJ is following a different route, and the question is: why?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who has enormous experience and expertise in this area, the Secretary of State’s view is that the Parole Board is not entirely following the change in criteria that was adopted in June 2022, particularly in regard to the essential nature of the move to open conditions to inform future decisions about release. There is indeed a further condition that the

“transfer to open conditions would not undermine public confidence in the Criminal Justice System”.

That is a matter for the Secretary of State.

Mental Capacity Act 2005: Small Payments Scheme

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are extremely reluctant at the moment to confuse two things. One is the processes by which the DWP works, and the other is the legal process by which an adult lacking capacity can have somebody else act on their behalf. That is a job for the Court of Protection. It is not just a question of child trust funds, although that is an important issue. This can go on throughout a child’s life, and it is quite likely that a child lacking capacity who reaches the age of 18 will continue to lack capacity for many years to come, and there will be important decisions to take. That really should be supervised by the Court of Protection and not by the DWP.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a privilege to work with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, on this important issue. When I led on the implementation of the child trust fund prior to the 2005 Act, we never foresaw that this situation would arise. Is it not a scandal that the cost to the financial institutions should take priority over the cost to these young people, who cannot access their funds? We understand about the Mental Capacity Act and understand the dangers and the safeguards necessary. But, after what has happened with the magistrates’ courts over the issue of pre-payment meters, can anybody really believe that the court system should take precedence over personal support to parents and young people?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, it is not simply a question of cost to financial institutions. There is a whole range of problems here and an essential tension between protection against abuse and simplicity of process. In this area, where it is possible to have very different views, the Government feel that the principle established in the 2005 Act, placing responsibility with the Court of Protection, is right.