Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to update the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
This government has recently reviewed and made significant changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 amended the ROA to significantly reduce the length of time that someone needs to disclose most criminal records. These reforms will improve access to employment, which we know is a key factor in supporting rehabilitation and enabling former offenders to reintegrate into the community. Serious violent, sexual, or terrorist offences are excluded from these changes and continue to never be spent.
Where a person has a conviction disclosed, we are clear that this should not be an automatic bar to employment. Our guidance for employers states that they should make a balanced judgment on whether someone’s convictions make them unsuitable for a particular job. This should take into account the person’s age at the time of the offence, how long ago it took place, the nature of the offence and its relevance to the position in question, among other factors.
The ROA is kept under review. There are no current plans to make further changes, but please see further the answer I gave on 4 April to Question HL3362.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, excluding sexual or violent offences, under what circumstances can someone subject to an Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence who has completed their license period have earlier, minor offences dropped from their record.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (the ROA) sets out when an offender is considered to be ‘rehabilitated’ for the purposes of the Act and the relevant rehabilitation periods for cautions and convictions (also referred to as when a caution or a conviction become ‘spent’). This does not mean that an offence is dropped from their record, rather that the offender only needs to disclose the spent caution or conviction in some circumstances.
The ROA also provides that where a person commits another offence before the first has become spent, then the rehabilitation periods for all sentences are extended to the longest period. This is set out in section 6 of the ROA and referred to as ‘the drag on effect’. The ROA sets out that Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) and Detention for Public Protection (DPP) sentences are excluded from rehabilitation and therefore can never become spent, regardless of whether the licence is terminated or not.
A conviction imposed on an offender before a sentence of IPP will not be spent if, at the time the IPP or DPP was imposed, the sentence for that conviction was still in its rehabilitation period. However, any sentence which is not excluded from rehabilitation, and is received after an IPP or DPP sentence is imposed, will become spent in respect of the usual rehabilitation periods set out in section 5 and 6 of the ROA.
The ROA is kept under review but there are no plans to make further changes at this time.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the reason for the decision to increase the length of the COP3 assessment of capacity form from 12 to 21 pages.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
Court of Protection forms are a matter for the judiciary. The Court of Protection Rules Committee in 2022 convened an expert Working Group to review the COP3 assessment of capacity form, supported by my officials. That group recommended substantial revisions to both the format and content.
Revisions were made to reflect the outcome of a Supreme Court case (Local Authority v JB), and more broadly to improve the form’s evidential value. While longer than its predecessor, the revised form aims to provide for a more rigorous assessment of a person’s capacity and greater scrutiny of each specific decision to be made on their behalf. The Rules Committee approved those revisions, and the revised form was published in July 2023.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prisoners sentenced to detention for public protection (1) have never been released, (2) have been returned to prison on breach of licence, (3) are currently in the community under supervision on licence, and (4) were released on licence for the first time within the last three years.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
We have provided the data requested, as follows:
As of 30 September 2023, 36 prisoners serving a DPP sentence have never been released.
As of 30 September 2023, 49 prisoners are serving a DPP sentence in custody having been recalled.
As of 30 June 2023, 99 offenders are serving a DPP sentence on licence in the community.
Table 1: Shows the number of people sentenced to DPP released for the first time from prison, in each of the last three years.
Release Year | Number of DPP prisoners released |
2020 | 10 |
2021 | 7 |
2022 | 3 |
Jan - June 2023 | 4* |
Please note:
(1) The numbers provided in table 1 result from a matching between two databases - Prison National Offender Management Information System (NOMIS) data and Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD) data. A total of 13 prisoners identified in the PPUD data did not have an associated NOMIS identifier and so were not included. The figures provided here are an estimate based on these two sources and as inconsistencies in recording between these two sources exist, the figures should be treated with caution.
(2) The figures in table 1 represent 'first releases' only, and do not include re-releases following a period of recall.
(3) All figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
(4) All figures represent the most recent available data.
(*) Data for 2023 only include releases up to end of June 2023 - reflecting the most recent published data period.
On 16 October 2023, the Lord Chancellor announced he would be looking at options to curtail the licence period to restore greater proportionality to IPP/DPP sentences in line with recommendation 8 of the report by the Justice Select Committee (JSC), published on 28 September 2022.
The Lord Chancellor announced on 28 November 2023, that these changes are being taken forward in the Victims and Prisoners Bill.
The new measure will:
Reduce the qualifying period which triggers the duty of the Secretary of State to refer an IPP/DPP licence to the Parole Board for termination from ten years to three years;
Include a clear statutory presumption that the IPP licence will be terminated by the Parole Board at the end of the three-year qualifying period;
Introduce a provision that will automatically terminate the IPP/DPP licence two years after the three-year qualifying period, in cases where the Parole Board has not terminated the licence; and
Introduce a power to amend the qualifying period by Statutory Instrument.
The Lord Chancellor was persuaded by the Committee’s recommendation to reduce the qualifying licence period from 10 years to five years and is going further: reducing the period to three years. These amendments will restore greater proportionality to IPP/DPP sentences and provide a clear pathway to a definitive end to the licence and, therefore, the sentence.
In addition to these changes, the actions this Government are taking are working; the number of prisoners serving the IPP/DPP sentence who have never been released now stands at 1,269 as of September 2023, down from more than 6000 in 2012.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the expected timetable for the report by the Chief Inspector of Probation on the independent thematic inspection on the proportionality of recall to prison by IPP prisoners alleged to have breached their licence conditions, mentioned in a letter from the then Lord Chancellor to the Chair of the House of Commons Justice Committee on 1 February.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation are due to publish their report on the thematic inspection of IPP recall decisions before the end of the year.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer of Lord Bellamy on 28 November (HL272), whether the figure quoted, of 18 deaths among those serving imprisonment for public protection sentences in secure hospitals up to 31 December 2022, is included within the overall figures of deaths of IPP prisoners published by the HM Prison and Probation Service for the same period.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
HMPPS publishes quarterly Safety in Custody statistics which cover deaths, self-harm and assaults in prison custody, in England and Wales. These published statistics do not include the death of those in secure mental health facilities.
I also refer the noble Lord to the answer I gave to question HL273 on 28 November 2023, which can be found via the following link: Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the deaths of prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence in secure mental health facilities are included in overall figures of deaths of IPP prisoners, published by the HM Prison and Probation Service.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
On 16 October 2023, the Lord Chancellor announced he would be looking at options to curtail the licence period to restore greater proportionality to IPP sentences in line with recommendation 8 of the report by the Justice Select Committee (JSC), published on 28 September 2022.
These changes are being taken forward in the Victims and Prisoners Bill. The measure will make it quicker and easier to terminate the IPP licence (and therefore the IPP sentence as a whole) whilst balancing public protection considerations.
The new measure will:
The Lord Chancellor was persuaded by the Committee’s recommendation to reduce the qualifying licence period from 10 years to 5 years and is going further: reducing the period to 3 years. These amendments will restore greater proportionality to IPP sentences and provide a clear pathway to a definitive end to the licence and, therefore, the sentence, while balancing public protection considerations.
There were 18 deaths of those serving IPP sentences in secure hospitals, up to 31 December 2022.
Please Note:
(1) Data is only available from 2009 onwards.
(2) Figures have been taken from a subset of published data in the Restricted Patients Statistical Bulletin, which has been published up to 31 December 2022.
(3) The data relates to all deaths, including natural causes and self-inflicted.
(4) Some cases may have ongoing investigations to determine the cause of death.
HMPPS publishes quarterly Safety in Custody statistics which cover deaths, self-harm and assaults in prison custody, in England and Wales. These published statistics do not include the death of those in secure mental health facilities.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence have died in secure mental health facilities.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
On 16 October 2023, the Lord Chancellor announced he would be looking at options to curtail the licence period to restore greater proportionality to IPP sentences in line with recommendation 8 of the report by the Justice Select Committee (JSC), published on 28 September 2022.
These changes are being taken forward in the Victims and Prisoners Bill. The measure will make it quicker and easier to terminate the IPP licence (and therefore the IPP sentence as a whole) whilst balancing public protection considerations.
The new measure will:
The Lord Chancellor was persuaded by the Committee’s recommendation to reduce the qualifying licence period from 10 years to 5 years and is going further: reducing the period to 3 years. These amendments will restore greater proportionality to IPP sentences and provide a clear pathway to a definitive end to the licence and, therefore, the sentence, while balancing public protection considerations.
There were 18 deaths of those serving IPP sentences in secure hospitals, up to 31 December 2022.
Please Note:
(1) Data is only available from 2009 onwards.
(2) Figures have been taken from a subset of published data in the Restricted Patients Statistical Bulletin, which has been published up to 31 December 2022.
(3) The data relates to all deaths, including natural causes and self-inflicted.
(4) Some cases may have ongoing investigations to determine the cause of death.
HMPPS publishes quarterly Safety in Custody statistics which cover deaths, self-harm and assaults in prison custody, in England and Wales. These published statistics do not include the death of those in secure mental health facilities.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, for the period from 1 April to 30 September, how many recommendations from the Parole Board to transfer prisoners to open conditions were (1) approved, and (2) rejected.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what (1) training, and (2) continuing professional development, is provided to prison officers in relation to (a) young offenders, and (b) young adult prisoners under the age of 25.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.