Prisoners: Imprisonment for Public Protection
Debate between Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Bellamy(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, as far as I am aware, that provision should be implemented. If it is not, that is a matter that I shall investigate and revert to your Lordships.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
Recognising the need for public protection, my question relates to the IPP prisoners who are now detained for 10, 12 or 14 years beyond their tariff terms—that is, beyond the punishment they deserve for their offending—because they cannot prove to the Parole Board that they can be released without any risk of reoffending. It is a proof which the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, when he abolished this sentence in 2012, described as “almost impossible”. Do the Government think that is just? If so, will they continue to think it just, however many years may pass—after 15, 20 or 25 years—or do they recognise that there will come a point when it is unjust? If so, when?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
In response to the noble and learned Lord, I can say that we started with 6,000 offenders in this category. We now have 1,400 who have never been released. That is because the Parole Board considers them to be a risk to public protection—they have been reviewed, in many cases several times, and that is why they are still there. A further 1,500 have been released, but they have been recalled for various reasons—but they are eligible now for re-release.
Prisoners: Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection
Debate between Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Bellamy(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, the Government will of course consider those considerations along with all the others raised in the report.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
My Lords, 10 years ago, the discredited ISPP scheme was abolished—alas, prospectively only. In the previous seven years, 8,711 people had been sentenced to that regime and almost all remain so. Almost exactly one-third of that number are in prison today, half of that third because they have never yet been released and half because they have been recalled. The rest are subject to and under threat of recall, living a nightmare life. How many of the 8,711 have finally managed to be discharged from this regime by having their licences discharged by definition 10 years or more after their initial release?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I will provide the noble and learned Lord with the figures shortly. It is quite a complicated question—more complicated than it seems. I simply remind the House that, as a result of the new arrangements introduced in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, there is now an automatic annual referral to the Parole Board for consideration for release for these prisoners. The ability to terminate their licence after the 10 years is now baked into the system.
Parole Board (Amendment) Rules 2022
Debate between Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Bellamy(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I respectfully submit that we are dealing with angels dancing on pins here. What is intended by this change is to make it clear that the responsibility for the decision rests squarely with the Parole Board, and to avoid the risk, however remote, that the expert report tends to usurp the role of the decision-maker, running the risk of them delegating their decision to the expert. This amendment brings the Parole Board process in line with the rest of the justice system. I respectfully refer your Lordships to the evidence of Professor Stephen Shute to the Science and Technology Committee of the other place on 7 September. He made this very point, saying that it is for the Parole Board to make the decision, rather than run the risk of the matter being left in the hands of the expert.
Analogy has been rightly drawn with what happens elsewhere in the justice system; for example, in relation to pre-sentence reports in the criminal process. One does not find the probation officer saying that the court should impose a community sentence. One asks the probation officer to assess whether the offender is suitable for a community sentence. This change will align the practice of the Parole Board more closely with the rest of the justice system.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
Not realising that this was a high tea, rather than a dinner break, I confess that much to my regret I was not here at the start of the debate. Why, if this is designed to stop these individual experts pre-empting the Parole Board’s decision, is it left to the Secretary of State to be allowed to do so with his single view?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
If I may respectfully point this out to the noble and learned Lord, the Secretary of State with his single view does not pre-empt the decision of the Parole Board. He presents a single view to the Parole Board.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
Why is that any different from the same operation being done by those who have been contributing to the background?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
In a sense, this is an inter partes procedure, with the Secretary of State on one hand and the prisoner on the other. The Secretary of State, like a party, is putting his view to the board. That is the single view that, in my submission, he is entitled to put.
While I am on the single view, this is likely to refer simply to the very top tier of cases, probably 150 to 200 cases a year out of the many thousands that the Parole Board deals with. It refers to very dangerous, highly sensitive cases of prisoners involving murder, serious violence and so forth. In those cases, it is thought right that the Secretary of State, through his representative before the Parole Board, should be able to present a single overarching view. That is a sensible approach which avoids confusion and uncertainty.
Nothing in any of these reforms prevents or limits the ability of the Parole Board to make the right decision or the ability of the relevant members of staff, whether psychologists, probation officers or whatever, to make the risk assessments or to put in whatever observations they wish within the assessment that they are required to make, except to make the relevant recommendation.
It is not a change that should in any way undermine the system. HMPPS staff will continue to provide reports to the Parole Board. Their reports will still contain the same detailed evidence and assessment of risk as before. The only omission will be a recommendation on what decision the report writer thinks the Parole Board should make. Far from undermining the Parole Board, the intention of these reforms is to draw a sharp distinction between the roles of those who provide evidence and those whose duty it is to assess the evidence and reach a decision. That is the essential background.
Bill of Rights
Debate between Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Bellamy
Lord Bellamy (Con)
I will resist the temptation to refer to a pending case. I hope noble Lords can forgive me.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
By reference to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, does the Minister remember a time when, for example, prison staff read all prisoners’ correspondence to stop them petitioning? There were a number of practices with regard to prisoners, but it was only under orders of the Strasbourg court—orders which the Home Office was happy to lose; I was arguing them—that our prison regime was brought into an acceptable state and prisoners were allowed any rights at all.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
Historically, of course, the noble and learned Lord is completely right, as one would assume. At this point, I take my ministerial hat off and put my personal hat on and take this opportunity to pay tribute to the European Court of Human Rights over the years, and indeed to the Council of Europe. In answer to my noble friend Lord Hannan, I say that the very fact of our membership and the dissemination of rights through the Council of Europe that it has enabled is a very positive element for Europe in general, in my humble, respectful and personal view. That does not mean that everything is necessarily fine, and the Government’s view is that it is time, after over 20 years of the Human Rights Act, to look at it again and do some rebalancing.