Sentencing Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I am bringing back this amendment on Report as I do not think it was adequately addressed in Committee. Amendment 52, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would define in law the purposes of imprisonment and require the courts and the Secretary of State to have regard to the purposes of imprisonment.

We know that depriving someone of their liberty is an action taken by courts with caution and care. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service’s strategic objective is to carry out sentences given by the courts, in custody and in the community, and to rehabilitate people in our care through education and employment. However, there is no statutory or other provision that directly addresses the fundamental purposes of imprisonment. That is what this amendment seeks to achieve. Indeed, if we had this legislative definition, it would actually have brought into focus issues we have been talking about in debates so far. In Committee, the Government disagreed that a definition in statute was needed. The noble Lord, Lord Lemos, stated:

“The purposes of sentencing, including imprisonment, are already set out in statute and reflected in Sentencing Council guidelines”.—[Official Report, 26/11/25; col. 1399.]


I respectfully disagree that the purposes of imprisonment are set out in law in this way.

At present, the public expresses little confidence in the courts and prisons, in part as a result of the lack of clarity around the purpose and use of imprisonment. A clear parliamentary statement on this issue would serve both prisoners and victims well and provide clarity at all levels of decision-making for those involved with and within the criminal justice system. This amendment holds together clarity around the reduction of offending and justice for victims. With this in mind, I beg to move.

Briefly moving to other amendments in this group, I have added my name in support of Amendments 71, 72 and 73, which I know will be well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. Suffice it to say, I am in full support of the proposal to set up an independent advisory panel on sentencing and reducing reoffending. I am also in full support of Amendment 98 in this group.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I support Amendment 52, and I declare my interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust.

Although Section 57 of the Sentencing Act 2020 sets out the purposes of sentencing—namely, punishment, reduction of crime, reform and rehabilitation, protection of the public, and reparation—it does not provide guidance to judges on whether imprisonment is the appropriate sentence, nor on what should occur once an offender is in prison. This lack of guidance on the purpose of imprisonment is all the more damaging in the light of the greater push for longer and longer sentences of imprisonment which we have seen over the last 30 years.

In rejecting this amendment in Committee, the Minister said:

“The purposes of sentencing, including imprisonment, are already set out in statute and … in Sentencing Council guidelines”.—[Official Report, 26/11/25; col. 1399.]


With respect, Section 57 of the 2020 Act does not mention imprisonment at all. By contrast, the amendment we are debating is focused entirely on the purpose of imprisonment, so as to give the sentencing judge guidance on whether that is the appropriate sentence among the different sentencing options available.

In addition, and importantly, this amendment would indicate what should occur once the offender is in prison so as to fulfil the statutory purpose of imprisonment. There is currently a major gap in our legislation addressing that critical issue. This helps to explain the shameful statistic that 80% of offending is reoffending. The amendment would chime with the rest of this excellent Bill in helping to reduce that reoffending rate as regards those released from prison, since they would have benefited from clear statutory purposes behind their sentence of imprisonment, and in turn would have benefited from a corresponding obligation on the Secretary of State to deliver treatment regimes in prison consistent with these new statutory purposes of imprisonment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 64 and 66, and I thank my noble friend Lord Hailsham for his Amendments 65 and 67. Although my amendments would apply only to new sentences, because that is the scope of the Bill, I am content with my noble friend’s amendments because, disappointingly, as we heard in Committee from the noble Lords, Lord Bach and Lord Carter of Haslemere, and my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie, the capacity and staffing crisis in prisons is such that access to education and training is severely limited. Indeed, as we were told, the Justice Committee’s 2025 report found that roughly half of all prisons are not now engaged in education or employment programmes. It is therefore fair to provide that a breach of the condition I proposed bites only if the relevant purposeful activity is available.

We have a tragic situation. At the end of 2024, there were 87,919 people in prison, and the numbers receiving education were closer to 50,000 on most metrics. Something must be done so that we make use of the time that a prison spell provides to give more offenders the skills they need to return to employment and to avoid the temptation to return to crime, and probably to prison. The Prison Reform Trust—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, who I know has a role there —agrees. I have been struck by the support for action to deal with the concerns I have raised—and among people who might not normally warm to me.

To cap it all, the chair of the independent monitoring boards took time, amid the Christmas break, to write to the Minister to raise concern about cuts in real terms in prison education budgets. It is particularly worrying that courses, especially vocational courses, have been or will be curtailed dramatically across all categories of prison. These are the courses that provide a route to steady employment after release. The IMBs say that cuts affect prisons in all regions and across all functions and performance levels. This is despite prison rules dictating that prisoners, other than those on remand, are required to work or take part in training or education if physically and mentally able to do so. That is what most voters want to see, though I wonder whether the caveat carve-out is not too broad and allows too many prisoners to bury their heads and avoid purposeful activity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 74 and 75, in my name, concern exemptions to the Government’s so-called earned progression model. We do not oppose in principle the idea that prisoners who demonstrate genuine rehabilitation should be eligible for early release. Where offenders have taken meaningful steps to address their behaviour and reduce their risk, there is a case to be made for earned progression. However, Clause 20 does not deliver that outcome.

Throughout Second Reading and in Committee, the Minister referred to an earned progression model and to examples such as that in the Texas system, yet, as drafted, Clause 20 contains no such mechanism. As the House of Commons Library briefing makes clear, the release point is automatic rather than earned. Prisoners will be released at the one-third point of their sentence unless additional days have been imposed by a court for misconduct. That is not earned progression; it is default release. Barring significant further transgressions, release is determined by the passage of time alone.

The Lord Chancellor has sought to reassure the public by stating that the most serious offences are excluded, yet the Ministry of Justice’s own data confirms that offenders convicted of rape, grievous bodily harm and the creation of indecent images of children will be eligible for this automatic scheme. If those offences do not qualify as serious, it is difficult to understand what offences would.

This is not a technical adjustment to sentencing mechanics; it is a profound change to how the state responds to some of the gravest crimes. As drafted, the Bill would reduce custodial time for over 60% of rapists and more than 80% of child sex offenders. It would permit those convicted of stalking, an offence which we know is strongly associated with escalation into homicide, to be released automatically after serving just one-third of their sentence, without any assessment of ongoing risk.

Amendment 74 would exclude from these provisions those convicted of a range of serious offences, including offences involving the death of a vulnerable person. Amendment 75 would require consultation to ensure that other serious offence categories are appropriately excluded before these measures come into force. In the other place, a similar amendment which included an even broader list of exemptions attracted support from all parties. All 65 Liberal Democrat MPs present for the Division voted in favour of the amendment. Other parties in support of the amendment included the Green Party, the independents, Plaid Cymru, Reform and indeed some members of the Government. It is rare to have such cross-party unanimity, but Members in the other place clearly recognised the dangers that Clause 20 poses to the public.

Noble Lords may notice that Amendment 87, from the Liberal Democrats, includes the same list of offences, as well as two further categories of offences, which should, they suppose, be exempt from automatic release following fixed-term recall. I call on noble Lords to consider consistency here, as much as concern.

Clause 20 applies to a far more serious cohort of offenders than other provisions in the Bill, and clearly there is concern beyond this Chamber. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has described the early release of perpetrators after weeks in custody as “simply unacceptable”. The Victims’ Commissioner has warned that victims will be left “unnerved and bewildered”. These are not political voices but independent authorities concerned about public safety.

Public confidence is often regarded as fragile where the justice system is concerned. When victims see those who have harmed them released automatically after a fraction of their sentence, trust is bound to be eroded. Amendment 74, in particular, would be a proportionate safeguard to ensure that early release is not applied to those whose crimes are too serious and too dangerous to justify it. If the Government are not prepared to give an assurance with regard to Amendment 74, I will seek to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 90 in this group, which would insert a proposed new clause on extended determinate sentence prisoners, who I will refer to as EDS prisoners.

Currently, the majority of people serving an EDS first become eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of their custodial term and every two years thereafter, with eventual automatic release at the end of the custodial term on extended licence if they are unsuccessful in gaining parole earlier. This proposed new clause would create a power for the Secretary of State to refer to the Parole Board a prisoner serving an EDS at the earlier halfway point of the sentence, instead of the two-thirds point, if the Secretary of State is of the view that there is a reasonable prospect that the board will direct release. It is therefore in line with recommendation 4.2 of the sentencing review. As that review affirmed, this measure would improve incentives for rehabilitation and enhance the effectiveness of measures to address the overcrowding crisis, without in any way changing the public protection mechanisms that currently apply to EDS prisoners.

The Minister said in Committee, at col. 1842 of Hansard, on 3 December last year, that the Government rejected the independent review’s recommendation 4.2 on the grounds that the EDS was imposed because the offender was considered dangerous. It is quite right that an EDS is a public protection sentence, but, in statute, the parts intended to fulfil its public protection function are the involvement of the Parole Board and the extended licence period. There are no public protection concerns in statute to justify referral to the Parole Board at the two-thirds point of the sentence instead of the halfway point, as is proposed for most other determinate sentence prisoners.

Under the provisions of this new clause, and in line with the recommendations of the review, the Parole Board would still engage in exactly the same careful, reasoned and deliberate decision-making process at the 50% point as it currently does at the 66% point. Moreover, the average length of an EDS is nine years, with many serving far longer than that. It is therefore a serious oversight that, for no good reason, measures to address overcrowding are ignoring EDS prisoners, who constitute 10% of people in prison. That is more than 9,000 people, who are serving an average of nearly a decade.