Prisoner Early Release Scheme

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 23rd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and then from the Conservative Benches.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness and the testimony that we have heard just now. We understand how difficult this is. I want to be very clear that more than 18,000 offenders will be unaffected by these reforms. We will, obviously, as part of these reforms, communicate openly with victims who have opted into the victim contact scheme. They have to be, as I have already said to your Lordships’ House, front and centre of our minds. The noble Baroness makes a valid point about learning from the experience of Northern Ireland, and I will make sure that it is fed back to colleagues.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister was entirely right to refer to the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, and the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, particularly in the context of this Question. On 1 July, I reminded the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, that

“there are 3,650 women in prison in England and Wales”

and that about 2,500 of those people—that is to say, 70% of the women’s prison population—

“are in custody for non-violent offences”.—[Official Report, 1/7/26; col. 1044.]

If the Government think it is better to release violent criminals and child sex offenders, rather than the non-violent cohort of women in prison, and fail to take the opportunity to free up prison places by reroling a woman’s prison into a prison for men, what the hell do they think they are doing?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I say to the noble and learned Lord that this is about ensuring that we have confidence in the whole of our criminal justice system, including the courts and the prison estate, but also the probation system. I have no doubt that, when the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor are looking at these reforms, these factors will be taken into account. The noble and learned Lord will know, as he is well versed in these matters and paid a lot of attention to the Sentencing Bill when it was going through your Lordships’ House, that there is a complex progression scheme to ensure that we are able to create the capacity that we need in our prison system. Without wanting to rise to any demotic, there are not a lot of easy options and there are more sophisticated responses to the problem that the simplistic one he posed.