Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The last IPP prisoner I met was in HMP Birmingham—I think I was there three weeks ago. He was back on recall and facing further charges. The nature of the conversation was quite troubling, because I learned from him that he felt safer in prison than in the community. Also, he did not think that open prisons were always that good for long-term complex prisoners, which surprised me because I am a big fan of open prisons, having recruited lots of people from them. I went away with the challenge of how we ensure that IPP prisoners, when they go to open conditions, are not brought back. Too many go there quite quickly and then come back.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s recent report, published last week, acknowledges the obvious point that self-harm, violence and behavioural instability among IPP prisoners are linked to the long-term distress caused by the sentence itself, yet those very reactions may be liable to be relied upon as grounds to refuse release. Does the Minister consider that additional assessments and, indeed, progression plans are going to be sufficient to break that terrible cycle, or is more needed? Are we not required to be a little more courageous about the release of these long-term prisoners?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord is right to bring this up because they are often the most complex individuals in our whole prison estate. The level of self-harm among this cohort can be pretty terrifying. There are a significant number of IPP prisoners in secure mental health hospitals, and that is the right place for them. However, we need to ensure that we have them in the right prison. As I mentioned, HMP Grendon and HMP Warren Hill are therapeutically informed environments, and the Phoenix wing we are starting next month in HMP Aylesbury is a specialist wing where we are trying things we have never tried before. The people we call our “red rated” are those who are the furthest away from release and they are often the most challenging IPP prisoners. We need to get progression support around them and give them hope, because we need them to believe that they can get out—too many times they have seen people go to progression panels and not get out. We need to make sure we do what we can to give them hope.