Lord Woodley Portrait

Lord Woodley

Labour - Life peer

Became Member: 2nd November 2020


1 APPG membership (as of 24 Jan 2024)
Cuba
Lord Woodley has no previous appointments


Division Voting information

During the current Parliament, Lord Woodley has voted in 285 divisions, and 1 time against the majority of their Party.

11 Jan 2021 - Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill - View Vote Context
Lord Woodley voted No - against a party majority and in line with the House
One of 7 Labour No votes vs 15 Labour Aye votes
Tally: Ayes - 153 Noes - 309
View All Lord Woodley Division Votes

Debates during the 2019 Parliament

Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.

Sparring Partners
Lord Callanan (Conservative)
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
(22 debate interactions)
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative)
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
(10 debate interactions)
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Conservative)
Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
(10 debate interactions)
View All Sparring Partners
Department Debates
Department for Business and Trade
(20 debate contributions)
Ministry of Justice
(8 debate contributions)
Department for Transport
(7 debate contributions)
View All Department Debates
View all Lord Woodley's debates

Lords initiatives

These initiatives were driven by Lord Woodley, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.


2 Bills introduced by Lord Woodley


A Bill to amend the law relating to workplace information and consultation, employment protection and trade union rights to provide safeguards for workers against dismissal and re-engagement on inferior terms and conditions; and for connected purposes.

Lords - 40%

Last Event - 2nd Reading
Friday 1st March 2024
(Read Debate)
Next Event - Committee Stage
Monday 22nd April 2024
Order Paper number: 5
(Possibly be Debated)

A Bill to amend the law relating to workplace information and consultation, employment protection and trade union rights to provide safeguards for workers against dismissal and re-engagement on inferior terms and conditions; and for connected purposes

Lords - 20%

Last Event - 1st Reading
Wednesday 15th June 2022
(Read Debate)

Lord Woodley has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting


Latest 8 Written Questions

(View all written questions)
Written Questions can be tabled by MPs and Lords to request specific information information on the work, policy and activities of a Government Department
30th Jan 2024
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bellamy on 30 January (HL1617), how many prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence (1) took their own life, or (2) died from other causes, in 2023 while on non-medical release on temporary license.

In 2023, no prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence took their own life or died from other causes while on non-medical release on temporary license.

Lord Bellamy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
15th Jan 2024
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence (1) took their own life, or (2) died from other causes, in 2023.

Every death in custody is a tragedy and we continue to do all we can to improve the safety of prisoners

We have implemented a revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) case management approach across the prison estate which is used to support people at risk of suicide or self-harm in prison. Revisions in ACCT v6 include: a stronger emphasis on taking a person-centred approach; better multi-disciplinary team working; a consistent quality assurance process and an improved focus on identifying and addressing an individual’s risks, triggers and protective factors.
To support the implementation of ACCT v6 we are developing and introducing a new safety training package for staff (called Safety Support Skills training). It brings together related safety topics, including suicide and self-harm prevention, understanding risks, triggers and protective factors, and encourages a joined-up approach to prison safety.
We have also worked with Samaritans to develop a postvention response to providing support in the period following a self-inflicted death in order to reduce the risk of further deaths. This has been implemented across the adult male estate, and the roll out of an adapted version of the approach in the women’s estate will shortly be completed. Our grant to Samaritans includes funding for this service to be maintained until March 2025.

In 2023, 17 prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence died in custody, 9 of these were classified as self-inflicted deaths.

(1) Deaths in prison custody figures include all deaths of prisoners arising from incidents during prison custody. They include deaths of prisoners while released on temporary license (ROTL) for medical reasons but exclude other types of ROTL where the state has less direct responsibility.
(2) An indeterminate sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) was introduced in 2005. It was intended for high risk prisoners considered ‘dangerous’ but whose offence did not merit a life sentence. The number of prisoners held on this sentence increased initially and the increase was offset by reductions elsewhere

(3) Figures include incidents at HMPPS run Immigration Removal Centres and during contracted out escorts. Figures do not include incidents at Medway STC

(4) The self-inflicted deaths category includes a wider range of deaths than suicides. When comparing figures with other sources it is important to determine whether the narrower suicide or broader self-inflicted deaths approach is in use.

Data Sources and Quality
These figures are derived from the HMPPS Deaths in Prison Custody database. As classification of deaths may change following inquest or as new information emerges, numbers may change from time to time.

Please note that all deaths in prison custody are subject to a coroner’s inquest. It is the responsibility of the coroner to determine the cause of death. The HMPPS system for classifying deaths provides a provisional classification for administrative and statistical purposes. The final classification is only determined at inquest. Figures dependent on classification of deaths should therefore be treated as provisional.

It remains a priority for this Government that all those serving the IPP sentence receive the support they need to progress towards safe release from custody or, where they are being supervised on licence in the community, towards having their licence terminated altogether. In that respect, the Lord Chancellor, announced on 28 November 2023, this Government is taking changes forward in the Victims and Prisoners Bill to reform legislation relating to the termination of the licence for IPP offenders by making amendments to section 31A of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997.

The new measure, subject to the views of Parliament, will:
a. reduce the qualifying period which triggers the duty of the Secretary of State to refer an IPP licence to the Parole Board for termination from ten years to three years;
b. 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;
c. introduce a provision that will automatically terminate the IPP licence two years after the three-year qualifying period, in cases where the Parole Board has not terminated the licence, so long as the offender is not recalled in that period; and
d. introduce a power to amend the qualifying period by Statutory Instrument;

The Government was particularly persuaded by the Justice Select Committee’s (JSC) recommendation to reduce the qualifying licence period from 10 years to five years – a recommendation in their IPP inquiry report published on 28 September 2022. We are going further: reducing the period to three years. These amendments will restore greater proportionality to IPP sentences by reducing the qualifying period to three years and providing a clear pathway to a definitive end to the licence and, therefore, the sentence.

The safety workstream will actively support Prisons to deliver improvements to safety of those serving an IPP sentence. We plan to;
• Continue to raise staff awareness of the heightened risk of self-harm, suicide and violence of IPP prisoners.
• Monitor, analyse and share any changing or emerging trends in published IPP prisoner data to inform and update guidance where appropriate

• Share internal and external learning, initiatives and communications to inform and enable prisons to support IPP prisoners at risk of self-harm, suicide and violence.
• Develop and pilot a IPP safety toolkit, based on positive practice, to support prisons to improve their approach to IPP prisoners and encourage local innovation.

Lord Bellamy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
12th Dec 2023
To ask His Majesty's Government on what grounds the Criminal Cases Review Commission may refer cases to the Court of Appeal.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission, funded by the Ministry of Justice, functions as an independent body, making decisions autonomously and without ministerial influence.

Under Section 13 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, the Court of Appeal may only quash a conviction where they consider it ‘unsafe’. The Criminal Cases Review Commission can only refer a case to the Court of Appeal, where it is satisfied there is a ‘real possibility’ that the conviction would be quashed as ‘unsafe’, or the sentence would be changed.

Existing legislation allows for cases to be referred by the CCRC in exceptional circumstances where there is no fresh evidence, fresh legal argument or where the person has not exhausted appeal routes. However, the CCRC still has to consider whether there is a real possibility that the Court of Appeal will consider it unsafe.

Lord Bellamy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
20th Sep 2023
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prisoners serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence have (1) died, (2) been transferred to secure hospitals, or (3) been sent to another country under the Tariff-Expired Removal Scheme, in each of the past 10 years.

It falls to the Parole Board to determine whether the statutory release test is met when it reviews the case of a prisoner serving an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) and the prisoner has served in full the minimum term of imprisonment, set by the Court for the purposes of retribution and deterrence. Therefore, those serving an IPP sentence will only be released where the Board assesses that they may be safely managed in the community on licence and supervised by the Probation Service. We have already reduced the number of IPP prisoners by three-quarters since we scrapped the sentence in 2012, and we continue to help those still in custody to progress towards release.

The table below provides the breakdown of those prisoners who have served 5 ,10, and 15 years over their original tariff, correct as at 30 June this year.

Table 1. Tariff-expired unreleased IPP prisoner population

Time over tariff

Total

5 years or more

1,140

10 years or more

662

15 years or more

67

1. Tariff length is the time between date of sentence and tariff expiry date and does not take into account any time served on remand.

2. Rows do not include the total from the preceding row

3. Figures include only unreleased IPP population.

The tables below provide a breakdown of the number of prisoners who have died, been transferred to secure hospitals under the Mental Health Act 1983, or have been approved for removal to another country under Tariff-Expired Removal Scheme (TERS) in the past 10 years.

The Ministry of Justice processes applications for transfer to another country under TERS; however, it does not manage or routinely record the actual removals of offenders, which is the responsibility of the Home Office. As a result, we have provided in Table 4 the number of approved applications for transfer under TERS.

Table 2. Number of deaths of IPP prisoners, 2013-2022

Year

Count

2013

12

2014

21

2015

21

2016

13

2017

24

2018

22

2019

12

2020

17

2021

20

2022

20

4. Figures include death by homicide, natural causes, self-inflicted and other/non-natural for the unreleased and recalled IPP population.

5. Figures are derived from the HMPPS Deaths in Prison Custody database. As classification of deaths may change following inquest or as new information emerges, numbers may change from time to time.

6. Figures include incidents at HMPPS run Immigration Removal Centres and during contracted out escorts.

7. Figures do not include incidents at Medway STC. For more information on Secure Training Centres, please see Youth justice annual statistics at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/youth-justice-annual-statistics.

Table 3. Number of IPP offenders transferred from prison to secure hospital under section 47 of the Mental Health Act, 2013-2022

Year

Count

2013

87

2014

86

2015

72

2016

60

2017

59

2018

63

2019

59

2020

54

2021

37

2022

44

8. Mentally disordered offenders can be transferred to psychiatric hospital for treatment and can be kept in varying levels of security (including to psychiatric intensive care units, which are not categorised as ‘secure’). These figures show MHA transfers to secure units. Figures may contain duplicates as an offender can be transferred more than once across the years. However, within each year, only one transfer for an offender is counted.

Table 4. Approvals for transfer of IPP offenders to another country under the Tariff-Expired Removal Scheme, 2013-2022

Year

Approvals

2013

63

2014

51

2015

33

2016

30

2017

15

2018

18

2019

11

2020

11

2021

3

2022

1

9. Figures provided relate to the number of approvals of TERS applications in each of the last 10 years. The number of approvals may not match the number of actual removals.

Note:

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that this data has been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by HM Prison & Probation Service. Consequently, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

Lord Bellamy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
20th Sep 2023
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prisoners currently serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence have served more than (1) 5, (2) 10, or (3) 15, years over their original tariff.

It falls to the Parole Board to determine whether the statutory release test is met when it reviews the case of a prisoner serving an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) and the prisoner has served in full the minimum term of imprisonment, set by the Court for the purposes of retribution and deterrence. Therefore, those serving an IPP sentence will only be released where the Board assesses that they may be safely managed in the community on licence and supervised by the Probation Service. We have already reduced the number of IPP prisoners by three-quarters since we scrapped the sentence in 2012, and we continue to help those still in custody to progress towards release.

The table below provides the breakdown of those prisoners who have served 5 ,10, and 15 years over their original tariff, correct as at 30 June this year.

Table 1. Tariff-expired unreleased IPP prisoner population

Time over tariff

Total

5 years or more

1,140

10 years or more

662

15 years or more

67

1. Tariff length is the time between date of sentence and tariff expiry date and does not take into account any time served on remand.

2. Rows do not include the total from the preceding row

3. Figures include only unreleased IPP population.

The tables below provide a breakdown of the number of prisoners who have died, been transferred to secure hospitals under the Mental Health Act 1983, or have been approved for removal to another country under Tariff-Expired Removal Scheme (TERS) in the past 10 years.

The Ministry of Justice processes applications for transfer to another country under TERS; however, it does not manage or routinely record the actual removals of offenders, which is the responsibility of the Home Office. As a result, we have provided in Table 4 the number of approved applications for transfer under TERS.

Table 2. Number of deaths of IPP prisoners, 2013-2022

Year

Count

2013

12

2014

21

2015

21

2016

13

2017

24

2018

22

2019

12

2020

17

2021

20

2022

20

4. Figures include death by homicide, natural causes, self-inflicted and other/non-natural for the unreleased and recalled IPP population.

5. Figures are derived from the HMPPS Deaths in Prison Custody database. As classification of deaths may change following inquest or as new information emerges, numbers may change from time to time.

6. Figures include incidents at HMPPS run Immigration Removal Centres and during contracted out escorts.

7. Figures do not include incidents at Medway STC. For more information on Secure Training Centres, please see Youth justice annual statistics at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/youth-justice-annual-statistics.

Table 3. Number of IPP offenders transferred from prison to secure hospital under section 47 of the Mental Health Act, 2013-2022

Year

Count

2013

87

2014

86

2015

72

2016

60

2017

59

2018

63

2019

59

2020

54

2021

37

2022

44

8. Mentally disordered offenders can be transferred to psychiatric hospital for treatment and can be kept in varying levels of security (including to psychiatric intensive care units, which are not categorised as ‘secure’). These figures show MHA transfers to secure units. Figures may contain duplicates as an offender can be transferred more than once across the years. However, within each year, only one transfer for an offender is counted.

Table 4. Approvals for transfer of IPP offenders to another country under the Tariff-Expired Removal Scheme, 2013-2022

Year

Approvals

2013

63

2014

51

2015

33

2016

30

2017

15

2018

18

2019

11

2020

11

2021

3

2022

1

9. Figures provided relate to the number of approvals of TERS applications in each of the last 10 years. The number of approvals may not match the number of actual removals.

Note:

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that this data has been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by HM Prison & Probation Service. Consequently, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

Lord Bellamy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
14th Mar 2023
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bellamy on 6 March (HL5835), how will the model to deliver education when current contract arrangements end for the Prison Education Framework integrate with the One HMPPS programme.

The One HMPPS programme will bring prisons and probation closer together to achieve better outcomes for victims, communities and offenders by ensuring the best model possible to deliver core services. Key One HMPPS principles informing the development of the successor contracts to the Prison Education Framework are the prioritisation of regional working and increased focus on the frontline. The two programmes will continue to work closely together as future models are developed.

Lord Bellamy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
14th Mar 2023
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bellamy on 6 March (HL5835), whether the model to deliver education when current contract arrangements end for the Prison Education Framework will use different lots of prison groups to those under the existing Framework.

We are creating a Prisoner Education Service (PES) that will ensure prisoners improve skills such as literacy and numeracy, acquire relevant vocational qualifications, and access employment and training opportunities on release.

A regional lotting structure will be applied to the successor contracts to the current Prison Education Framework. Final decisions will be communicated through the procurement process for the new contracts which is due to begin in summer 2023.

Lord Bellamy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)