Sentencing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this is obviously a Bill with good aims: to reduce the prison population and put more resources into probation and rehabilitation. However, the problem is that the prison population is going up in the long term because Governments keep coming up with new reasons to lock people up.

We have had a lot of briefings on this particular Bill, and a recurring theme across them is the issue of resourcing capacity within the probation and rehabilitation system. Several organisations, notably Justice, stress that without significant investment in probation services and community-based interventions, the proposed reforms risk placing unrealistic demands on an already overstretched system. The Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prison Reform Trust caution that, while the Bill may provide short-term relief to the prison estate, it will not be sufficient to address the long-term growth in the prison population, which is driven by sentence inflation and systemic pressures. For example, the Government estimate that the Sentencing Bill will reduce demand for prison places by 7,500 places by 2028. This reduction is achieved through a combination of reforms, including changes to sentencing, release points, recall processes and remand measures. Despite this, the prison population is still projected to increase by 2,000 people by 2029.

Concerns that the proposed earned progression model risk becoming a mechanism that punishes poor behaviour, rather than genuinely rewarding good conduct, are certainly valid. There is the danger that adding additional days through the prison adjudication system would result in a prisoner reaching the end of their sentence without the licence period. In addition, increasing use of fixed-term recourse to prison will not improve the situation for victims or offenders. I have heard from those working with victims of domestic abuse about their fears of offenders being re-released without any assessment at all of the risk they pose to the people they have offended against. Of course, they are being put back on the streets and could commit crimes against other people. This certainly does not improve the lives of those being recalled. Sending somebody back to prison for 56 days does not allow them access to any offending behaviour work or reduce risks but simply holds them in an overcrowded prison before they come back out, often having lost their accommodation and any progress that they made before the recall.

On the probation resources, there is broad support across organisations for the presumption against short custodial sentences of 12 months or less and for extending the courts’ powers to suspend custodial sentences of up to three years. The Justice briefing underlines the need for adequate resourcing of various services, alongside guidance and training for practitioners. The Howard League, Justice and the Prison Reform Trust stress that the implementation of these provisions must ensure a genuine reduction in the use of custody, rather than the reconfiguration of existing penalties. Refuge urges the Government to ensure that domestic abuse offenders are exempted from the presumption against short custodial sentences and that appropriate monitoring arrangements are established.

While I welcome using rehabilitation measures in the community, as opposed to in prisons, a clear theme runs through many of the briefings we have received, which is that without serious investment, the proposed reforms risk collapsing under their own weight. I would be very interested to hear the Minister reassure us on that, because we could spend endless amounts of money, but if it is not spent in the right way, it is a terrible waste.

There are many issues that I wish I could pick up. The Howard League supports amendments to the Bail Act 1976, designed to reduce unnecessary remand, particularly for pregnant women, primary care givers and the victims of domestic abuse. Justice further advocates for the removal of the courts’ powers to remand individuals for their own protection, including children remanded on welfare grounds.

Although it is not included in the Bill, the Law Society highlights the opportunity for the Government to revisit the resentencing of individuals serving indeterminate sentences for public protection, as previously recommended by the Justice Committee in 2022. As the Minister knows well, IPP prisoners have been languishing in prison for petty crimes. On IPP releases, in August, 172 were freed for the first time, while it will take an estimated decade to free 2,544 prisoners still trapped in their sentences.

I would like a commitment from the Government, if they are keen on bringing down the number of prisoners, to please not release men charged with domestic abuse and stalking who repeatedly harass women. Here are three things that the Government could do instead: abolish the draconian anti-protest laws that result in five-year prison sentences for hanging a banner over a bridge; reverse the proscription of Palestine Action, which has led to hundreds of arrests for sitting down peacefully and holding up signs; and, personally, I want the Home Office focused on keeping violent prisoners in prison and letting peaceful protesters out on the streets to try to make the world a better place.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 26th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, before I get on to the detail of this amendment, may I say how much I agree with the comments that have been made about the increasing complexity of the Sentencing Code, the guidelines and so on? I started to look at them in connection with another amendment and found that I was very quickly bogged down. However, we need to sort out Clauses 18 and 19 first, I would say to the noble and learned Lord; otherwise, we could find ourselves in worse trouble.

I am grateful to the Prison Reform Trust for raising a reminder of community sentences and their place; my amendment provides specifically for community sentences. It should not, of course, be necessary, but it seems that it might be important to remind magistrates in particular. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has another amendment directed to the same end, which is probably more straightforwardly drafted—though I did not draft this one; I will come to that. The briefing that I have received from the Prison Reform Trust is very much based on the risk of increasing the imprisonment of women. The point might apply not only to women, but the position of women has just been trailed by the Minister.

We welcome the presumption that we have just been talking about against custodial sentences of 12 months or less, but there are implications of a custodial sentence that is suspended that do not apply to community orders. I tripped over the issue when I was looking online for the views of women’s organisations on the Bill, and I found an article by Vera Baird for the Centre for Women’s Justice. She wrote:

“There is abundant evidence to show that women are disproportionately given short custodial sentences, mainly for non-violent, low-level offences such as shoplifting—”


I am sorry to use that term in the presence of my noble friend, but I am quoting—

“or breaches of court orders. Nearly 70% of women in prison are victims of domestic abuse”—

that is an MoJ figure, I think, and I should perhaps declare an interest as having been chair of the charity Refuge for a number of years—

“many have complex needs and whilst, for male prisoners, relationships can be a protective factor, families rarely stay together if the mother goes to prison”.

On that issue of complex needs, the article also makes the point:

“Women with multiple needs may breach suspended sentences due to the complexity of their lives, the challenges they face in complying with court-ordered requirements, mental health disorders, caretaking responsibilities, unstable housing and lower employment prospects. Conflicts with conditions, missed appointments or failure to meet financial obligations linked to their sentences, can result in technical violations which will breach the suspended sentence and lead to women being returned to court for imprisonment. Women may also breach community orders, but the consequences are not likely to be as severe. Women on suspended sentences live under the threat of prison from day one of the sentence, long before the benefits of treatment and support, which may be offered alongside a suspended sentence order, have any chance of working”.


In case anyone thinks that I am advocating letting women off, community sentences are punishment. Vera Baird wrote that this amendment—I think it is this one; I have since seen a longer alternative—was drafted by members of the Women’s Justice Board. I mention that because I know that the Women’s Justice Board is very much supported by the Minister, and I have an amendment about it later, but it is significant that it is backing this. Vera Baird said that it was tabled in the Commons; it took me a while to track it down, but as far as I can see there was no comment from the Minister in the Commons in response to this amendment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 29A. It is not often that I feel daunted in speaking out on legislation in this Chamber, but I feel a slight nervousness when a lot of senior police officers, former judges and KCs start—

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

Most of them have gone.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Yes, luckily they have, so I do not really need to be nervous at all.

Often, in putting my or the Green Party’s views—which obviously overlap quite a lot—I feel that I am speaking from the street. I talk to a lot of people who probably do not know much about this sort of thing, and they probably agree with me on some of it.

On simpler legislation, I know for a fact that the Met Police would like simpler legislation around protests. It is absolutely sick of the confusion and it is time for us to revisit it. However, that is not for today.

Amendment 29A would make a simple but important change: it would require courts to consider the use of a community order before imposing a suspended sentence order. This would strengthen the Government’s own intention to reduce the overuse of short prison sentences—an aim that I and, I am sure, many across the Chamber, including the Minister, warmly welcome. However, unless we make it clear that community orders must be properly considered first, we risk creating what justice organisations call a net-widening effect. In other words, people who should have received a community order may instead receive a suspended sentence order simply because it appears to be a tougher alternative to custody.

A suspended sentence order is still a custodial sentence. It carries the weight and the lifelong consequences of a criminal record, and it places people at far greater risk of imprisonment if they breach its terms. By contrast, a community order is a genuinely non-custodial disposal. It is designed, when properly resourced, to address the underlying causes of offending, whether those are mental health needs, alcohol or drug dependency, or others. Community orders enable people to keep their jobs, maintain their homes, stay connected to their families and communities, and continue caring responsibilities—all factors that are well established as reducing the risk of reoffending.

If the Bill’s aim is to reduce the crisis in prison capacity, we must avoid funnelling people into suspended sentences where a community order would be more effective and safely promote rehabilitation. Otherwise, we simply increase the pipeline into custody through breach, defeating the very purpose of the Government’s reforms. We also risk the danger that this disproportionately affects women as it currently stands, which we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

This amendment is supported by Justice and aligned with the recommendations of the Independent Sentencing Review, which suggested

“introducing ‘crime reduction’ as an overarching principle”

to guide sentencing. Community sentences can play a crucial role in achieving that. They provide a real opportunity for rehabilitation and practical programmes that help people rebuild their lives without the barrier of a custodial sentence on their record. Crucially, community orders can command public confidence when victims are properly informed about what they involve and understand how these sentences can reduce future harm.

Amendment 29A would simply ensure that the most proportionate, most effective and least harmful sentence is considered first. It would strengthen the Bill’s stated ambition of reducing pressure on prisons while supporting better outcomes for individuals and communities. I hope that the Minister sees this as a constructive amendment that aligns with the Government’s own agenda. I urge the Committee to give it serious consideration.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I support what is behind the amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Jones, for two reasons. First, we still send far too many women to prison; we need to reduce that number. Secondly, a community sentence probably should be in priority to a suspended sentence.

However, it is not that simple. I will not come back to this point again, but the amendments show precisely why this should be left to the Sentencing Council, which can weigh up the detail of the terms and conditions that it is appropriate to attach to a suspended sentence, as you can make them almost as tough as a community order. The judgment of how the public perceive suspended sentences and community orders can also be left to the council. Unless we satisfy the public’s perception that we are punishing people, the result will be that the judges will think, “Okay, we’ve got to go above 12 months”. That would be a disaster, particularly in the case of women.

I support the excellent ideas behind the amendments. However—and I promise not to say any more about the Sentencing Council today—they are a very strong argument for changing this Bill and making it sensible.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

The noble Lord has also tabled amendments requiring venues to be notified of any ban. I appreciate what this amendment is trying to achieve but gently say that it is unnecessary. The duty to comply rests with the offender, and enforcement rests with the Probation Service. We do not believe it would be appropriate to place, even by implication, a burden of enforcement on hard-working businesses. As I have already noted, probation officers are responsible for supervising offenders serving their sentences in the community and taking enforcement action where necessary, and they are skilled and experienced in doing so. I am glad that we have had the opportunity to discuss these amendments today. I hope I have given noble Lords greater clarity about how these amendments will be both imposed and enforced, and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, he mentioned alcolocks. It is a system of measuring one’s breath, and if one is deemed to have drunk it stops the car ignition. It has worked very successfully in other countries.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. That is very interesting, and I will take it back to the department.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Can the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, get up?

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My apologies—I was waiting for a colleague to jump in. Late though it may be, it is very difficult to follow that outstanding contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Foster. It was exhilarating for me to listen to it.

My Amendment 134 is on probation capacity. It is crucial, bearing in mind that I raise this as a consequence of issues raised with me by the probation union Napo. The amendment seeks to give the Probation Service watchdog some teeth. Currently, only the people running local probation units can trigger special measures and what is called the prioritisation framework. This has given rise to accusations that they are marking their own homework. My amendment seeks to share that power with the Chief Inspector of Probation.

Prioritisation is an important safety valve to stop probation units from being swamped, but sometimes an outside perspective is needed to gauge this accurately and honestly, for obvious reasons. It is widely accepted that the Probation Service is under extreme pressure—there is no doubt at all about that—and this Bill will only add to those pressures. Officers are trained to assess risk, but they must be given the space and time to do that properly if we want to avoid reinforcing the risk-averse culture that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, mentioned. It is causing so much damage to the service—damage that we can do without.

I am sure that the Committee will join with me in paying tribute to the probation officer who, shamefully, was stabbed in Oxford last week while supervising an offender. I commend his bravery and fortitude. Thankfully, he was not critically injured. We wish him a complete and fully supported recovery. Beyond the immediate harm that was caused, this incident—the second such attack recently, as an officer was stabbed in Preston in August—underscores the increasing risk faced by probation officers and the crisis of prison violence spilling over into probation. Not surprisingly, staff morale and retention have collapsed, made worse by over a decade of real-terms pay cuts while case loads have soared to unimaginable levels, and worse is yet to come.

This amendment also seeks approval from the Chief Inspector of Probation before any extra pressure is placed on the Probation Service from within the Bill. This simple safeguard should address fears that the service may be unfit for purpose or otherwise, if it is unprepared for the extra work coming its way.

I place on record Napo support for the other amendments in this group, on capacity, which all seek to place in the Bill perfectly reasonable safeguards such as maximum case loads for probation officers and annual reports on probation resourcing and tagging operations. I sincerely hope that the Minister can appreciate the merits in these suggestions and those in my Amendment 134, which have come directly from staff on the front line. I look forward very much to his response.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 134, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on his very passionate speech.

This issue has come up several times, but it does need more emphasis. It is incredibly important. Although I very much support the intentions of the Sentencing Bill, we cannot avoid at least acknowledging the strain already placed on the Probation Service. If we are going to put new demands on the service, we must first be confident that it can meet them. The latest report from the National Audit Office makes it painfully clear that the service is struggling with staff shortages, rising workloads and unsatisfactory outcomes. Only 79% of target staffing levels for qualified probation officers have been met, leaving around 1,500 vacancies across England and Wales. Of the 12 regions, 10 are operating beyond full capacity, and almost half of local delivery units are now rated red or amber for performance.

In that context, asking His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation to confirm adequate capacity before we put pressure on it is a necessary safeguard. If we want the measures in the Bill to succeed, our Probation Service must be set up to succeed. This proposed new clause would ensure that—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for his kind words about it; I am a complete passenger on this—and that is why I am pleased to second it.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 93E. In this case, the capacity is that of prison officers. The amendment calls for an annual report, but, as we discussed on the first day in Committee, the wording is really only a mechanism to introduce an issue. In this case, this is a probing amendment seeking assurances about activities and the need for prison officers to support those activities.

It is common sense that activities in prison are important. Nothing in what I say is intended to downplay the work of probation officers; this is just a different focus. Activities that are “purposeful”—a word that we used a lot on the previous day—including, in particular, educational and vocational activities, are too often either not available or not sufficiently available. They would not all be delivered by prison officers, but they need their buy-in and support. I have raised this because I have become aware, as others will have been for longer than I have, of the shortage of prison officers and the strain on them. To be attractive, the work needs to be more rewarding and to have its professional status recognised.

Purposeful activity—by which I mean meaningful and rehabilitative, not performative—should be central to time in prison to reduce reoffending and for transferable skills to be taught. But we know that activities start from a low base—they are inadequate in number and, I guess, in type—and are cancelled because of chronic staffing shortages. As a result, basic numeracy and literacy are not available.

As the Justice and Home Affairs Committee report said:

“The Ministry of Justice should prioritise purposeful activity as a core function of the prison regime, ensuring that work, education, and rehabilitative programmes are protected from disruptions caused by staffing shortages. This will require a strategic focus on maintaining consistent activity delivery, even in the face of staffing challenges”.


That was one of the recommendations accepted in full by the MoJ. This amendment therefore has two focuses: the activities themselves and the position of prison officers.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, was so quick to assume that I was going to say something with which she would disagree. I hope, in fact, to disappoint her: she might be able to agree with what I am about to say. I added my name to the right reverend Prelate’s Amendment 52. I am not sure that I necessarily agree with every detail of her amendment; the reason I added my name, now and in Committee, is that I strongly believe that we need greater clarity about the purpose of prison.

Other noble Lords have given some very good arguments and reasons as to why the right reverend Prelate’s amendment deserves support. I am not going to repeat those. I am just going to make one comment of my own—and I will try to be very brief—which is that there has been a very big change over the past 50 years. There was a notion—it was certainly current when I was young—that the purpose of prison was based on a classical notion of justice; that is, that the perpetrator had incurred a debt to society, a debt which was to be discharged by a fixed period of imprisonment, after which that perpetrator was free to go. Nowadays, we do not hear about that form of justice. The rhetoric and the argument we hear—it appears across all parties; it is not an accusation against this Government or this Minister—are that the purpose of prison is the protection of the public.

Now, that is a hopeless case. It is hopeless, first, because its logic ends with every prisoner being subject to an indefinite sentence. We are back to the thinking about IPP prisoners, to whom we are going to come later this evening. If the protection of the public is what you are aiming at, that is the logic of where you are going. Secondly, it says nothing about the prisoner; it is entirely outward looking towards the public. It leaves the prisoner there in prison, but to what purpose as far as their activity, their purpose while they are there, is concerned? That is why some of the suggestions made in the amendment, and the suggestions made by other noble Lords in this debate about activities for prisoners and facilities, are so important.

Thirdly, it has been one of the contributing factors to longer and longer sentences, because if you are constantly under pressure to think about protecting the public, and you have a huge 25 year-old man in front of you who has done something very violent and you are going to have to think about protecting the public when you send him down, you are going to have to think about quite a long sentence. I think that adds to the longer sentences which are at the root of the problem that we are facing and which this Bill is to some extent intended to address. We will not complete this task in the course of this debate, obviously, but at some stage we need to have serious thought about trying to get back to some notion of justice and querying this idea that the purpose of prison, and the purpose of the criminal justice system, is the protection of the public, because of the dangers I think that involves. It has crept into our thinking without a proper debate as to its consequences, and I think it deserves some challenge.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister has probably been in your Lordships’ House long enough to understand how rare it is that we are getting a degree of unanimity around the House on the amendments that we have debated so far. I am the first to admit that I am not particularly socially savvy when it comes to how people run the country, because I do not get the idea that we put people in prison for their own protection, when prison is a really dangerous place for vulnerable people to be. Also, as I have told the Minister before, I am extremely anxious about people being put in prison on remand for many months, because people on remand face the poorest access to healthcare and the highest rates of self-harm and are routinely held in the most overcrowded and unstable parts of the prison estate. Courts have no control over which prison they go to and for how long.

It seems that we are here trying to correct an injustice: that vulnerable women and children are put into a prison where they are clearly not safe is horrendous. I know that there is an inquiry about this, but the Minister is seeing and hearing from people who know where the problems lie, so I urge him to take this back to the Ministry of Justice—I am sure he will. I welcome the Government’s acknowledgment, through the Mental Health Act, that remanding people for their own protection on mental health grounds is wrong, but this power has to be removed completely. It really does not fit with a decent society, and I would be very happy to vote for quite a few of these amendments if they went forward.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, now for something completely different. I am not absolutely sure why my Amendment 100A is in this group, so I apologise for coming in at this stage when we are talking about such important matters. The debate is really around those matters, but it is important that this amendment is at some stage debated—it has been put in at this point, so I apologise for that. I thank the Law Society for supporting my amendment and for the help that it has given. I also thank Zoe Bantleman for her assistance.

The Government’s asylum statement Restoring Order and Control: A Statement on the Government’s Asylum and Returns Policy makes it clear that reforms within the Sentencing Bill will “make foreign national offenders”, which is what my amendment is about,

“eligible for immediate deportation from the first day of their prison sentence”.

In the interests of access to justice, this amendment probes what access to legal advice and representation will be available to foreign national offenders, who may now face immediate deportation.

Clause 32 removes the requirement that a foreign criminal must serve a minimum pre-removal custodial period before they can be deported from the UK. In practice, this means that the Government will be able to deport a foreign national offender upon sentencing.

The House will know that there was an early returns scheme which allowed foreign criminals to be removed from prison before the end of their custodial sentence for purposes of immediate deportation, yet previously, deportation was not immediate. The minimum custodial period was the longer of 50% of their requisite custodial period or 18 months before their earliest release point. Last year, secondary legislation reduced this pre-removal custodial period from 50% to 30%. The Bill will now reduce the pre-removal custodial period to zero per cent, meaning that a foreign national offender will not need to serve any of their sentence here, or only a very minimal portion, before deportation.

Despite the consequent tight timeframes, no provision is made for access to legal advice and representation. It is known that there are significantly more barriers for foreign nationals in prison to access legal advice and representation. The prison environment relies upon restriction and isolation from the outside world, hindering an individual’s ability to access justice. His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons highlighted this in 2022, when reviewing the experience of immigration detainees in prisons. He said:

“An inability to access and contact legal representatives … created a risk that detainees were unable to fairly challenge the Home Office’s decision to remove them”.


This amendment therefore probes what access to legal aid advice and representation will be available to foreign national offenders, who may now face

“immediate deportation from the first day of their prison sentence”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, during our various deliberations throughout the passage of the Bill, I have on a number of occasions expressed great support for many of the measures within the proposed legislation but, at the same time, a concern that we may not have the means to deliver the ends—in particular, the concern that we would not have the right number of sufficiently and adequately trained staff within the Prison and Probation Service. I have suggested on previous occasions, therefore, that it would be appropriate that we look at, for example, not only the number of prisoners and prison places but at the same time the number of staff in the Prison and Probation Service. That is particularly important because, if many of the measures in this legislation go ahead, they will increase demands on both those services. For instance, there will be more tagging having to be taken up and, of course, more people—hopefully—engaging in a wider range of activities in our prisons and in non-custodial sentences to reduce reoffending.

The two amendments in my name, therefore, simply propose adding those two issues—staffing in the Probation Service and Prison Service—to the amendment that has now been proposed by the Minister. However, I am reasonably confident, in light of the comments that the Minister has made, not only about the assurance that there will be a continuation of the quarterly reports but that there will be a bringing together of the data from that and the annual report that we are going to get as a result of the amendment, that we have probably got to the point where we will have the relevant information in a very transparent way. I am grateful to the Minister for the discussions we have had on this particular issue.

So I will not press my amendments to a vote, and I am grateful to the Minister for going as far as he has. I just say to him that it is slightly difficult to understand why simply adding in the wording I propose has not been done, but I know that the Minister really wants to make this work. I believe he is going to achieve that—I hope he will—and so I shall not be pressing these amendments to a vote.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I have tabled Amendment 97A, which is again about probation capacity. I know that the Minister has done his best to convince us, and I completely understand that, with his business drive and determination, he is going to do the absolute best possible for this problem. But I remain unconvinced that the concerns raised by Peers in Committee and by probation staff themselves have been properly addressed.

It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is not going to push his amendments to a vote, and I certainly will not push this to a vote. However, in Committee, the Government charged that this amendment would risk duplicating existing reports and delaying reform, but I do not see that, because this amendment is not about producing more data for its own sake; it is about independent assurance at arm’s length from Ministers and operational management that the Probation Service has the capacity to safely absorb the additional demands that the Bill will place on it. Quarterly staffing statistics published by the Probation Service are not the same thing as a system- wide assessment that the Probation Service has that capacity.

In addition, the amendment balances investment plans. The Minister referred in Committee to the recruitment of trainee probation officers, to digital innovation and to welcome investment over the spending review period. We heard about those issues from the Minister himself at a briefing yesterday. All of that is positive, but none of it guarantees that the capacity is adequate at the point of commencement of the new statutory duties. The organisation Justice also says that the number of new probation officers set to be recruited would be inadequate. I would be very grateful if the Minister could tackle that problem of the inadequacy of numbers because, of course, recruitment takes time. Trainees take time to qualify. Technology takes time to embed and to get right. In the meantime, probation officers are working under extraordinary pressure, managing high-risk individuals and with case loads that are already too high.

The argument that this amendment would delay reforms misunderstands its purpose. If it delays reform, it is necessary, because it means that the reforms are not enough. Carrying on with huge changes regardless of capacity does not strengthen probation; it weakens it and increases risks to staff. Parliament is being asked to legislate for significant new demands on the Probation Service without this independent assurance by HMPPS that it has actually happened and that it is going to work and it is going to fit. I would have supported the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, but I will, of course, not move mine. I just hope that the Minister feels he has the backing of the House for everything he is trying to do. If we are raising concerns, it is only from a point of view of wanting to make it perfect.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for giving way. I rise to speak to Amendment 70, which my noble friend Lord Jackson, who cannot be here today, led on in Committee, and which I have signed. It would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament on how the Act has affected reoffending rates. I appreciate the Minister’s encouraging introductory remarks.

The amendment would also create a feedback loop into the policy-making process by halting various provisions in the Act if certain metrics are not achieved. On the data, I am aware that reoffending statistics which differentiate between custodial and community or suspended sentences are routinely collected and published every quarter, as the Minister reminded us just now and in Committee. I am also aware of the evidence that those given a community or suspended sentence order reoffend less. Indeed, I am grateful to the Minister for responding at very short notice to my request for data.

To rehearse the compelling arguments for the presumption of non-custodial sentences of less than a year, the one-year proven reoffending rate for adults starting a suspended sentence order with requirements in quarter 3 2023 was 25%. Of those released from a custodial sentence of 12 months or fewer, 62% reoffended within a year. Importantly, robust analysis that compares like offenders with like also shows that suspended and community sentences are more effective than short custodial sentences, with a difference of four percentage points. Even where offending has been prolific, they pack a greater punch in reducing reoffending and promoting rehabilitation. All this is to say that I, like many other noble Lords, really want this presumption to bear more of the above fruit, because a large body of research shows that even where short custodial sentences are the only recourse, they often fail to rehabilitate.

We are also aware that we cannot build our way out of our long-standing prison capacity crisis, and that requires keeping people out of prison where a non-custodial sentence is the most effective disposal, despite public demand for punishment to mean deprivation of liberty. Many simply, and understandably, want offenders to be removed from our streets, not least so that victims know where they are and are unlikely to see them at large—hence this amendment is in a group concerned with transparency of the criminal justice system.

We do need to finesse the wording. I agree that referring to

“the impact of this Act on re-offending”

presents a minefield for researchers as reoffending is affected by many factors. However, there needs to be a proper stocktake in the aftermath of introducing a presumption that will make a custodial sentence far less likely.

My main point is that I, and the public, will assume it is more likely than not that this presumption will de-risk crime for offenders. Knowing they will receive a community or suspended sentence order will surely be a less fearful outcome than imprisonment. We are all aware of how prolific shoplifting has become, now that police are not even attending. Hence and crucially, previous data might not be reliable in this new sentencing world. Therefore, the public need to know not only that this experiment will be evaluated and reported on, as the Minister has assured us it will be, but that it will be called off if necessary.

On this amendment, we also need to finesse whether these reforms are given only two years to bed in, and if the 10% reduction in reoffending pass or fail rate is appropriate. However, the fact that these details need ironing out should not preclude amending the Bill so that there is clarity for the public that steps will be taken to roll this presumption back if it proves ineffective or even harmful. I will not be pushing this to a vote.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

It is time for this side. Forgive me, but I think it is time that we heard—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am not “this side”.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Forgive me.

I want to be brief, because the speeches have been eloquent and passionate. All the bases have been covered, but in the absence of, for example, my noble friend Lord Blunkett, whose amendments I signed, it is important that someone from the Labour Benches conveys the concern that persists in the Labour Party. That includes people who are incredibly loyal to the Government and incredibly proud of the Minister, my noble friend Lord Timpson. The anxiety and concern at this profound injustice is very live and real.

I support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and other aspirations and amendments in this group. I agree that administrative mechanisms have not been enough. They do not show the signs of being enough to prevent more suicides and self-harm from what the noble and learned Lord put very well as having been a collective miscarriage of justice. When miscarriages of justice are perpetrated by the judiciary, there are appeal mechanisms and even executive pardon mechanisms to deal with them, but this was perpetrated by the political class: by the Executive and the legislature.

To the credit of the coalition Government, the IPP sentence was ended, but the response in relation to those already incarcerated was inadequate. These people, frankly, rot in prison. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, put it very well: some of these people have now been incarcerated—some even without any release—for offences that would never have justified life imprisonment. They are decades beyond tariff. This is unconscionable, and something must be done.

I know very well from regular meetings and from all the engagement and work that my noble friend Lord Timpson is doing that he is committed to getting these people out, if at all possible, but administrative mechanisms do not seem to be enough. I hope he will forgive me for saying that, in these meetings and in that engagement, some of us have observed even institutional intransigence in some parts of the institution about dealing with this. Frankly, this was a legislative disaster and it will require a legislative solution. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to make this 11th-hour concession. That may prove difficult— I do not know—but, at the very least, I would hope that he might consider a free-standing Bill that the Government could bring forward, with cross-party support, to provide a mechanism to deal with the remaining relatively small number of people suffering this profound injustice.

Administrative mechanisms and “wait and see” are plainly not going to work, not least because of the point about zero risk that was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, earlier this evening and has come up in a number of speeches. There cannot be zero risk. There is not zero risk with people in the mainstream population who have never been convicted of an offence so, of course, there is not zero risk in relation to this cohort. Any risk that they pose has probably been exacerbated, as was put by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, by this appalling state-sponsored miscarriage of justice of collective proportions.

It is time for all of us to play our part on a cross-party basis, which is why I shall be listening as anxiously to the reply from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, opposite. This is a political problem and an institutional problem, and it will take good will from all sides to deal with it. We spoke earlier about the purposes of imprisonment. The legitimate purpose of imprisonment was never supposed to be political point-scoring, yet that political point-scoring has created all sorts of problems that have escalated in the past three decades, so I hope that there can be some olive branch offered from that side of the House as well.

I know that the Minister is committed to justice and has proved in his extraparliamentary life what can be done with genuine courage and a commitment to turning people’s lives around. This, I know, is on his mind. I am asking him to consider a legislative response, rather than just leaving it to administration, because that has not been sufficient. I support the approach of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, but there is a lot in what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said too. It is perhaps a shame that we did not have a single offering, but I firmly believe that there will have to be a legislative offering, ideally from the Government. Otherwise, this stain—the word of my dear friend and former mentor, the late Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood—will carry on, perhaps beyond our own lifetimes, and I for one would be seriously ashamed of that.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, the case has been made clearly and persuasively, with no significant objection, but it is a difficult issue of public policy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said, there is a risk—there is this downside risk of a case that will make headlines in the newspapers—but that has to be set against the certainty of the harm that this policy is causing to many people at the moment.

We know that. It is well attested, and my noble friend the Minister knows that full well. So we have to accept the risk and embrace the opportunity to greatly help people who are suffering in our prisons from this policy. I will listen with care to my noble friend’s response to the debate. I very much hope that he will be able to give us some hope, but I will find it difficult to join my colleagues in the government Lobby.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, clearly it is wonderful to hear from the Labour Benches, because I know from private conversations that there is a lot of concern about this. It is a morally indefensible position to say that we are not going to do it because of public opinion, or because a newspaper might pick it up and run a bad story about the Government. There are enough bad stories about the Government; I am sure it would get lost in the confusion.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

The Minister knows that we are pressing for a wider category of transcripts than just sentencing remarks to be provided, and we will continue to press for that during the passage of the Victims and Courts Bill in due course. Meanwhile, along with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the Official Opposition, we on these Benches are very pleased to have made progress in the way we have on a difficult and important issue, and we are pleased to support the amendments.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the amendments are certainly an improvement. Obviously, the Bill does not go as far as many of us would have liked, but it is still a pretty good Bill. In fact, if every Government Minister engaged as well and as comprehensively and listened as carefully as the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, this House would be a much calmer place. Perhaps he could give a few lessons to other people sitting on the Front Bench.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords, especially the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for their insightful contributions to today’s debate. I would like to think that my years of doing business deals have helped in trying to get this through. What I have learned doing business deals is that the way to get a good deal is to listen to everybody and, where good ideas come from all places, you take them on board: that is how you get a good deal. I hope the Sentencing Bill is a good Bill, because my colleagues and I have listened and it has been a very constructive process.

On the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I think I answered a number of those points in my opening speech, but I will carefully go through Hansard. Where I did not refer directly to their questions, I will write to them with exact details, and I am very happy to meet up to go through those points.

For me, victims come first and it is our intention to provide full sentencing remarks. We want to focus on the victims of the case, not the victims of different crimes. The involvement of family in this will be dealt with through regulations. We have a broad definition of “victim” and the exceptions will be very limited, but I want to make sure we get this right. We need to make sure that victims are not retraumatised by the process and, where some very vulnerable victims in a small number of cases may not be capable of asking for these, we need to make sure that that is dealt with. I am very happy to write and meet up to get this right.

It would be remiss of me to conclude my remarks without thanking those who have made a vital contribution. I again thank all noble Lords for their careful and constructive engagement through the Bill’s passage. That expertise has strengthened it in many important respects. I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, for his expert guidance. I also thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his support, and the Minister for Sentencing for guiding the Bill so skilfully through the other place.

Finally, I thank all the officials across government for their skill and devotion to delivering the Bill. They are a really great team. I beg to move.