Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

It is my privilege to follow the noble Baroness and to commend the part she played as Home Secretary and Prime Minister in listening to the families. I hope the House will forgive me for reiterating words that have already been used this afternoon, but I have been reflecting personally over the last year or two on the 1989 disaster and whether I could have done a great deal more afterwards as the Member of Parliament in whose constituency the Hillsborough stadium is located.

The commendations that have already been made to the families and campaigners, who have shown the most incredible tenacity and commitment to bringing about change, need to be reiterated, because making democracy work when you are suffering as they have suffered, with the emotion that they have felt, has been the most impressive yet tragic element of modern British democracy.

I was not at the game—I was a very new MP for the area, and it was a semi-final—but my father-in-law-to-be was, and, to his death, he remembered it as though it was yesterday. My wife-to-be was a volunteer at the Sheffield Hallam Hospital, as a doctor, and I went to the Northern General Hospital and spoke to some of the 766 young men and women who were injured on that day.

We were briefed by the police entirely wrongly. To this day I am grateful that, for once, I did not believe the police; other Members of Parliament did. The lies that were told on that day are a stain on the South Yorkshire Police and the force in general, but they do not need to be a stain on the community I was proud to represent. I am saying this because, out of that terrible day and the immediate aftermath, the humanity and commitment of local people also needs to be remembered. There were those who took people from Merseyside back to their homes because cars were not usable and the tragedy had brought such emotional trauma; people who had lost their keys; people who, in those days, did not have a mobile phone and had to use local landlines. I say this only because sometimes, we need to balance the terrible things with the humanity that also emerges.

I want to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wills, who will speak in a moment. When I was a very new Member of this House, he brought forward his Private Member’s Bill, and I was pleased to be a sponsor of it. As I said a moment ago, I have reflected on how little I did as Home Secretary, and I regret that deeply, because the time it has taken to bring about this Bill, and the recognition that goes with it, could have been shortened enormously if some of us had taken more responsibility at that time. Two Prime Ministers now have played their part. The current Prime Minister, my friend, paid tribute to Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons earlier this afternoon, and I pay tribute to Andy Burnham. He learned a terrific political lesson on the 20th anniversary, in 2009, at Anfield. Some of us have learned lessons like that over the years, and it is seminal.

I want to say two or three things about the Bill. First, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady May, mentioned the Independent Public Advocate, who is here this afternoon. Unless this role is properly funded and supported, and unless the powers are adequate, it will not work. As the noble Baroness, Lady May, said, this is not about taking things to yet another public inquiry; it is about getting to the truth quickly and decisively and bringing justice in that way.

The second issue is the security services, which have been mentioned already this afternoon. As Home Secretary, I was painfully aware of the sacrifice that many people made and the danger in which they put themselves. So getting this right will be important in ensuring not just that they cannot escape from actions that are totally unethical, but that we do it in a way that safeguards our national well-being.

This is not about the legislation itself; it is about getting people to act ethically, and not to be dealt with by legislative process. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester mentioned not only his early time and his terrible experience in South Yorkshire all those years ago, which I have spoken about, but the work he is doing with the National Police Chiefs’ Council. The noble Lord, Lord Herbert, and I were painfully aware during the nine-month inquiry we undertook into the leadership of the police service in Britain that there is a desperate need for the ethics to be built into everyday life.

I say to my good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, that there will be a cost, but the cost will be much less if people themselves take responsibility and act not just with humanity but with the ethics that ensure that those around them are not permitted to act fraudulently and against the best interests of the community.

Finally, I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench, will he make sure that in reopening the stages of the Nottingham foundation trust inquiry, people are made to give evidence rather than escaping by having taken other jobs?

Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am glad the noble Baroness thinks that the new Prime Minister will be perfect. I was pleased to see the noble Baroness yesterday outside the Ministry of Justice with a number of ex-IPP prisoners and their families. I reiterate the important role that families play in the justice system. There are 193,000 children affected by parental imprisonment and a number of those are children whose parents are on IPP sentences. Some have come home and are then recalled back into custody. One of the key elements for people reforming and not reoffending is family ties. Yes, they need a job and somewhere safe to live, and we want them to be well, but families have a really important role, which is why we need to keep supporting the families of IPP prisoners.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I commend my noble friend for the enormous amount of work, time and energy that he is putting into this area. I know it is greatly appreciated by those who have campaigned for years. Will he take a look at the slowing of the work on progression plans and the progression board, not simply in relation to those who have never been released—the 896 to whom he referred—but on the length of time that those who have been recalled are spending in prison, which is of considerable concern in terms of what we are trying to do to rehabilitate and get people back into the community?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his kind words, and I look forward to seeing a number of noble Lords at the IPP Peers meeting on Monday. I will take away the point on the progression board that he mentions. However, I reiterate that we need prisons that work and a Probation Service that works. One of the things that I been focused on is performance in the justice system. I am pleased to inform Members of your Lordships’ House that 70% of our prisons and 90% of our probation regions are now performing better than they were. Self-harm and assaults on staff are down. To me, all that shows that we are getting to the right place, which will make it easier for often complex prisoners to get on so they can get out and stay out.

Imprisonment for Public Protection Prisoners

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

From March 2025 to March 2026, there was an 11% reduction in the number of never-released IPP prisoners, but I want to get more men and women out for the first time and post recall. We need to do more, and we are doing more. We are rolling out IPP advocates to 12 prisons where there is a large concentration of IPP prisoners so that they can wrap their arm around these people and help them get ready for parole. We are establishing the Phoenix wing in HMP Aylesbury in August, which will be a specialist wing for those furthest from release, and the Parole Board review time has already reduced from an average of 18 months for IPP prisoners to 14.5 months—I aim to get it to 12 months soon. I also believe in employment and second chances. Having employed many IPP prisoners in the past, this to me is the most positive route we can take, so that when they get out, they stay out.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I commend my noble friend on the time and commitment he has given to talking to organisations on behalf of prisoners and their families. Does he agree, however, that there appears to be an increasing logjam of those on recall who are held in prison often when the original allegation that got them there has already been set aside?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for all his continued support in this difficult area and for sending me a lot of cases that I can look at. The good news is that recall is down by 31%. Under the risk-assessed recall review, which is a specialist review where we can quickly release someone quickly, we had released 50 prisoners early up to September 2025—in the next couple of weeks, we will be releasing the updated figures, and I hope for that figure to be higher. We also have the round table of the Peers’ IPP group on 20 July, which I am really looking forward to, because we can go into this in more detail then.

Youth Offending

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to be debating the issue of the Youth Justice Board two days running with the noble Lord. The YJB has made valuable contributions to improving outcomes for children, but it has become clear that the youth justice system is now facing a different set of challenges from those that the board was originally designed to address. We are reforming the board so that it can focus on where it can add the greatest value, which is in driving the continuous improvement of youth justice services, and we are bringing the oversight and funding responsibilities into the Ministry of Justice in order to ensure clearer democratic accountability. I state again, and reassure the noble Lord, that the Youth Justice Board will remain a valued, independent public body with a clear purpose.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I know my noble friend will want to do the right thing, but is it not a fact that the only part of the criminal justice system that has worked really effectively over the last quarter of a century is youth justice, and that the ability to retain and promote staff who gain experience—rather than the musical chairs of the Civil Service, where nobody has long-term experience—should lead us to believe that keeping the Youth Justice Board and its functions makes sense, both for the delivery of the programme she has just mentioned and to ensure that we do not have a situation where the turnover within the MoJ results in people simply not knowing what they are doing?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend and I pay tribute to the work he has done in relation to youth justice over the years. While proven offending has reduced significantly, that itself has placed pressures on our partners in youth justice services. For that reason, we need to reassess where our focus is best placed in order to ensure that we can add the most value. It is for that reason that the Youth Justice Board is going to be reformed, so that we know that it is using its independence and skills to ensure that we get the best outcomes for children.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it is extremely difficult to speak after two such very powerful speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Woodley, has advanced again the resentencing option which was originally proposed by the Justice Select Committee in the other place, under the chairmanship of Sir Bob Neill when he was a Member of Parliament, on a unanimous, cross-party basis. It therefore cannot be dismissed as some reckless and trivial proposal; it should be taken with great seriousness. However, I am not going to elaborate further on it now because it has been debated already. The noble Lord has an extant Private Member’s Bill which would give it effect.

It is fair to say that the proposal from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, is new at debate in your Lordships’ House and it emanates, as he said, from a report produced by the Howard League. There are two points in what the noble and learned Lord said that I want to present in my own way. The first relates to the action plan, which has been excellent in many ways. It has achieved a great deal but, as I said at Second Reading, the difficulty with it is that there is a large number of people—nobody can put a figure on it, but consensually there is an idea that it is several hundreds, maybe nearly 1,000—who are the hard cases left after the action plan has done its work and has resolved the issues in relation to the, if you like, low-hanging fruit. We are left with several hundred people for whom it is clear the action plan is never going to be a solution. If there is no other way out for them than the action plan, then, in effect, the Government are saying that they will stay in jail until they die, because what else is there? There is no other route out.

The noble and learned Lord has presented a proposal which would help. The process would be that the prisoner would apply for parole, be refused parole, but then the Parole Board would at that point be obliged to set a date, up to two years later, on which the prisoner would be released.

The second point is that it could be represented that this is, in effect, an automatic release that follows two years after they have failed to achieve release—but that is not the wording of the amendment. I draw noble Lords’ attention to proposed new subsection (5), inserting new Section 28(6B), which says that the Parole Board, having set the date,

“may issue such directions to facilitate the prisoner’s release at the specified future date as it considers necessary having regard to its duty to protect the public”.

This is not a reckless and automatic release that follows without any effort on anybody’s part from the decision to refuse parole. The essential idea is that the machinery of the Probation Service should be brought together and energised under the direction of the Parole Board to provide those tailored services and that tailored support, such as education and courses, and the other measures that are necessary to ensure that that person is safe to be released. That is the objective.

Let us remember that many of the people who will not be released through the action plan are in that group because they have ceased to engage with the system. Having been through the effort to achieve parole in the past and having suffered the severe psychological blow that can arise from having been refused and knocked back, many of them will simply not go through that again. But if you could offer them a date, if you could say to them, “Here is hope, in two years, if you do these things”, perhaps we can get that engagement, and perhaps those people for whom there is otherwise no exit could be engaged and brought to be released, with the approval of the Parole Board and the support they need to get them to that place. If that support turns out to be expensive and difficult to provide and requires a superhuman effort on the part of the Prison Service, the Probation Service, the Ministry of Justice and the other organs of the state, is that not the least we owe those people now? That is why I really hope that noble Lords will be able to support the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, and that the Government will be able to relent. It might need some work in detail, but I hope the whole House will be able to support the principle behind it.

Briefly, there are also amendments in this group, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, which relate to the parallel—and in some senses, almost deeper —scandal of DPP prisoners. Noble Lords will be aware that, in essence, the only difference between DPP and IPP prisoners is that DPP prisoners were sentenced when they were under 18. Those people are still in prison. They almost certainly should not be, but they are. The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, deserve support.

Finally, and I feel this is very much an anticlimax, my own Amendment 109 is almost bloodless in its technical insignificance in comparison with those put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. It is a very modest proposal and entirely administrative. I very much hope that the Minister will support it.

The amendment would allow IPP prisoners, who are in the community already serving a licence, annually to apply to the Parole Board for the discharge of that licence. In the Victims and Prisoners Act, we reduced dramatically the statutory period of the licence, and we made it easier for people to be discharged. Hundreds of prisoners have had their licence terminated as a result of that; it has been the most significant step so far in removing the scandal of IPP prisoners.

However, there are administrative difficulties, whereby if someone misses out on their discharge, they have to wait another whole two years before they can be considered again. What I am simply doing in my amendment is introducing the idea that they could apply—I would expect nobody to do this, unless they were supported by their probation officer—after one year, not two years, to have their licence discharged.

There is no threat to the public in this. We must remember that these people are already living in the community, and all the amendment seeks to do is give them permission to apply for something. The decision whether to discharge their licence finally—not to release them from jail, because they are in the community already—would still rest with the Parole Board. There is no risk to the public at all in doing this. It is a modest administrative change that will help some—not many—prisoners get rid of the stigma of this sentence sooner and resume their lives in the community as free subjects.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, my contribution this evening will be brief, only because there is a long evening ahead for the many noble Lords on the Front Bench and no lack of enthusiasm and commitment to continue working with other noble Lords who have spoken this evening to get this mess sorted out. I thank my noble friend Lord Woodley, who has taken up the cudgel so strongly; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, whose commitment could not be doubted after his contribution this evening; and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who has hunted with me for a very long time now—since I first came to your Lordships’ House, it seems.

Before speaking to my Amendments 116 and 117, I note that the three contributions that have been made already illustrate the urgency of getting this matter resolved once and for all. All three Members have put their finger on one of the tragedies of the IPP sentence, which, ironically, was in part intended to deal with the two strikes that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, mentioned. The tragedy reflected in the action plan wording that the noble and learned Lord read out—what was originally intended was never in the Bill itself; it was a matter of interpretation—was one of the terrible twists of life that we now have to untangle. The main issue I have picked out concerns those people who have been in prison for so long that their mental health has inevitably deteriorated. As the noble and learned Lord said, psychiatrists have accepted that now, in a way that was not recognised in 2003—we should have done that, and they should have done that, but we did not.

On the amendments from my noble friend Lord Woodley and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, I believe that, if we could build in a formula that allowed the transfer of some of those prisoners to a secure medical setting for support to be given—I am not talking about Broadmoor or Rampton; there needs to be an intermediary alternative—then it might be possible to accept the two-year imperative. That would go a long way to meeting what my noble friend is seeking to achieve in his amendment: to move this on rapidly. The commitment to help from my noble friend on the Front Bench is unequalled, and I pay tribute to him. Listening and responding from the Front Bench is not easy—I know that, because I was there for eight years and experienced all kinds of constraints. My noble friend understands what we are talking about, so perhaps, with some creativity, we could think of a way to achieve this aim.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt, but does the noble Lord accept that, in many cases, especially in the early part of the IPP regime, judicial discretion was almost nil? It was not that the judge determined that an IPP sentence was appropriate; rather, the guidelines given to him said that in certain circumstances, where the offence for which the person had been found guilty and an earlier offence for which they had been convicted appeared on a certain table in a certain configuration, they had no choice but to give an IPP sentence. That is how the sentence was imposed in many cases. There were circumstances where two people were prosecuted for the same crime, which they had carried out together. One of them had a history which brought this table into operation, the other did not. One would get an IPP sentence, the other a determinate sentence appropriate to that crime, although they had both been involved. That point, which is of capital importance, has never been fully recognised by the Ministry of Justice. Judicial discretion was not exercised or exercisable in the case of many of these sentences.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Before my noble friend on the Front Bench replies, could he also reflect that this took place on a Court of Appeal ruling two years after the implementation of the Act in 2005? That judgment then determined the hearings and therefore the sentences granted by judges, consequent on that Appeal Court ruling.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their helpful comments, which explain why this is such a difficult and important area. We need to keep the public safe, but we also need to keep working as noble Lords to try to do what we can to address this situation.

I welcome the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, on the importance of supporting IPP offenders.

Imprisonment for Public Protection (Re-sentencing) Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Woodley on bringing this Bill forward and on his powerful speech. Many points have been made this morning that we have made before in this House and will make again until we reach a conclusion and can put this tragedy—for that is what it is—behind us.

I have been pleased that the Minister has taken action, with the support of his colleagues, very quickly to implement the changes that were agreed in the Victims and Prisoners Act, not least, on 1 November, the lifting of the sword of Damocles in relation to licence conditions; the further action that will be taken in February; the framework that was published last week, which helps towards the progression that we all want; and, shortly, the action plan that I hope will have been not refreshed but completely revised. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell us when that is likely to be published, because it will be really important in dealing with some of the issues and the tragic cases that have been mentioned already today.

If the Government feel that they cannot do a wholesale resentencing, for the reasons that the previous Administration and my own Government have spelled out already, there may be a halfway house. It may be possible—I know that my noble friend Lord Woodley will have spoken to Nicholas Cooke KC about this, as I have—that we could pull together a panel of retired judges and senior KCs. I say retired because there is a backlog of 65,000 in the Crown Courts at the moment, so the judiciary is stretched beyond belief. Realistically, speaking as someone who, with good and bad outcomes, had responsibility for the judicial system and sentencing all those years ago, I know the pressure that the Government are under. Still, it might be possible to do a sifting job—one already being done in miniature by cases being referred back. Members of this House will have heard of the Doughty Street Chambers. How could we not? It has been successful on a number of occasions recently where it has returned to the cases all those years ago and the way the judiciary dealt with them. I carried my responsibility heavily, and I hope that sometimes the judges themselves will think about why they did not see IPP as part of a menu. Doughty Street Chambers has been able to reopen those cases and get them rejudged.

We can find a way forward if we want to. Mental health provision needs to be stepped up. Mention has been made of Thomas White and I have been in long-standing contact with his family. We can ensure that, in that sifting exercise, we get people on to the right trajectory to be quickly moved out of prison.

Finally, I agree entirely with those who have said that we have got to stop this nightmare of the return to prison, with the notion that those on licence can be returned for quite minor incidents. Whatever the probation inspection said at the end of last year, its underlying message was “We’ve got to get this sorted”. If my noble friend Lord Woodley’s Bill and the amendments he has already put down are an avenue for being able to do that, so much the better.

Prison Capacity

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I commend my noble friend on getting through his maiden Statement, and in particular for answering the questions so concisely and clearly. He of all people, as he has already referred to, is fully aware of the big challenges of rehabilitation and avoiding reoffending and, therefore, recall. Would he be prepared to talk to his right honourable friend the Secretary of State and, I hope, Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about the very real challenge of additional large numbers being released into local communities in September and October, to avoid homelessness and to ensure that there is not a return to prison, which all of us fear?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. It is crucial that people leaving prison have somewhere to live. Having been in this space for a number of years, I have met too many people who have left prison—I have seen them outside the gate—and there is no one to meet them, they have nowhere to live and nowhere to stay that night. It is not surprising that the revolving door often means they come back in. I will take my noble friend’s questions away and get back to him. I know we are meeting very soon.