Queen’s Speech

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have pronounced that they will level up opportunities in all parts of the country. The need is most obvious in the criminal justice system yet the provisions for reforms are very scarce. Where is the provision for crime prevention and schemes for diverting as many young offenders and others from the prison system? It is not being soft, but we have to accept the low level of realistic contribution which the courts and prisons can make in reducing crime.

I draw attention once again to this country’s overuse of imprisonment, as was so ably done by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. The prison population of England and Wales currently stands at nearly 80,000. It is projected to increase to over 98,000 in 2026. We have 132 people in prison for every 100,000 people in our general population, compared with 100 in France and 70 in Germany, two of our closest European neighbours. The British people are not twice as criminal as the German people, yet our sentencing is twice as punitive.

Of the 41,000 people sent to prison in the 12 months to June 2021, 40% were sentenced to serve terms of six months or less. These short sentences do little to reduce crime. They are too short for any serious rehabilitative work to take place, yet they can result in offenders losing jobs and accommodation, which increases rather than reduces their likelihood of reoffending. Community sentences have significantly lower reoffending rates than short prison sentences for comparable offenders, yet their use has more than halved in the last decade. Sentences have become significantly longer for almost all categories of offence. The average prison sentence for an indictable offence is now 55 months, nearly two years longer than in 2008, when it was around 32 months. The average minimum term imposed on offenders receiving life sentences for murder rose from 13 years in 2001 to 20 years in 2020.

Offenders from minority-ethnic groups are disproportionately likely to receive custodial sentences. Estimates published by the Ministry of Justice in 2017 indicated that black people were over 50% more likely to be sent to prison for indictable offences at the Crown Court, even when higher not guilty plea rates were factored in. The same Ministry of Justice publication estimated that if the prison population reflected the ethnic composition of the general population, we would have over 9,000 fewer people in prison, the equivalent of 12 average-sized prisons. One recent survey found that only 7% of people thought that imprisoning more people would be effective in cutting crime.

Inspectorate ratings of purposeful activity in custody have seen a marked decline over the last decade, and were declining significantly even before Covid-19 restrictions were imposed throughout the prison system. Following the recent Root and Branch Review of the Parole System, the Government have come up with the astonishing proposal that the Secretary of State should be empowered in certain cases to overrule release decisions by the Parole Board. The Parole Board is a judicial body which makes judicial decisions. The proposal would line us up with dictatorships around the world in which politicians interfere with judicial decisions. It is difficult to see any serious argument for such a change. The proportion of prisoners released on parole who commit a further offence is less than 0.5%. No system based on human judgment could produce a significantly better result and there is certainly no reason to believe that the Secretary of State’s judgment would be more accurate than the accumulated experience and expertise of the Parole Board.

In conclusion, I shall talk about how we should look seriously at ways of reducing crime. The Government should legislate for a presumption against short custodial sentences. They should take steps to increase the use of community sentences, which research has shown have significantly lower reoffending rates than short periods in custody. They should require the Sentencing Council to take the capacity of the prison system into account when it produces sentencing guidelines. Instead of devoting resources to expanding the prison system, they should plough them into the prevention of crime, support for victims and the rehabilitation of offenders. This approach would do far more to increase public safety than maintaining and reinforcing this country’s reputation as the most punitive outpost in western Europe.