Sentencing Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who makes some very important points.

I begin by joining the tributes that have been made to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, who was a doughty supporter for the victims of crime and will be much missed. I pay tribute also to David Gauke for his excellent report, and also to the Minister, who, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, is a breath of fresh air, and certainly could never be accused of kicking the can down the road.

As my noble friend Lord Beith pointed out, we on these Benches are very supportive of much of the Bill, but we have some concerns. However, rather than addressing the many concerns that others have raised, I will concentrate on a more general concern I have that we will simply not achieve the Bill’s intended ends unless we supply the means to do so. Frankly, I am concerned that this is currently not the case.

I will illustrate this by reference to three recent reports by your Lordships’ Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which I have the great privilege to chair. In particular, all three reports have made it absolutely clear that whatever sentence is imposed on an offender should provide punishment but also measures that reduce reoffending, as a key means of keeping the public safe and reducing the prison population, as the noble Lord, Lord Carter, demonstrated very well earlier.

The Bill provides measures to replace short-term prison sentences. This was called for in the committee’s report, Cutting Crime: Better Community Sentences, under the then chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. After all, the reoffending rate of prisoners released from short sentences is a staggering 61.2%—and that is after it has cost over £53,000 for each prisoner, 13 times more expensive than the cost of community sentences.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, made very clear earlier, while community sentences have a much lower reoffending rate, the committee was clear that much needed to change if they are to reach their full potential of turning round the lives of offenders and supporting them to avoid reoffending.

For example, many offenders have a key problem in relation to drug, alcohol or gambling addiction, or with mental health issues, yet the current provision of support for addiction services has fallen and fewer than 2% of those with mental health issues even start treatment. So the Bill can propose an increase in non-custodial sentences, but that will not help reduce reoffending—and so reduce the number of people in prison—unless measures are in place to boost mental health and addiction support services. So I hope that the Minister when he winds up will explain how that is going to be done and funded.

As others have said, the greatest concern is in relation to the Probation Service. The Bill will require the Probation Service to manage many more issues, including a large increase in the number of community orders and a near doubling of the number of people being tagged. Yet the Probation Service is already facing significant shortfalls in staffing and so is unable to do all of what is already being asked of it. A community sentence order is rarely given without a pre-sentence report, yet, because of staff shortages, the number of such reports has fallen dramatically. How can the Bill expect a significant increase in the preparation of such reports if the service cannot even cope with the current demand?

So there is an urgent need to address staffing and retention in the Probation Service to cope with more pre-sentence reports, more supervision of those on community orders and more supervision of those who are going to be tagged. Without it, the Probation Service is being set up to fail.

The Government of course increased staff numbers by 1,000 last year and has promised a further 1,300 this year, but these numbers, even with better use of new technology, are unlikely to meet the demand, which some estimates suggest may be as many as 10,000. As he did in his opening remarks, the Minister may well point to the promised £700 million over four years, but we still have no clarity on how much of that will be spent on additional staff and their training. I hope the Minister will provide that clarity at the end of the debate, but, with much of the money likely to be spent on housing, it is therefore unlikely there will be enough to boost staffing to the level required by the Bill’s proposals.

In that respect, the Bill’s financial impact assessment is deeply worrying. It says:

“Across all the Bill measures, the impact on probation is estimated to lead to a modest increase in average annual costs of £4.5 million”.


Surely that is complete nonsense. It goes on to say that there will be additional costs for increased tagging and supervision of prisoners released early through the progression model. But these costs are not provided. Rather, the assessment says that the costs of this expansion are “being considered” by the department as part of funding allocations. What confidence can we have that the means will be provided to achieve the Bill’s aims?

Additional funding for the Probation Service is not all that is needed for the expansion of tagging, not least to reduce reoffending. As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, said, the committee has made a number of recommendations, including the need for a new electronic monitoring strategy. Given the lamentable performance of the current private contractors, we suggested that consideration should be given to bringing the management and operation of EM services under the control of the Probation Service, or at least an increase in the number of private providers to increase competition.

Without these and other recommendations, alongside more funding and many more well-trained probation staff, there will not be a successful electronic monitoring expansion or a successful expansion of truly effective community service sentences, and the Probation Service really will be set up to fail.

The Bill also aims to reduce the size of the prison population, but many offenders will still end up in prison, where, as recent media reports show, the Prison Service is already failing. This is not surprising. As was clear from the committee’s report, Better Prisons: Less Crime, much of the blame must lie with successive Governments, which have increased the level of sentences and failed to provide the service with the staffing numbers and support it needs.

As prisoner numbers have risen, staffing levels have fallen. There are fewer prison officers now than even a year ago. We now know that 13% leave every year, half of them having spent less than a year in the service. Nor has the judiciary been given adequate support: we now have a staggering 20% of the prison population comprising people on remand awaiting trial.

A crucial way to reduce overcrowding is by reducing reoffending. As the committee report reminds us, in addition to overcrowding, prisons are often in bad and unsanitary condition, with a maintenance backlog of nearly £2 billion. They face issues such as a shortage of funds, gangs operating with impunity, drones undermining security, an alarming availability of drugs and overstretched, inexperienced and demoralised staff in a service faced with a severe recruitment and retention crisis.

It is hardly surprising that prison staff have inadequate time and resources to provide prisoners with the support they need for mental health problems and addictions, or to provide them with training and educational opportunities that can prepare them for life outside. In the absence of such support, it is not surprising that the committee pointed out that 80% of offending is reoffending. It is estimated that it costs £18 billion a year, and of course it is a major contribution to the size of the prison population.

One of the best ways to reduce the prison population is through wider prison reforms, not least to reduce reoffending. Such reforms do not feature at all in the Bill but must be implemented alongside it, and the committee report provides many details about the reforms needed. Despite a fairly positive response to those recommendations, it is not entirely clear how well they will be implemented. After all, the Government agreed with the committee’s recommendation that there should be wider access to a more diverse range of educational opportunities in prisons, but then, just a few weeks later, announced plans to cut spending on prison education by 50%.

The Bill contains some controversial but many welcome proposals. However, it will be difficult to support them unless there is evidence that the means to implement them will be in place. At present, I believe that is open to question.