Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to my Amendment 208C. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer eloquently introduced it. He took all my best lines—in fact, all my lines—so I will be very brief. This is a very modest amendment. It simply requires a review of the resources and support available for the resettlement and supervision of prisoners serving IPP sentences who are released on licence.

I very much hope the Government will listen to this afternoon’s debate. There is such a powerful force behind these amendments all around the House; it should provide enough cover to the Government to do the right thing. One comes back, time after time, to the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, when he described this situation as the greatest single stain on our criminal justice system. Surely the Government must respond sympathetically to what noble Lords are saying this afternoon.

All I want to do is emphasise what the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, said about the Catch-22 situation that applies particularly to those who have been put out on release. First, if those people are honest about the fears and problems they have faced in prison, they can often risk being considered unsafe to be released in the first place. Secondly, if they ask for help with a mental health problem in the community, they could be assessed as being high risk and be recalled to prison. It is an extraordinary situation. If they enter into a new intimate relationship, they do so in the knowledge that an upset partner could make false accusations which would result in recall. How are people meant to live in that situation? As the authors of the Prison Reform Trust report say—it is an extraordinary and moving piece of work—it is hard to imagine how any of us could hold on to our sanity and self-belief in this situation. I plead with the Government to take note and be sympathetic to the plight of these people.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 208D in my name. I am grateful to the noble Lords who have lent it their support.

At Second Reading, I said that I considered it a shame to this country that there were still prisoners serving indeterminate sentences for the public protection. I do not propose to elaborate on this today, although I associate myself with the remarks made by noble Lords in the debate so far.

Some amendments in this group are probing amendments, but Amendment 208D seeks to change the law in a way which is helpful to the Government. It does not concern those in prison under an IPP, only those living in the community on licence; that is, those who have already been found by the Parole Board to be safe for release without presenting a threat to public safety. As noble Lords have described, currently these persons are potentially subject to a lifelong licence. They can be recalled to prison for a breach of the licence conditions at any point while the licence is in force. The only way in which the licence can be terminated is for the individual to apply to the Parole Board for a licence review after the expiry of the qualifying period. This is currently set at 10 years. The Government have stated that, in future, they wish these reviews to be automatic, and not to require an application from the prisoner.

On 21 July, in response to a Question for Written Answer from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar said:

“From September this year, officials will refer automatically to the Parole Board the case of every offender serving the IPP sentence who has become eligible to apply for termination of his/her IPP licence.”


There is a problem. Close examination of the current legislation makes it clear that the review can be undertaken only on the prisoner’s application. Therefore, the Government cannot make an automatic referral to the Parole Board without the prisoner’s active co-operation. This somewhat holes the policy of automaticity. Amendment 208D addresses this deficiency by amending the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 to require the Secretary of State to make an automatic referral to the Parole Board at the end of the qualifying period. If the application is dismissed, it can be made annually thereafter. The referral does not depend on the acquiescence or collaboration of the prisoner. It allows the Government to do what they have said they want to do. I hope the amendment will command their support. It does not prejudge in any way the decision of the Parole Board on that referral. The decision as to whether or not to terminate the licence remains entirely in its hands.

Noble Lords may wonder why a prisoner entitled to a review at the end of the qualifying period should be slow to make one on his or her own initiative; in other words, why is there a need for automaticity? It certainly seems strange not to apply for a termination of the licence. As noble Lords have explained, a person on licence under an IPP and who commits an offence for which an ordinary criminal might receive a short determinate sentence can be recalled to prison for an indeterminate term.

None the less, there are reasons why IPP prisoners do not apply for a termination of their licence. First, many do not know what the qualifying period is, nor what it means. Nobody is obliged to contact them to tell them. There is evidence of confusion, even among probation officers, as to the rules. In any event, many prisoners out on licence will not be in regular contact with a probation officer, since, although the licence lasts for a minimum of 10 years under the current system, supervision can be terminated after five. Many IPP prisoners out on licence after that many years simply do not want to take the risk of re-engaging voluntarily with a criminal justice system which they believe has treated them so unfairly. Automaticity is good and necessary. The Government agree and I hope this amendment will pass.

There is one more part to the amendment which is easily missed. I referred earlier to a qualifying period after which a review of the licence can be applied for. If this amendment passes, it will take place automatically. The qualifying period is set by law at 10 years. The very last words of the amendment would have the effect of reducing it to five years. As far as I know, this is not government policy. It is, of course, open to my noble friend to accept the part of the amendment dealing with automaticity, while rejecting the reduction in the qualifying period.

I hope that noble Lords will support me in pressing this on the Government. For those IPP prisoners who receive a short minimum term, the 10-year licence period is wholly disproportionate to the term that would have been attached to the equivalent determinate sentence, had one been imposed instead of an IPP. It can hardly be argued that it is necessary for public protection. As I said earlier, under this amendment, the decision whether or not to terminate a licence would remain with the Parole Board. Reducing the qualifying period to five years would simply reduce the length of time after which an individual out on licence would be entitled to a review. These people would be out on licence with the approval of the Parole Board and would have shown themselves to be safe in the community for five years. The number of IPP prisoners out on licence who are recalled after five years is, in any case, very small. Furthermore, the latest available data show that no IPP prisoner committed a serious further offence five years or more post release. Their supervision can be—and often is—terminated after five years.

I believe that everything argues in favour of a reduction in the qualifying period to five years. I hope that the Government will accept this part of the amendment as well. A person in this position—with a track record of living safely in the community for five years—needs the opportunity that we wish for all prisoners: to serve their sentence and return to the community to make a useful contribution to their own and to others’ lives.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, on her extremely moving opening speech. I agree wholeheartedly that pregnant women should not be in prison. We have abysmal conditions in many jails and they are not the place for a pregnant woman. A pregnant woman might be difficult. I have been pregnant twice and I can guarantee that I had some difficult days—some people might argue that I am still having them. When women suffer in this way—and trans men who are having babies—there are lifelong repercussions, I hope for the Government as well as for the women and their babies.

The Howard League for Penal Reform has highlighted the fact that pregnant women in prison are routinely denied access to suitable maternity care and that babies have died as a result. Many women and transmen in prison have very complex needs physically and sometimes mentally. As the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, explained, they often have a history of abuse, neglect, addiction and poverty. The Government are not helping. They are not recognising those problems and do not understand their role; while prison is a punishment, rehabilitation has to take place afterwards.

Women in prison should receive at a minimum the same standard of maternity services as women outside. Of course, they often have additional challenges and are in need of specialist midwifery care, which should be supplied. When we punish these women in prison, we also punish their babies, and that cannot be right. Getting this right will change the lives of prisoners and families, and have an impact for generations. Like the previous amendment, this is something the Government have to pick up.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment and I warmly commend the speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Burt and Lady Jones. Reading the report of the shocking death of Baby A is salutary indeed. It took me back to the debate we had earlier in Committee, looking at the special needs of women in prison and the effect of custody on those women and their children.

I refer back to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, when he referred to the briefing from the charity Women in Prison. This related how more than 53,000 children each year were affected by their primary carers being sent to prison and that 95% of children whose mothers are in prison were forced to leave home. One sentence encapsulated it for him:

“‘We’ve been sentenced’, says a mother, ‘but they’ve been sentenced with us.’”.—[Official Report, 1/11/21; col. 1036.]


The point was also at the heart of the contribution made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. She said that parental imprisonment was, for the children concerned, a well-recognised predictor of mental ill-health, poor educational achievement and employment prospects, and future criminality. It sets a context for discussing the particular circumstances of Baby A and pregnant women prisoners.

Of course, there are many lessons to be learned in respect of both HMP Bronzefield and the prison system as a whole. The report of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman made a number of very important recommendations. In particular, there was a recommendation of principle that, as the noble Baroness referred to, all pregnancies in prison should be treated as high-risk by virtue of the fact that a woman is locked behind a door for a significant amount of time and there is likely to be a high percentage of avoidant mothers who have experienced trauma and are fearful of engaging with maternity care.

The noble Baroness, Lady Burt, listed some of the key recommendations. I just want to focus on what I would call “system recommendations”. A specific recommendation was made to the director of health and justice for NHS England to consider the findings and recommendations of the report and ensure that the learning is applied across the women’s estate. It went on to say that this should include recognition that a clinic-based community model of midwifery care was not appropriate for custodial settings, and that all pregnancies in prison were high-risk. What response has been received from NHS England and what co-operation is being given by NHS England to the Prison Service to take forward that recommendation?

I, like the noble Baronesses, welcome the new policy framework for prisons on pregnancy, mother and baby units and maternal separation as a significant step forward, but I am sure we need to do more. I was struck by the comments of Dr Edward Morris, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who said:

“The next step is to ensure that these policy commitments are translated into practice on the ground across all women’s prisons, and that all staff in women’s prisons receive the right training to provide women with the information and support they need. Alongside strong links to the local midwifery team, we feel strongly that all maternity services located near to a women’s prison should have a designated obstetrician with responsibility for ensuring high quality care for women in prison.”


I very much agree with that. I, too, would welcome some reassurance from the Minister that his department is taking these recommendations seriously. I particularly urge on him the need for the closest co-operation between his department and NHS England. At the end of the day, the lessons learned from this tragic case must be applied to the prison system as a whole.

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[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

What is required is that women in prison have access to the same maternity services as they could expect in the community. My suggestion is that once that is set out, that is a sufficient legislative obligation and the Government need to ensure that it actually happens.

I hope that nothing I have said detracts from what I said right at the start, which is that we are appalled by what happened to Baby A. It must never happen again, and we are going to do all we can to ensure that it does not. However, for the reasons I have set out, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I would like to ask him about the relationship between his department and NHS England. What express work is now being undertaken to ensure that the NHS discharges the statutory responsibility that he has just referred to?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I know that when it comes to the prison estate, there is a very close relationship between my department, the Prison Service and NHS England. Rather than read something off a screen, may I write to the noble Lord and set out a paragraph or two to assist him on that? I am happy to discuss that further with him—or it might be appropriate for the Minister in the department with particular responsibility for prisons to do so. Anyway, I will write to the noble Lord.