Sentencing Bill

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, if nobody is going to speak before me on this amendment, I shall do so, but only very briefly. I hear everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, has said, but it is my view and my suggestion that that misunderstands the nature of the discount that is given for a guilty plea. A discount for a guilty plea may not have originally been formalised, but it has always been treated, and should be treated, as mitigation of itself, properly so called, because it recognises guilt, and by recognising guilt, the defendant goes some way to establishing reform. It is the starting point for reform. It also, as the noble and learned Lord has recognised, avoids the trauma of a trial for victims and is a further indication of remorse. So I fully understand why a guilty plea, while it may be that without a guilty plea a sentence would have exceeded 12 months, should attract exactly the same discount as in the case of not guilty pleas.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

I start by setting out my appreciation for the support that the Government have received for Clause 1. Throughout the Bill’s passage, noble Lords have highlighted evidence showing that those given a community order or a suspended sentence reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. We are following the evidence to reduce crime, creating fewer victims and safer communities, and we are following the lead of the previous Conservative Government, who originally introduced this measure during the last Parliament without the amendment we are debating today. I am a great believer in working across the political spectrum to get the best policies that reduce reoffending. I have dedicated myself to solving this problem and creating a sustainable justice system. I strongly believe that the clause as drafted, without any further amendments, is the best policy, and I must repeat that we are not abolishing short sentences.

I can assure noble Lords that I have considered the issue of early guilty pleas, raised by Amendments 1 and 27, with great care. I have met the noble and learned Lord to discuss his concerns and I value the attention given to this issue, but it has long been the practice of the courts to give a reduction in sentence where a defendant pleads guilty. This avoids the need for a trial, enables cases to be dealt with quickly and shortens the gap between charge and sentence. The Government do not wish to disincentivise early guilty pleas, in part because of the urgent need to reduce the backlog in cases coming to court. Early guilty pleas can save victims and witnesses from concern about having to give evidence, which is particularly important in traumatic cases. These amendments risk reducing the incentive to plead guilty, potentially causing further avoidable trauma for victims, and they would create a clear and significant anomaly in sentencing.

For reasons of simplicity and coherence, it is the final sentence length given by the judge that must be relevant for the purposes of the presumption. Under these amendments, the presumption would not apply where an early guilty plea had brought the sentence down to 12 months or less, yet it could still apply where any other mitigation, such as age or being a primary carer, had the same effect. The inconsistency is stark. Two offenders receiving the same final sentence could be treated entirely differently, based solely on the type of mitigation applied. This is neither coherent nor fair.

Finally, the sunset clause proposed in Amendment 103 would introduce unnecessary instability. It would undermine public confidence and complicate operational planning for courts, prisons, probation services and local authorities. The last thing we need at the moment is instability in the justice system.

I am a firm believer in dealing with problems head-on and solving them for the long term. We inherited difficult decisions that needed to be made, but someone had to make them, because we simply cannot run out of cells. We are building 14,000 new ones, but that takes time. I came into this job to rebuild our criminal justice system to lead to fewer victims, not more. Clause 1 is a crucial means of achieving that, and undermining it through further exclusions is not the right way forward. There will be a long shadow over those who vote for amendments to put even more pressure on the prison system.

I hope that I have explained why the Government’s position is the right one and I hope for cross-party support for a truly cross-party policy. After all, this was originally a Conservative measure, reintroduced in this Bill by Labour and supported by the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party in Committee in the Commons. I therefore kindly urge noble Lords not to support these amendments.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too will be brief because I have agreed with everything that has been said so far. It is important to acknowledge that a strategy and policy on violence against women and girls can only mean something if in practice it results in taking that issue seriously. I would expect everybody across the House to agree that this exception is proportionate and correct, but if this amendment is not accepted, then I am afraid it makes me query whether a policy on violence against women and girls is anything other than a piece of paper that does not mean very much and certainly it will be viewed by women and girls with some scepticism.

I also want to draw attention to the fact that sexual offences and domestic abuse are escalating issues. Somebody might do something considered to be quite minor as a sexual offence which therefore may not require the full weight of a custodial sentence, but we know that these particular offences get worse. Ask anybody who has been a victim of them and you will find out that the perpetrators, once found guilty, have built up to what they have done. So we have to have custody as a mechanism for dealing with even the less serious examples of sexual offences and domestic abuse.

I also remind the House that David Lammy, the Secretary of State for Justice, has talked about the importance of taking the issue of pursuing alleged perpetrators of rape and sexual assault so seriously that he is even prepared to sacrifice jury trials. I completely disagree, by the way, with the use of the issue of sexual assault to undermine jury trials—there are empty courts as we speak where people could be being tried, and I do not think this would resolve it—but it does indicate that the Government are prepared to say that they will make exceptions when it comes to such cases where women and girls are victims of heinous crimes. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister to accept this amendment as being perfectly sensible. It will get cheers from around the country, because it is right that we take this particular form of crime very seriously and act on it rather than just using the words and the rhetoric.

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

My Lords, we on these Benches do not agree with this amendment. That is not because we do not take the issue of sexual offences extremely seriously—we do, just as we do the issues of domestic abuse and domestic violence. That is why we sought to make domestic abuse an aggravated factor in sentencing, and why we have argued for the fact of domestic abuse in an offence to be recorded even in the case of offences that, of themselves, do not imply domestic abuse, such as common assault or assault occasioning actual bodily harm. We fully share and applaud the Government’s determination to halve the number of incidents of violence against women and girls over a decade, and we will do everything we can to help the Government achieve it.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is no fault of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, who has just explained why his amendment should perhaps not be in this group, but I am not going to talk about what he has just said. I want to go back to the purpose of this group, which is to discuss the purpose of prison, and to make a couple of quick points.

One of the problems I have with the whole of this Bill is that sentencing issues were originally motivated and framed as necessary by the Ministry of Justice because of an overcrowding crisis. We were told that we had to reduce sentences or let people out early from sentences because there were too many prisoners in prison and there were not enough prisons, and that it was all the previous Government’s fault and all of that argument.

In a way, that has felt far too pragmatic to me when discussing the very serious issue of who you put in prison and why, and what the purpose of prison is. This small group of amendments indicates that there is an appetite for that kind of discussion. It is one of the reasons I was particularly pleased to see the amendment tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.

Earlier, in group 2, the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, set aside what we were discussing and said, “By the way, we on these Benches think that too many people are sent to prison for too long, that prison is generally terrible and that it leads to bad results”. That is a caricature, but I am making the point that it is a debate one can have. But this Sentencing Bill was set up as being about how we can reduce the number of people in prison because there are too many prisoners. That has allowed something of a muddle in some of the discussions that have gone on, and that is why I have reservations about it.

The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, on purposeful activity are important because it matters what prison is for—it should be considered all the time. We should remove from ourselves this notion that prison is always a horrendous situation. On the one hand, it is not meant to be a holiday camp, but it is not meant to be something so horrendous that we say that we cannot send anyone there—which is effectively what we have done. We have basically said that prison is awful, drowning in criminal activity, with gangs of all ethnicities ganging up against each other, ideological coercion going on—we hear about that all the time in relation to Islamism—and people self-harming. It is so grim. If you read the chief inspector’s reports, you would think that we should never send anyone to prison. That is a disaster. We need a justice system where we can be confident that we can send people to prison and that while they are there purposeful activity will be important.

It is a mistake to imagine that purposeful activity—education, training and so on—is not happening because of overcrowding. For as long as I have been interested in this issue, purposeful activity has not been consistently happening in prisons where there is no overcrowding or other such issues. To say that is a cop-out. I was pleased to see these amendments because they say that this has to be done as it is part of a prison’s job. I would like to see that hardening up, with no excuses given.

I want to slightly challenge the idea of what counts as purposeful activity. It is not only about practical skills, with accredited training, where you can then go off and work in a practical job. Purposeful activity can be, believe it or not, activity of the mind. I have done work on debating competitions in prisons. The point is that it gives people things to think about other than fighting each other or their awful conditions—it can be quite instrumental in that. Being locked in the cells and bored is a recipe for disaster.

One of my favourite initiatives is where prisoners take pups and train them as therapy dogs. It is an expensive activity and it happens only in a limited number of prisons. Often, it is long-term prisoners who may never get out who are doing it. They are doing something useful and practical, and they become completely transformed by the fact that they have a purpose in prison. They spend all their time thinking about how they can rear the dogs, train them and get them ready, as well as writing to the people the dogs get sent to afterwards to see how they are getting on, and so on. Some of them are in for life, but who cares? To me, that is a humane and useful purposeful activity, and one that does not necessarily mean that they will go and work—no disrespect—in Timpson. There is more to life—that is the point I am making. I want people to be trained to get jobs, but I do not think that purposeful activity should be narrowly confined to only that.

To conclude, we need a proper debate in this country about the purpose of prisons. We should not allow the state of prisons to mean that we do not send anyone to prison—that would be disastrous for justice and for public protection. The state should get over its incompetence and sort things out. Further, this Sentencing Bill has relied far too much on the problem of too many people in prison to be seriously trusted when it comes to making decisions about what sentences people should get based on justice, rather than based on pragmatism. That is a mistake.

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

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 71 to 73, in my name and those of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and my noble friend Lady Hamwee, who unfortunately is unable to be here today. I thank them both for their support.

The House will have seen that the amendments call for the establishment of an independent panel on sentencing and reducing reoffending. I will not repeat in detail the arguments that I made in Committee, but I will summarise them. The establishment of such a panel was a firm recommendation of the Gauke review and it is a recommendation that we support. The point made by the review is that it would be of great value to government to have an independent body assembling evidence on what works in punishment and advising government on sentencing policy.

That is, of course, a totally different function from that of the Sentencing Council, which advises sentencers on what sentences they should consider imposing within the context of the law as it stands. Not only would such a panel assist government but it would assist the public in understanding sentencing policy—what works and what does not; what the thinking is behind developments in prison policy, probation and community sentences more widely; and, of course, on the resource implications of policy. The public are entitled to understand how public money is spent and what public expenditure achieves, as well as where that expenditure fails in its objectives. We have suffered for a very long time from popular misunderstanding among press and public of the evidence in these fields, and an independent panel such as the Gauke review recommended would do much to let in light on this difficult area.

Texas, not often regarded as the most liberal of states in the union in many ways, as the Minister has reminded us, has succeeded in closing prisons and reducing crime by minimising reliance on imprisonment and introducing an earned progression model. I suggest that informing the public and advising government, and so ensuring that policy follows the evidence, are important functions of policy generally, nowhere more so than in the field of criminal justice. If Texas can move in that direction, so can we.

I will just say a few words on the other amendments in the group. I fully support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on the importance of defining and being very clear about the purposes of imprisonment. Our system accepts the concept of imprisonment without, frankly, our being entirely clear on what the purposes of imprisonment are. In that, I agree with one of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. I also agree with her that her portrayal of my arguments earlier this afternoon was a caricature and inaccurate. But I do agree with her that we need to be very clear about what the purposes of prison are. In that context, it is right that we have been reminded by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, of the work of the late Lord Ramsbotham on the purposes of imprisonment.

I agree with every word the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said on the importance of education, skills, employment and vocational training. Although I saw some difficulties with her amendments in Committee, she has softened them, as she said, and they are now worthy of complete support—subject, though, I suggest, to Amendments 65 and 67 in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, which have been accepted by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, emphasised the importance of making time in prison meaningful and productive. Of course, prison is intended, and functions, as punishment, but it needs also to be thoroughly and carefully directed at turning offenders’ lives around and so reducing reoffending.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, spoke of prisons with a purpose. That is the object that should inform our entire approach to all elements of our penal system. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, have both highlighted important injustices—the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on remand and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, on legal assistance for foreign offenders before deportation. I close by expressing the hope that the Government will respond to both their very specific but completely justified points with a legitimate response.

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

My Lords, I am very grateful for the removal of Clause 35 from the Bill. I completely appreciate the importance of unpaid work orders, and I completely appreciate that they can do a great deal of good. However, the idea that they would be the subject of what I called “naming and shaming” in Committee—whereby offenders carrying out such unpaid work would be photographed and their photographs would then be given publicity—seemed to us on these Benches to be potentially profoundly damaging to their rehabilitation and the important relationship of trust that needs to exist between probation officers and their clients. We think that for probation officers to carry out this photography and publication would be profoundly damaging. The Government have recognised the need to remove the clause, and I am very grateful that they have done so.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his engagement on the issue of whole life orders, and I acknowledge that the Government have now stepped forward with their own amendment to address the previous inconsistencies in the statutory provisions. In light of that, I will not press Amendment 62, which is rendered unnecessary by virtue of the Government’s amendment.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, it appears that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has decided that he will make some submission.

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

Well, that apparent position represents the truth.

First, I agree with—and in a sense have only very little to add to—the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett. Your Lordships will remember that I moved in Committee that both Clauses 18 and 19 should not stand part of the Bill.

That said, I join with the noble and learned Lord in thanking the noble Lords, Lord Timpson and Lord Lemos, for their engagement with us on some compromise position. I am not sure that this represents an entire compromise of their position, because I still feel that the Bill would be better off without these clauses. However, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, has explained that the intention is entirely benign. I share the concern of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, that other Governments may not take such a benign view, but express the hope that that will not eventuate.

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[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, in the spirit of friendship, I acknowledge the charming but highly persuasive way in which my noble friend advanced her amendment, which I am only too pleased to support, and recognise the support of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who is also my friend. I will embarrass him further by saying that he is my very distant kinsman, which will completely ruin his credibility for anything further in his parliamentary life; it is a cross that he will have to bear.

The noble Lord and my noble friend bring to the Chamber years of experience as sitting and sentencing magistrates. Very often in England and Wales, it is magistrates who deal with youth offenders. We should listen to what they have to say and to their experience. I very much to support all that they have said. I urge the Government to pay close attention to what has been said and come forward with proposals of their own, if they do not accept what my noble friend advanced in her amendment, so that we can get rid of this injustice, which is, as the noble Lord said, a most extraordinary anomaly.

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

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 93 and 94. Amendment 93 is concerned with the impact of changes in the law on sentences that are currently being served under the law that was in force preceding the change. In other words, offenders were sentenced under a law that has been altered. The amendment calls for reports to be provided every three years, with a view to such changes in the law leaving defendants suffering from injustice.

Amendment 94 concerns the direct effect of such changes in the law on sentences that are currently being served or that have been imposed. Proposed new subsection (1)(a) in Amendment 94 concerns cases where the offence itself for which the sentence was imposed has been abolished, and proposed new subsection (1)(b) in Amendment 94 concerns a case where the sentence has been materially altered.

The amendment would enable a person serving a sentence for an offence that had been abolished, or where the sentence had been altered, to seek a review of the case of the sentence that is currently being served. On such a review, the sentence originally imposed could be quashed, or there could be a resentencing.

In practice, of course, Amendment 94 would come into play only where either the offence had been abolished or the available sentence had been reduced, because one cannot imagine an offender seeking a change of sentence where the available sentence had been increased.

Underlying both amendments is a concern that changes in the law would have the effect that an offender’s sentence would not have been imposed or would have been less severe had the law at the time of sentencing been the reformed law rather than the law under which the offender was sentenced, and that such changes should take effect to the benefit of the offender who would not be at such risk now.

I would suggest that it is a matter of simple justice that changes in the law which would have resulted in an offender serving a sentence less severe, or not being convicted of any offence, should have the benefit of the change in the law that pertained at the time of sentencing, so that a review would be appropriate.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, has addressed what is clearly an anomaly in our sentencing policy that raises a clear issue of fairness, and we do not dissent from the principle that has been advanced with regard to that matter. Indeed, I acknowledge the thoughtful and careful way in which the matter has been addressed by all noble Lords. With regard to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, I have nothing to say.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I stand to support Amendment 74 in particular. Its motivations have been well outlined by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie.

In a letter relating to IPP prisoners that the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, sent to some of us at some point, I noted down that he said—this does relate, by the way—that there must be a clear reason to consider the early release of the prisoner before they have served the sentence imposed on them by the sentencing court. Thousands of open-ended IPP prisoners are incarcerated without a release date, we were told, because they have to convince the Parole Board that they are safe enough to be released, all in the name of public protection. I raise that now because there must be clear reasons to consider whether people are safe before you release them. Yet here we have an early release scheme—an earned release scheme—in which even serious sexual and violent offenders can earn their way out of prison, but you cannot earn your way out of an IPP, which seems rather inconsistent.

We have already heard that earned progression is not going to be earned anyway. If you read what has been written about earned progression, put forward by everyone from the inspector of prisons to concerned prison officers, the unions and so on, then the idea that there is a consistent way to test the earning capacity of prisoners who are inside to check whether they have earned their right to be free is unlikely. It has been agreed that it is going to be automatic.

We have to consider who we are talking about. Earlier on, I spoke about the violence against women and girls strategy and my concern about our being in a situation in which we potentially make an exemption for non-custodial sentences for what some might call minor sexual offences, or stalking or domestic violence. In a way, one was assured that one should not worry and that these were minor events. Whether we like it or not, we are talking here—let us be honest—about the people who are perpetrating, for example, child rape as grooming gang members. We are talking about rapists and people who have been convicted of sexual assault. In total, thousands of offenders who are sent to prison for serious crimes, very often against women and children, will potentially leave prison early. The public, broadly speaking, might find that disconcerting.

I am not opposed to the concept or principle of earning your way out of prison. At least, it is an interesting experimental idea. I do not think it is what will happen in our Prison Service, but I like the notion. I get all that. I am also not arguing in principle against any early releases, although I cannot bear the fact that they have been conducted on the basis that we do not have room for people. I would rather it was based on some kind of principle than saying, “Oh, it’s a bit overcrowded. What can we do?” That seems the wrong approach. I am in no way a mad “lock ’em up and throw away the key” type, but it is perfectly proportionate for this amendment to say that certain categories of crime will simply not be considered for this scheme. That is fair enough, as far as I am concerned.

I genuinely think that the Government should simply accept this. I genuinely hope that Members from other parties, Cross-Benchers, Liberal Democrats and Back-Benchers from wherever will go along with this, because that is what happened down in the other place. I would expect it to happen here, because it is absolutely common sense. It is also very important that we do not undermine trust in the criminal justice system or the prison system by making a mess of this, and therefore not making this exemption work.

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

My Lords, we cannot accept that this amendment is either necessary or right. The Bill is posited on the earned progression model, which involves a phased system of early releases. It is all very well for the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, to say that she cannot stand the idea that there will be early releases because of overcrowding, but the fact is that we have a very serious issue which the Bill seeks to address. I, for one, accept the Government’s position that the Bill would be seriously damaged by abandoning the earned progression model in the cases with which this amendment is concerned.

No one can say that, as a party, the Liberal Democrats are not completely committed to the Government’s target to end violence against women and girls, or at least to halve it within a decade. No one can say that we do not take that commitment seriously. We accept that sexual offences are serious offences, but there are many other serious offences as well. The point that I suggest should weigh with the House very heavily is the concern for the position of victims. If this Bill fails to solve the prison capacity crisis then victims will be the losers, as people cannot be brought to justice or imprisoned because there will simply be no space for them. That is the harsh reality.

The position on early release is exactly the same as the reasons that I gave in respect of the first group about the presumption. It requires us to be tough and to resist the blandishments of the sort of points that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made. I do not accept the accuracy of the position taken by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, because we would be left with a dangerous problem that we have to solve, so I shall support the Government in opposing the amendment.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, this debate is about a central purpose of the Bill: to put the prison system on a sustainable footing. There is no doubt that the offences listed in Amendment 74 and referenced in Amendment 75 are serious crimes. Indeed, they are so serious that many perpetrators of these offences will receive life or extended determinate sentences.

I remind noble Lords that there are 17,000 prisoners serving those sentences, convicted of the most serious crimes. They include many serious sexual offenders. These offenders will be unaffected by the reforms we are bringing forward in this Bill. They will remain in prison as long as they do now.

Amendments 74 and 75 raise a more fundamental issue. Are we willing, as the previous Government clearly were, to leave the prison system on the brink of collapse? This did not happen overnight. It was not inevitable. It was the choice the party opposite made again and again for 14 years. They abandoned their posts and put public safety at risk by allowing prisons to reach bursting point. To cover up their failures, they covertly let out more than 10,000 prisoners early as part of their chaotic scheme. If it were not for the decisive action of this Government, the police would have been unable to make arrests and courts unable to hold trials, which would have been a breakdown of law and order unlike anything we have seen in modern times. We must continue to take decisive action to address the consequences of their mismanagement. If these amendments were to pass, they would undermine the fundamental issue that the Bill is designed to fix —the issue they neglected for 14 years.

I took this job to fix this issue and countless others that we inherited. As someone who has dedicated their working life to improving the criminal justice system, it matters to me personally. I am convinced that this Bill is the only and best way to fix this problem. I refuse to stand in front of victims of serious crimes, look them in the eye and tell them that we have no space in our prisons to lock up dangerous offenders and that their rapist or abuser cannot go to prison at all because there is no space. Let me be very clear: running out of space is the consequence if these amendments pass. I hope that all noble Lords will agree with me that we cannot, in good conscience, vote for amendments that we know will cause such great harm. Our immediate priority must be stability, and that is what our measures deliver. We are building more prison places than at any time since the Victorian era. By the end of this Parliament there will be more people in prison than ever before. I recall that the previous Government managed only 500 extra places in 14 years.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for his constructive engagement on this amendment and for raising important questions about how victims will be protected. I remind noble Lords that, once released, offenders will be subject to a period of intensive supervision supported by a significant expansion of electronic tagging. The highest-risk offenders, as assessed by probation, will continue to be actively supervised until the end of their sentence. They will continue to be subject to any licence conditions needed to manage risk and protect victims, including restriction zones where appropriate. All offenders will remain on licence with the possibility of recall to custody if they breach the terms of their licence. Of course, if an offender behaves badly in custody, they will spend even longer inside, up to the full length of their sentence.

As noble Lords know, the proposals for the progression model, which Clause 20 seeks to implement, are the result of extensive work by the Independent Sentencing Review. The review, led by David Gauke and supported by a panel of eminent experts from all parts of the criminal justice system, arrived at its recommendation after extensive research and consultation. All proposals, including the new framework for release, have been thoroughly considered. We now need to put in place an effective release framework that will support a sustainable prison estate and protect the public by ensuring that space is prioritised for the most dangerous offenders. I therefore urge the noble and learned Lord not to press Amendments 74 and 75. If he wishes to test the opinion of the House, I encourage all noble Lords to vote against this amendment and help this country end the cycle of crisis in our prisons for good.

Dangerous offenders are also the subject of Amendment 90 tabled by my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Carter. It proposes that extended determinate sentences should include a progression element that would enable the parole eligibility date to be brought forward. While I thank the noble Lord for raising this important issue, the Government’s position remains that prison is the right place for these dangerous offenders. To receive an extended determinate sentence, a specified violent, sexual or terrorism offence must have been committed. The court will also have decided that the offender is dangerous—I repeat, dangerous—and that there is a significant risk of serious harm to the public from the offender committing a further specified offence. These dangerous offenders must remain in prison for as long as they do now. I ask the noble Lord not to move his amendment.