Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

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

My Lords, it is my pleasure to bring this Bill for its Second Reading. I start by thanking the former Lord Chancellor, David Gauke, and his team for his independent sentencing review; this has informed many measures in the Bill. I thank another former Lord Chancellor, too, the now Home Secretary, for her work in getting us to this point. I also want to thank the many noble Lords who have engaged with me on the Bill. The input I have received has been of great value and generally very positive as we take this legislation forward. Of course, I want to pay tribute to our incredible prison and probation staff, who have worked, often unseen and under-appreciated, through an incredibly difficult time. I see and appreciate what they do every day, and I am proud to call every one of them a colleague.

I also want to pay tribute to Baroness Newlove, whose sad passing I learned of today. As both Victims’ Commissioner and Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, Baroness Newlove brought unparalleled experience and dedication to her roles. She championed the rights of victims and witnesses and held agencies to account. Her leadership shaped the victims’ code, strengthened victims’ voices in the criminal justice system, and ensured that the Victims and Prisoners Bill progressed with victims’ interests at its heart. She was an extraordinary public servant whom I was fortunate to know well and admired immensely, and whose life’s work and legacy are defined by courage, compassion and an unwavering commitment to justice.

Before I turn to specific measures in the Bill, it is important to understand the context of why it is needed. When the new Government came to power in July last year, we inherited a crisis in our prisons and probation service. We were days away from running out of places entirely; days away from the police having to prioritise which criminals to arrest, the courts having to make impossible decisions, and the criminal justice system buckling under insurmountable pressure; days away from our criminal justice system failing to deliver the one thing it was for—delivering justice.

We took urgent steps to prevent that catastrophe, and we have embarked on the biggest prison building programme since the Victorian era, delivering 14,000 new places by 2031. However, if we do not take further action, it is only a matter of time before we will be back here again. In a few months, we will again be facing prisons on the brink, having to take emergency measures and, again, asking, “How did we get here?” That is why this Bill is vital. It does not kick the can further down the road, and it does not shy away from making tough decisions to keep the public safe. Instead, it will end the cycle of crisis once and for all. It will build a justice system that victims can have confidence in, and it will bring stability and sustainability to our prisons and our justice system. More than that, it will restore purpose to sentencing. It will deliver punishment that works by following the evidence of what works; that works for victims, delivering them the justice they deserve; that works for society—we want better citizens, not better criminals; and that works for the public, delivering safer streets and protection from crime.

Of course, that means that we must always be able to lock up the most dangerous offenders. Prisoners serving extended determinate sentences—those the court has deemed to be dangerous—will not be affected by anything in this Bill. They will still need the approval of the independent Parole Board if they are to be released at the two-thirds point of their custodial term. The IPP sentence is also not included in the new progression model. The Parole Board will continue to review IPP cases at least every two years, and in many cases more regularly. Noble Lords will know that this is an area of incredible importance to me. I am determined to support those in prison to progress towards a safe and sustainable release, but not in a way that undermines public protection. For completeness, nothing in this Bill affects those who receive life sentences, having been convicted of the most horrendous crimes.

But we need to be smarter: we need to follow the evidence. For many offenders sentenced to less than a year, prison sets up a revolving door of repeat offending. Over 60% of those with prison sentences of less than 12 months reoffend within a year. Offenders have limited time to engage in rehabilitation. Instead, they are exposed to hardened criminals and shown a path that can lead to more crime. When they get out, they may have lost their home, their job, their relationships and everything that anchors them to society. They are being asked to make a U-turn on a one-way street. But evidence shows that community orders and suspended sentences can be more effective at reducing reoffending.

Clause 1 of the Bill therefore introduces a presumption to suspend short sentences. We are not abolishing short sentences; judges will still have the power to impose them in particular circumstances. If there is significant risk of harm to an individual, such as a victim of domestic abuse, or if a prolific offender fails to comply with the requirements of a suspended sentence or reoffends, prison will still be available. We will break the cycle of reoffending. That means fewer victims, and more offenders getting their lives back on track. As many noble Lords know, I believe in second chances. Clause 2 widens the scope of suspended sentences, increasing the limit from two years to three.

Of course, for many offenders prison is the right answer, but if we want them to turn their lives around, we must make sure that serving time is not just what they do in between crimes. This Bill introduces a new progression model for standard determinate sentences. Inspired by the Texas reforms that helped to end its capacity crisis, we will ensure that prisoners who do not behave in prison can be kept in for longer; release at the earlier point will be theirs to lose. In Texas, following a settling-in period, crime fell by 30% and it has closed 16 prisons.

Clauses 20 and 21 amend the release points: those serving regular standard determinate sentences must serve at least one-third of their time; for more serious crimes given a standard determinate sentence, offenders must serve at least half. But those are minimums: prisoners who misbehave, are violent, or are caught with illicit mobile phones can stay inside for longer. We will also double the maximum additional days for a single incident from 42 to 84, so that the worst behaved will serve longer in custody. It is the same as in our communities: if you break our rules, you can pay the price with your liberty. Punishment does not end when a spell inside does, nor does release mean an end to rehabilitation. Offenders will therefore enter a period of intensive supervision by the Probation Service. They will still face consequences for their actions.

Clauses 24 and 25 introduce a strengthened licence period. Offenders will be subject to strict conditions tailored to risk and offence. These clauses mean that probation can set new restrictive licence conditions—for example, stopping them going to the pub, banning them from football matches, or preventing them driving. This mirrors the new community requirement set out in Clauses 13 to 15.

We will incentivise better behaviour from offenders. Clauses 36 and 37 allow community orders and the supervision period of suspended sentence orders to be terminated once an offender has completed their sentence plan, including all court-ordered requirements. The Probation Service will be able to incentivise compliance and encourage early engagement and completion of rehabilitative activities, but anyone who does not do this will serve their sentence in full and could face further penalties. We will also expand community payback.

Clause 3 will introduce income reduction orders, so offenders with high incomes are penalised more effectively when serving their suspended sentence in a community setting. We will make sure that crime does not pay. Alongside the changes in the Bill, we will address the root causes of crime by expanding the use of intensive supervision courts, to break the cycles that lead to ever more reoffending. These courts are inspired by their success in Texas, which has seen a 33% fall in arrests compared to those serving prison sentences. They target offenders, often highly prolific offenders, who suffer from addiction or poor mental health, and they impose tough requirements to tackle those drivers. Over three-quarters of offenders meet the conditions the courts set. And we will tag many more offenders, to ensure compliance and restrict their freedom outside prison.

What is more, all offenders released into the community will remain on licence for the duration of their sentence. This goes further than the approach the review recommended. Those at the highest risk will continue to be supervised by probation to the very end. All offenders will be expected to comply with their licence conditions and remain liable for recall to prison at any time. Any further offence, even something that would not normally attract a custodial sentence, will potentially lead to a recall. Offenders will know that any backsliding or regression could land them right back in a cell. They will obey our laws, and there will be punishments if they do not. That is why Clauses 26 to 30 will introduce a standard 56-day recall, replacing the existing 14-day and 28-day terms: these are real consequences for returning to crime and punishment that works.

More punishment in the community, more intensive supervision, more monitoring and restrictions: these will all put more pressure on our already stretched Probation Service. That is why the recent spending review announced up to £700 million extra for probation. That is a 45% uplift by the final year, the largest in history, because we are investing in what makes a difference; investing in what cuts crime and rehabilitates offenders; and investing to support the staff.

We are also making sure that our justice system operates on the principles of putting victims first, fairness and accountability. Clause 4 amends the statutory purposes of sentencing to reference protecting victims as part of public protection. The Bill will also go further than ever before to restrict offenders’ movements to protect victims. Victims of the most serious sexual or violent offenders should not have to worry about who they will run into when they go somewhere new. That is why Clause 24 allows probation to impose new restriction zones on the most serious offenders on licence. Clause 16 will allow courts to impose these new zones on offenders serving community or suspended sentence orders. They will be required to stay in a specific area, so that their victims can move freely elsewhere. The victim should have the freedom, not the perpetrator.

Clause 6 also introduces a new judicial finding of domestic abuse in sentencing. Probation will be able to identify abusers more easily, track patterns of behaviour, and put safeguards in place. This will improve risk management and further protect victims, and it is welcomed by victims’ groups.

These principles are also why we are progressing reforms to the Sentencing Council through the Bill. The council has undertaken valuable work and helped to bring greater consistency and transparency to the sentencing process. It also plays an important constitutional role, balancing interests across Parliament, government and the judiciary in sentencing policy and practice.

We are keen to support the council with its work. Following events in recent months, we are introducing a pair of measures that aim to maintain public confidence in its guidelines. Clause 18 introduces a requirement on the council to obtain the Lord Chancellor’s approval of its annual business plan before it can be published, and Clause 19 requires it to obtain approval from the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice for all sentencing guidelines. My officials will be working closely with their counterparts at the council to agree underpinning detail on the practicalities of both approval processes.

I took this role to help reform a system that I have been passionate about for most of my life. My colleagues and I have looked across the world for what works; these learnings are contained in the Bill. Brought together, these measures will bring stability and sustainability to our justice system. In that regard, there is no alternative. However, they do more than that. The Bill will make sure that we have prisons that work; a probation service that reforms offenders; and fewer victims. It will put our justice system on a footing fit for the future, one that prioritises victims, fairness and accountability and one that prioritises punishment that works. I urge noble Lords to support the Bill and the principles behind it. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, it is my pleasure to close the Second Reading debate on this vital Bill. I thank noble Lords for their contributions and thank those who have spoken to me privately. I will attempt to answer as many questions as possible, but what I do not cover I will follow up in writing. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for his speech. Yes, this Bill is about prison capacity, but it is also about how we can reform the system so it is sustainable, it is affordable and it works, so that we get fewer victims and a real focus on rehabilitation.

I turn first to IPP sentences. I acknowledge that many noble Lords and noble and learned Lords have raised this today, and it is important that their concerns are raised and discussed today. This Government are determined to make further progress towards a safe and sustainable release for those serving IPP sentences—but not in a way that undermines public protection. I put on record my thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his work with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, on recall and what we are still learning from that work.

The IPP action plan has contributed to an overall reduction in the IPP population over the last 12 months. As the Prison Reform Trust has said, we are seeing “modest but welcome progress”. For example, the unreleased prison population has reduced by around 14%, to 946 people in September 2025. After three years of quarterly increases, the recalled IPP prison population has fallen in every quarter for the last two years, from 1,652 to 1,476 as of 30 September this year. We have implemented changes to reduce the qualifying period for referral of an IPP sentence to the Parole Board and introduced a provision for automatic licence termination. These changes have reduced the number of people serving IPP sentences in the community by around two-thirds.

The revised action plan, published on 17 July, sets out where we intend to go further, including increasing access to release on temporary licence, expanding the approved premises pilot to improve resettlement support, and enabling swift re-release following recall through risk-assessed recall review when it is safe and appropriate to do so. I am determined to do all we can to support the remaining IPP offenders and their families. I am confident that our efforts will further benefit the IPP cohort. I will continue to engage with noble Lords, and I will continue to focus on developing new ways and improving existing plans to help IPPers have successful parole hearings, and to see fewer IPP recalls. My door is open, and I look forward to our next Peers’ meeting.

I turn to noble Lords’ points on the proposals in the Bill. The earned progression model was raised by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Burnett and Lord Thomas. I must begin by being clear about the context in which the Government have introduced these measures. The prison population is still rising too fast, and we simply cannot build our way out of the capacity crisis. Our new progression model, inspired by Texas and recommended by David Gauke, sets a minimum release point of one-third for those serving standard determinate sentences, which currently have an automatic release of 40% or 50%. For certain sexual and violent offences, the minimum will be 50%. But the most dangerous offenders—those on extended determinate sentences and life sentences—will be unaffected by the measures in the Bill and will remain in prison for as long as they do now. Following the changes in the Bill, there will still be more criminals in prison than ever before.

Under the progression model, if they play by the rules prisoners can earn an early release. If not, they can be locked up for longer—up to the end of their sentence. So if someone receives a six-year standard determinate sentence and they behave badly, they can serve that full six years in prison. Although I have heard the issues raised by noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, it is essential that this model can be implemented quickly and effectively through the established process for punishing bad behaviour and rule breaches in prison.

I was pleased to hear my noble friend Lord Bach welcome the earned progression model, as well as the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and the noble Lord, Lord Carter. I reassure noble Lords that I have spent a lot of time already discussing how the progression model will work. Although it is not an exact mirror of the Texas model, because of the capacity issues and the complexities that it could create, in the prison environment you essentially go up the hill—for bad behaviour, you stay in prison for longer—whereas in probation you go down the hill, so the quicker you do your community service, the quicker you finish your responsibility. We know that this needs to be tough, which is why we are doubling the maximum punishment of added time from 42 to 84 days per incident. The noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Prashar, rightly brought up the subject of adjudications. Again, that is something that I am looking into; they are right that they need to be absolutely robust and fair.

A number of noble Lords have raised short sentences, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, the noble Lords, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Marks, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and others. It is an important point. We are not abolishing short sentences. Judges will always have the power to send offenders to prison when they have breached a court order, where there is a significant risk of physical or psychological harm to a particular individual, or in exceptional circumstances. However, around 60% of adults sentenced for under a year reoffend within 12 months; a number of noble Lords recited similar facts about the ineffectiveness of short sentences. That is unacceptably high for victims and the public. The evidence shows that those given a community order or suspended sentence reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. We are following the evidence to reduce crime, leading to fewer victims and safer communities. I am also following the lead of the previous Government, who introduced this measure in their Sentencing Bill.

I have heard the points raised about the impact of these changes on victims. I reassure noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch, that victims are at the heart of this Bill. First and foremost, we fail victims if prisons run out of places entirely and crime goes without punishment. For me, victims must always come first—and we will publish the VAWG strategy shortly. We are imposing tough restriction zones that limit the movement of offenders, instead of limiting the movement of victims, and creating a new domestic abuse flag at sentencing so that domestic abusers are known to prison and probation services and their victims are better protected. We remain steadfast in our commitment to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. In addition to the measures in the Bill, we are continuing the provision of free sentencing remarks to victims of rape and sex offences, and expanding the use of specialist domestic abuse courts, with trained staff to support victims and more co-ordinated management of offenders.

I turn to the points that noble Lords raised about probation capacity and how the reforms in the Bill are being delivered. What is clear from by far the majority of speeches today is that noble Lords are well aware of the pressure on probation but also how powerful it is when you get this right and how fantastic the staff are. That is why I suspect that we will drill deeply in Committee into how the probation proposals work and what we can do to make sure that they are robust. The Probation Service is an indispensable part of the criminal justice system that keeps us safe, but the last decade has been a very challenging time. We have already taken significant steps to focus resources on the highest-risk and prolific offenders, where the evidence shows that probation can have the greatest impact. Earlier this year, we announced a package of measures to rebuild the Probation Service. By the final year of the spending review, our annual £1.6 billion spend on probation and community services will rise by up to £700 million—a 45% increase.

As was clear in the Gauke review, the third sector has a key role to play. We are indebted to so many wonderful organisations that are integral to the work of probation, and I agree that the longer-term funding models are the direction of travel that I would like to see. Although the detailed allocations of that money are to be finalised, I can say that my priorities are clear: more people in post; digital investment that saves time; and tools for probation to use, from increasing tagging to rehabilitation, so that offenders can have a chance to turn their lives around. This will make the job of our probation staff more manageable and more rewarding. I am hopeful for further conversations with noble Lords to give more clarity on probation funding in the days ahead.

Recruitment, retention and training of staff are high priorities for the Probation Service. The right reverend Prelate is clearly aware that we need to ensure that we have sufficient workforce to safely supervise and manage people in the community. This Bill includes several measures, such as welcoming the removal of post-sentence supervision, the introduction of a new probation requirement, and the termination of community orders once an offender has completed their sentence plan. These will streamline processes, enable probation to focus its efforts on those who pose the highest risk, and incentivise offenders to engage with rehabilitation.

The theme of incentivisation is something I feel very passionately about. Having run a business whereby I incentivised colleagues on the front line in shops to serve customers well, I believe—and I see it across the criminal justice system—that not all but many offenders respond to the right incentive at the right time, in their time in prison or on probation. We have gone further since the Bill’s introduction. The Deputy Prime Minister recently announced an expansion of Justice Transcribe, equipping 1,000 more probation officers with the technology that cuts administration and ensures staff can spend more time doing the thing they do best: working with offenders face to face to turn their lives around. We want to go further with this too. Probation staff who have been engaging with Justice Transcribe call it a game-changer and something they have been crying out for for years. It is an important part of our plan to modernise the service. A range of further digital and process improvements will transform the way in which probation staff work, and ensure that they can spend more time doing the things that they love doing.

I am confident that our overall package of investment, continued recruitment and modernisation puts us on a path to ensuring the sustainability of the service for the long term. I will continue to work closely with the Deputy Prime Minister to that end. I would be delighted to meet the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, to talk about a country that is dear to my heart and which I can see from my house: Wales.

I turn to electronic monitoring, which is a crucial means of managing offenders safely in the community. I thank noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Bailey of Paddington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Porter. The noble Lord, Lord Bailey, may not remember but, many years ago, we met at No. 10, and I would be delighted to carry on the conversation that we had then, which followed the very strong theme of his speech today.

The evidence is clear: tagging works. It provides clear and reliable proof of an individual’s whereabouts and behaviour. A recent study found that curfew tags reduce reoffending by 20% as part of a community sentence. Since their introduction in 2020, alcohol monitoring tags show no tamper and no alcohol consumed on 97% of the days worn as part of a community sentence. Currently, there are around 20,000 people on tags. We will increase this by up to 22,000 across court bail, community sentences and prison leavers, with many subject to curfews and exclusion zones.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Beith, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, the noble Baronesses, Lady Prashar and Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, raised the Sentencing Council. Judicial independence in making sentencing decisions is a fundamental constitutional principle. The Government have an important duty to secure public confidence in our criminal justice system, and Ministers are responsible for that. It is that balance that we seek to strike in arrangements for the Sentencing Council. We shall return to this in detail in Committee.

The issue of youth sentencing was raised strongly by my noble friend Lady Longfield. There are, and always should be, substantial differences in how children are treated in law compared with adults. The youth sentencing system must strike a right balance between public protection and the principles of justice, while accounting for children’s lesser maturity and protecting their welfare. This is why we will be reviewing the position on youth sentencing separately in the light of the changes that the Bill introduces.

I turn briefly to other points that were raised in the debate. The removal of remand for someone’s own protection does not form part of the remand measures in the Sentencing Bill. As my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti is aware, the Mental Health Bill proposes to end the use of remand for someone’s own protection, where the primary concern is the defendant’s mental health. I am open to hearing more on the general removal of remand for own protection.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, raised concerns about Clause 11. The clause does not remove the court’s sentencing powers. It is ultimately up to the court to determine whether to include this requirement when making a suspended sentence order or community order. Probation officers assess each individual’s risks and needs after sentencing. They are currently responsible for determining the volume of supervision required and, as such, are best placed to determine how many rehabilitative activities will be most effective. That is why this clause removes the court’s set activity days. This ensures that resources are used where they have the greatest impact in reducing reoffending and protecting the public.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, raised recall. Recall is, and will remain, an important risk management tool to protect the public and victims. We are going further than the review’s recommendations to introduce important safeguards. To protect the public and victims, certain offenders can receive only a standard recall. These offenders will be re-released by the Secretary of State or the Parole Board before the end of their sentence only if they meet the statutory release test.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Beith, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, raised concerns about Clause 35. I am sure that we can agree that people who commit crimes should show that they are giving back to society. I assure noble Lords that careful consideration has been given to how this is implemented and how wider impacts can be mitigated.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, that I am keen to discuss gambling and how we support addiction generally in the community. It is something that I am very passionate about too.

I would be delighted to meet the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, to discuss joint enterprise with my colleague, Minister Alex Davies-Jones, as it is her area of expertise within the Ministry of Justice.

This has been a wide debate, and I bow to the experience and expertise in the Chamber today. I and my officials will read Hansard carefully and, if I have missed anything in my response, we shall make sure to engage with your Lordships before and after Committee. I look forward to that. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time.

Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

That the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they consider the bill in the following order:

Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clauses 2 to 9, Schedule 2, Clause 10, Schedule 3, Clauses 11 to 27, Schedule 4, Clauses 28 to 31, Schedule 5, Clauses 32 to 47, Title.

Motion agreed.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce the second day of Committee on the Sentencing Bill. Amendment 51, in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie, proposes a targeted and necessary change to Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act, dealing with the Sentencing Code. Its purpose is straightforward: to ensure that, where a police or prison officer is murdered because of or in retaliation for their current or former duties, that murder automatically falls within the highest sentencing category—that is, one where a whole-life order is available and, ordinarily, appropriate.

At present, Schedule 21 refers to murders committed “in the course of” the victim’s duty. Those words are too narrow. We suggest that the provision was intended to capture the most egregious attacks on those who serve the public in roles that inherently expose them to danger. However, the phrase

“in the course of … duty”

in the statute has, in practice, been interpreted by the courts in a restrictive manner, excluding cases where an officer is murdered because of, in retaliation for or in consequence of their earlier performance of their official duties—for example, when a murder takes place a while later, after service has ended.

This amendment would correct that anomaly by inserting the essential clarification that, where the motivation for the murder is connected to the officer’s current or former duties, the case will fall within the highest sentencing category. That is legally coherent and morally necessary. Motive is already a well-recognised component of sentencing. It is taken into account in terrorism offences, hate crimes, witness intimidation and organised crime retaliation. It is therefore entirely consistent with the existing principle that the deliberate targeting of an officer because he or she carried out their duty should be regarded as an aggravating feature of the utmost severity.

This amendment would not create a new offence. It would not broaden the law on homicide or interfere with the Law Commission’s wider review. With precision and exclusively, it would ensure that the statutory scheme reflects Parliament’s clear and settled understanding that to murder a police officer or prison officer simply for having done their job is among the gravest crimes known to our law.

Let me speak plainly. We have seen the consequences of the existing drafting. The tragic case of former prison officer Lenny Scott revealed the gap starkly. Lenny Scott, whose widow and father I and others met last week, carried out his duties with integrity in HM Prison Altcourse, Liverpool. In March 2020, he discovered an illegal phone in the hands of a prisoner. He was offered but refused a bribe to turn a blind eye. He duly reported it, and, as a result, not only was the prisoner discovered to have had a phone but it was discovered that he had been having an affair with a woman prison officer—which was pretty serious, if you think about it. For that simple act of professionalism, Lenny received explicit threats at the time that he would be seen to. Those threats were graphic. They contained details about the appearance of his twin boys, who were no older than six years old.

Some years later, on 8 February 2024, after Lenny had left the Prison Service, those threats were put into practice. He was hunted down and murdered—shot as he left a gym class, in a planned act of revenge. It was a murder directly and unequivocally connected to the past performance of his duties. This was a gangland execution intended to punish Lenny for doing his duty and not giving way to what had been asked of him, and to terrify and intimidate other prison officers into doing gangsters’ bidding in the future. Because this crime did not occur in the course of his duty but a couple of years later, the statutory framework failed to treat it as the kind of murder for which Parliament provides the highest penalty and the judge therefore did not pass a whole-life order. This is a clear loophole in the legislation, and I look to the Minister to put it right. How many more Lennies will there be?

Serving officers in prisons and in the police force must know that there is the added protection of whole-life-order deterrence after they have left as well as when they are in active service. How many serving or former officers walk our streets knowing that they will remain potential targets long after they take off the uniform, and knowing that under the law as presently interpreted, their killers may not face the penalty that Parliament intended for those who attack innocent public servants?

We cannot undo the tragedy that happened to Lenny Scott and his family, nor repair the pain, but we can ensure that the law is changed. We can ensure that the sentencing framework recognises that the risks to officers do not end when their shift finishes and certainly do not disappear when they have left the force. When a murder is motivated and driven by the officer’s service, the seriousness, risk and moral culpability are exactly the same. This is a plain gap in the legislation as currently drafted, and it must be closed immediately.

It is very disappointing that this amendment was opposed by the Government on Report in the other place. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats together were in rare agreement on this amendment. I urge the Minister not to oppose it.

This amendment is modest in drafting but deep in its importance. It transcends political fault lines. I suggest that there is no reason why any noble Lords should oppose it. It simply makes no sense that a whole-life order can be imposed for the murder of a prison officer while he is a serving prison officer and while he is at work, but not if he is killed on the weekend with his family. This amendment would restore coherence to the statutory scheme and protects those who seek to protect us. I commend it to the Committee.

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

My Lords, it is a great honour to have the opportunity to speak for the Government during the second day in Committee on the Sentencing Bill. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for drawing attention to this important topic, which I have carefully considered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

Can the Minister deal with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, made on the amendment’s proposed provision acting as a deterrence so as to prevent further intimidation of serving prison officers in the Prison Service now?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

What happened to Lenny Scott is absolutely appalling, and we need to ensure that we do all we can so that no other prison officers, or previously serving prison officers, have the same fate. We want to work with the Law Commission and to take away the points raised by the noble Lord to discuss them with colleagues. What is important is that we ensure that the public are protected from the people who commit these terrible crimes.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be reasonably brief. Amendment 51 is simple, precise and entirely consistent with established principles of sentencing. It does not create a new offence and, with respect, it does not pre-empt the Law Commission’s broader review. Instead, it addresses a real gap—and, with respect, we do not need the Law Commission to decide whether there is a gap here. Prison officers in particular need this protection. We have seen the tragic consequences, and this is the sort of threat that we are likely to see more of, not less.

We look to the Minister for assurances on this. Otherwise, it will come back on Report. It must be accepted that murdering a police officer or prison officer because of or in the course of their duty is one of the gravest crimes imaginable. The law should reflect this, not simply to punish but to deter. It must deal with and deter against calculated acts of revenge against former officers. Gangland people will learn about this. It will get about in prison. They will know. It will go down the network.

This amendment is significant for the men and women who carry out with integrity the difficult and demanding work of protecting our streets and looking after—I use that phrase advisedly—the prisoners under their care. It is important that we reassure and encourage them. We want the best people to serve in our prisons. We do not want recruitment to be handicapped. What message will it send out if the Government say, “Oh well, if you’re shot down two years later, that doesn’t count. We’ve got to hope that the judge gets it right”? We must provide the right protections throughout the careers of these officers and beyond. We have the opportunity today to close that gap.

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment for now, but it remains very much on the table.

--- Later in debate ---

As to the final point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, I accept that reducing reoffending may be a better term for the public than rehabilitation. Whether that is a rebranding, as was suggested, I am not sure, but this is all about the concept of turning the lives of offenders around, which I know is central to the Minister’s mission

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

As noble Lords know, I have devoted much of my life and career to criminal justice reform, in particular, how to reduce reoffending. Because of this, I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Amendments 52 to 58.

On Amendment 52 on violence against women and girls, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Fox of Buckley, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, this is a serious and complex challenge that demands co-ordinated action. HMPPS works closely with partners to manage risk, protect victims and reduce harm through evidence-based interventions. For more than three decades, HMPPS has led in developing programmes that address attitudes and behaviours linked to offending, alongside specialist psychological support and community tools. Guided by the principles of effective practice, these services target those at medium or high risk, ensuring that resources are focused where they make the greatest impact. We are always considering research findings that we can learn from which show us what reduces reoffending both here and abroad. There is evidence that has shown that the effects of accredited programme participation for low-risk individuals are usually found to be negligible or in some cases negative. Therefore, accredited programmes are not routinely recommended for low-risk offenders.

On Amendments 53 to 58, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, I reassure the Committee that, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, reiterated, Clauses 11 and 12 do not remove the court’s sentencing powers. The decision to apply the requirement to an order sits firmly with the court and that will remain the case. For example, as is the case now, where a judge considers it necessary to impose a community or suspended sentence order, it is they who will determine whether to add a probation requirement. The probation requirement will be part of the menu of requirements available to judges to decide to apply to an order. In addition, where a pre-sentence report is requested by the court, the judge will be provided with an indication of an offender’s risk and need, and what intervention they may receive following a more thorough assessment by probation after sentencing.

The removal of court-set RAR days is needed. The evidence shows that RAR is not working effectively. Practitioners are restricted by the current approach, and we know that RAR days sentenced are not always aligned with an offender’s rehabilitative needs. The evidence from our published process evaluation is clear that probation staff and magistrates felt that the RAR was, in some cases, sentenced as a catch-all. I have been told by probation practitioners across the country, from Manchester to the Isle of Wight, that the way the RAR is applied currently, with sometimes an arbitrary number of RAR days being sentenced, restricts their ability to effectively rehabilitate offenders.

We are moving to a model that enables probation practitioners to use their professional expertise to ensure that rehabilitation is tailored to what works. This was a direct recommendation in David Gauke’s sentencing review report. The removal of court-specified maximum days will ensure that probation resources are directed to where they will have the most impact. Decisions will always be led by a thorough assessment of risk and need after sentencing. This does not change the fact that offenders are required to comply with the instructions of their probation officer. If they do not comply, they could face a return to court and receive tougher penalties.

I agree that it is important that we are clear on how the probation requirements will be applied. That is why clear guidance will be in place to support practitioners in their assessment, and on how to deliver the change. We should trust our valued practitioners to make informed decisions about rehabilitation activity in the same way they do with supervision. It is important that they have the flexibility to do so without placing an extra burden on them to justify each decision to the court. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, mentioned probation plans. On the first day of Committee last week, I mentioned that I am happy to present the plans for probation to noble Lords. I have already had one noble Lord take me up on the offer, and others are welcome.

Data is published annually on the completion of some community requirements, and it would not be proportionate to legislate at this time to publish further specific data on the probation requirement, as proposed by the noble Lords. We keep under regular review what data is collected and published, especially in the era of AI. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foster, that quality up-to-date information is important to inform management and policy. The way I have run my businesses in the past, and the way I am trying to do my job as a Minister in the Ministry of Justice, is by using data to hold people to account, because we need to keep improving performance so that we can improve public confidence in the justice system.

In light of this information and the reassurances I have provided on the intention of these clauses, I urge the noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I for one would really welcome a discussion with the noble Lord; I did not realise that we should use this occasion to accept the invitation. Perhaps at the same time, I should use an opportunity to talk to him more about what the organisation with which I am connected has succeeded in doing on healthy relationships.

Perhaps “mandatory” was misplaced in my amendment. It is more than education and more than having people sitting in a classroom being told. Nothing is a complete answer in this area—I think we are all aware of that—but I am talking about one-to-one connection and contact, which has to be built up over a long period before it can be effective. Therefore, it is really something more detailed and full than I dare say I was giving the impression of. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for supporting the amendment, but I beg leave to withdraw it.

--- Later in debate ---

This is the case for this entire group of amendments. The poll that I cited demonstrates that we must do more, even if the changes are small and incremental. The public should know who are committing the crimes, whether they are being adequately dealt with and whether the measures the authorities use are working. These are the aims of my noble friend’s amendments, and we on these Benches support them.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords and noble Baronesses for the opportunity to discuss these important amendments as part of a fascinating debate; they have certainly covered a lot of ground. Transparency in the criminal justice system is vital. We must strike a balance between promoting understanding and accountability without compromising the integrity of our public services or creating unnecessary burdens for those working in them.

I turn first to Amendment 58A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, but, before I begin, I must acknowledge noble Lords’ important questions on funding for the Probation Service—a crucial part of delivering the reforms in this Bill. As noble Lords know, we are investing up to £700 million in the final year of the spending review, which is an increase of 45%. As I said at Second Reading, although detailed allocations are yet to be finalised, my priorities are clear: more people in post; digital investment that saves time; and tools for probation to use. These will all make the jobs of our hard-working probation staff more manageable and rewarding. I repeat my offer to noble Lords to arrange a session in the coming weeks to take them through this in more detail.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for raising important points regarding the availability of activities and treatments for probation requirements. I assure the noble Baroness and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, that we are enabling probation practitioners to use their professional expertise to ensure that rehabilitation is tailored to what works. To do this, we will have guidance and training in place to ensure that they are clear on how decisions should be made and how to deliver them. This includes what interventions are needed and when to refer an offender to a specialist support service; so, if an offender whose offending is driven by addiction is sentenced to a probation requirement, their probation officer will be pointed to the right interventions to address any factors that could lead to that behaviour.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Porter, Lady Fox and Lady Hamwee, rightly mentioned the availability of treatments. It is critical that offenders have access to the right activities and treatments to support their rehabilitation. That is why the Ministry of Justice works closely with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that all offenders who need it have access to high-quality mental health, alcohol and drug treatment. DHSC has made a targeted investment to support those referred by the criminal justice system, including funding 575 drug and alcohol workers with criminal justice specialisms. They work closely with prisons and probation services and in courts, as well as with the police, to improve access to, and the quality of, treatment.

Our ongoing partnership with NHS England has achieved an increase in the number of mental health treatment requirements. The number sentenced now is more than five times higher than it was a decade ago: it is up from 960 in 2014 to 4,880 in 2024. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, knows that I am always available to speak to the House about how we are ensuring that these treatments are accessible and funded. Given that, I hope that she agrees with me that a statutory requirement to publish an annual report is unnecessary.

Amendment 139B would require the Secretary of State to lay an annual report before Parliament on levels of reoffending by offenders who have completed a community or custodial sentence. Reducing levels of reoffending to cut crime and ensure fewer victims is at the very heart of both this Bill’s purpose and why I took this job. The evidence is clear, and we are following it. Offenders given a community order or suspended sentence order reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. We are exploring how we can evaluate the impact of the Bill’s provisions on key outcomes, including levels of reoffending. In the meantime, I can confirm that we already publish on a quarterly basis data on levels of reoffending by disposal type, including custodial sentences, community orders and suspended sentence orders.

I hope that my answer assures the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, of our commitment to following the evidence, regarding his Amendment 93A. However, as I am sure he will appreciate, many factors go into whether someone reoffends, and creating artificial targets will not support hard-working front-line staff in trying to improve the system.

I thank the noble Lord for Amendment 127 but, although we share the aim of improving transparency in the parole system, the Government believe that this proposal is unnecessary. Public hearings were introduced in 2022, allowing any hearing to be held in public where the chair considers it in the interests of justice. This amendment would reverse the current position, making public hearings the default and requiring the Parole Board to seek the agreement of the Secretary of State to hear a case in private. This would undermine the board’s quasi-judicial independence and create significant administrative burdens. It would also require victims’ views about the prospect of a public hearing to be sought in every case. This risks retraumatising victims and burdening them with an additional and unnecessary decision about their case. There is no evidence that a demand for all hearings to be public exists, so the amendment would not offer any meaningful benefits over the current process. The board holds more than 8,000 oral hearings annually, yet its website reports just 55 decisions on applications for a public hearing since 2022.

On Amendment 86, this Government remain committed to improving the collection and publication of data on foreign national offenders. We are working closely with colleagues in the Home Office to enable the early identification of foreign national offenders, which will support earlier removals. This may require a new mechanism to verify the information provided. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, set out, this must be cost effective and must prevent placing additional pressure on operational staff; that is why we are exploring both operational and technological solutions. For this reason, we cannot accept a statutory duty to publish this information before the necessary infrastructure is in place to support it.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her kind words and for raising the important issue of participation in rehabilitative activities such as work or training; I am pleased that we have had an opportunity to debate this today and to learn more about the history of “purposeful”. We fully share the ambition behind this amendment, which is to ensure that time in custody is used productively both to support rehabilitation and to reduce reoffending. Prison should not simply be where criminals stay between crimes. I want to make it clear that this Government are of course committed to improving regimes across the prison estate, but making participation a mandatory condition across every custodial sentence would be impractical and, in some cases, counterproductive. Prison regimes vary widely to meet the needs of different populations, and imposing a blanket statutory requirement risks creating obligations that cannot be met.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, I have more qualms about these particular prohibitions, broadly from a civil liberties point of view. The problem with the idea of bringing in endless surveillance and state bodies to keep their eye on people, banning people and prohibiting people on the basis that this is necessary because it will allow people to avoid prison is that it turns the community into something with prison-like conditions. I do not feel easy with that in terms of there being a ban on public events and entering drinking establishments, with new restriction zones and so on.

Where I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, is on how on earth it will work, practically. How will probation cope with monitoring these prohibitions? I cannot understand how it would be feasible. We keep discussing the problem of probation not having enough resources and we are then assured that more resources will be made available; we are now asking probation to do even more than they were doing before. Resources always implies money, but this is about a lot more than money. I would have thought that a lot of the new things that this Bill is asking probation officers to do will require a lot more training.

The Minister will know that, for example, because of the huge case loads that probation officers have, the last thing that they want to be dealing with are IPP prisoners, who are at the very least challenging. We know that, in many instances, in order to get them off the books, they adopt a risk-averse attitude, which means that anyone who even just technically breaks a licence condition—maybe they are a late for a meeting, or something like that—suddenly gets recalled into prison. So there are all sorts of complications around saying simply that probation will do it.

I know that when I raise problems with probation, immediately there is a rush with people saying how brilliant probation officers are; this is not a slight on them as individuals but a problem with the service. In fact, if anything, it is probation officers themselves who feel frustrated and are tearing their hair out because they are expected to do so much with so little. There is a real reason why there is a difficulty in recruiting new trainee probation officers and where there are insufficient staff numbers.

What I do not understand is how we would monitor this. Let us say that there is, for example, a prohibition on going to the pub or a drinking establishment—I cannot remember what they are called now. Are probation officers going to be standing outside the pub? How will they know whether someone is entering a pub or not? That is why I think that the amendments in this group are quite useful. Is this just a box-ticking exercise? If it is a practical thing, someone will have to let the drinking establishments know and monitor whether anyone goes into them. I also think that there is a whole paraphernalia, and there are potentially quite difficult issues when restriction zones are put in place. Who decides where they are and what they are based on, and who is going to monitor them?

There is a wide range of new restrictions and prohibitions that are only being put in place because of the move to remove people from prison. Community probation officers do not have the resources; this will be not just technically bureaucratic to enact, but it will not keep the public safe or enable them to keep an eye on efficacy. Consequently, I would like to tighten up the whole notion of these orders via amendments such as these, but I am not even convinced that they are the way to go or that they are anything other than a problematic example of why there is a prior problem of letting everybody out of prison too early when you do not have the resources in the community.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the three key principles behind David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review was to expand and make greater use of punishments outside prison. The new community requirements introduced by Clauses 13 to 16 are designed to implement that principle. They are intended to give the courts a wider range of options to punish offenders in the community, from stopping them from going to watch their favourite football team to imposing a restriction zone that requires them to stay within a particular area.

The amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has quite rightly raised questions about how these are to be enforced and monitored. Their amendments would prevent the court from imposing these requirements if there are not arrangements for enforcement in place or the court did not believe they can be enforced, and they seek to ensure that the relevant authority supervises requirements imposed by the court.

I hope that it will help noble Lords if I begin by explaining how these orders will be monitored and enforced. It is very important to remember that community and suspended sentence orders are already a well-established part of the justice system. This Bill simply expands the range of options available to judges when they pass a sentence.

As with all current community requirements, probation staff will monitor an offender’s compliance with their order; they use a range of tools to do that, such as intelligence from partners, including the police. This includes electronic monitoring, where appropriate, and probation staff are already skilled in using these tools to enforce community orders. If probation staff learn about non-compliance, they have a range of options. They can return the offender to court, which can result in even more onerous requirements; they can impose a fine; and, in more serious cases, they can even send the offender to custody.

I hope that an example will help to illustrate this. Let us imagine that Harry, an ardent supporter of Sheffield United Football Club, is banned from attending football matches under one of the new community requirements. To enforce this order, the court has ordered that he must wear an electronic tag. Harry breaches his community order by going to a game. His probation officer learns about this from the data from his tag. In other circumstances, a breach may be identified through intelligence sharing between agencies. They decide that the breach is serious enough to return Harry to court, where he receives a further fine.

In short, these new requirements will be enforced by probation staff who are skilled and experienced in enforcing similar requirements. This Government are making sure that the Probation Service has the capacity to do this vital job and keep the public safe through recruitment, increased funding and investing in technology, including even more alcohol tags. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to a new sort of alcohol test, which I am unaware of but sounds interesting. I also emphasise that the Bill does not require the courts to use these requirements. Critically, the court must determine that any requirements imposed are the most suitable for achieving the purposes of sentencing. For all the reasons I have set out, the Government’s view is that these amendments are not necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, he mentioned alcolocks. It is a system of measuring one’s breath, and if one is deemed to have drunk it stops the car ignition. It has worked very successfully in other countries.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. That is very interesting, and I will take it back to the department.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the explanation given by the Minister, but the issues at stake here are not theoretical; they are practical questions about how these conditions will actually work. Will they be real, meaningful and enforceable? The Government have repeatedly asserted confidence in suspended sentences and the expanded use of community-based requirements. If that confidence is well placed, these amendments should be entirely uncontroversial; they do nothing more than ensure that what is ordered by a judge can be delivered in reality.

We are not seeking to impose obligations to enforce on the licensee of a public house, for example, but they should know so that they are then free to pass the information on to the police or the Probation Service, because they will not want someone there who is the subject of an order. It will be a public house order, for example, because the offender has a particular issue with behaviour in such places—so too with football grounds or other specified events. The host, if that is the right word, should be informed and should know that a particular individual, if recognised, should not be on his premises and can be turned away.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, with her usual acuity, pointed to the civil liberty aspects of this as well. I will not embark on those, but she also identified practical and policy issues underlying these provisions in Clauses 13 to 16. We on these Benches suggest that these amendments insert a simple and reasonable test. They do not impose a condition unless compliance can realistically be monitored in practice by the Probation Service, and the Probation Service will need help from the hosts. It is not radical to say that orders issued by a court should carry weight. A prohibition that in practice cannot and will not be checked is not a deterrent. A restriction that cannot and will not be enforced is not a restriction. Without these safeguards, we will create orders that are performative rather than protective. They will offer only the illusion of safety to communities and to victims.

The Government themselves use this precise standard when justifying reforms elsewhere in the Bill—for example, removing rehabilitative activity days because the system “did not operate effectively in practice”. The provisions in Clauses 13 to 16, if they are to be enforced, must be enforceable in practice and must be effective. If a condition is imposed but nobody has a duty to enforce it, it is not a condition at all. The Probation Service is not going to have time to run around the pubs, football grounds and so on; it is going to have to rely on information from other people.

These amendments would simply ensure that the supervising authority has responsibility for enforcement and is given the means to do so, rather than the vague hope that somebody may intervene if they happen to notice a breach. Without this duty, we repeat here that the failures seen with criminal behaviour orders and football banning orders, where thousands of breaches each year go unpursued and offenders learn that compliance is optional, will be repeated. Public confidence will not be restored by rhetoric; in fact, it will be damaged. It will be damaged by visible consequences, namely failures to enforce.

The Government propose to release more offenders into the community under suspended and community-based regimes. That is a political choice. Having chosen that path, they must choose the responsibility to ensure that it works and that it is safe. We should not be asking the British Government to accept greater risk while refusing the safeguards that would mitigate that risk. Ministers who believe that this strategy will reduce reoffending should have no objection to tests of practicability, enforcement duties and notification requirements. To oppose these amendments, they must be justified as to why they will be unenforceable, unmonitored, unaccountable conditions. That is a hard case to make to the victims, to police officers on the street or to the public whose safety is being traded away.

The amendments we put forward are not obstructive but supportive. They would help, indeed allow, the Government’s policy to function in the real world, not just on the printed page. If we are to put offenders back in the community who might not otherwise have been there—indeed, probably would not have been—the very least we owe the public is confidence that these conditions will be monitored and enforced, so I urge the Government to look again at these amendments and to reflect. For now, I beg leave to withdraw.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I will join the trend. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for calling him “Lord Sanderson” in my enthusiasm to agree with him. Misnaming is almost as bad as misgendering, but I hope he will let me off. I was glad to take credit for the very important points made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about electronic tagging, because I agree with him.

I want to query the Minister now, rather than interrupting him later, about this group. There is something I do not understand. The group is focused largely on enforceability, yet in the previous group, the Minister claimed that these kinds of prohibitions were part of the punishment. He is right to suggest that these are punishments for those people—they are not in prison, but they are still being punished. But I do not find it easy to understand how these orders punish the individuals. Are they related to the crimes they committed? The example that the Minister gave earlier was that, as part of the punishment, someone will be prevented from going to a particular football match. I understand that, if someone supports Liverpool, it might be a punishment to watch them at the moment, never mind anything else.

How do the punishments get decided? There was the example that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, gave of the potential downside of saying that we will have a curfew and someone cannot attend their Gamblers Anonymous meeting. Also, if we are going to say that, as part of the punishment, someone cannot go to public gatherings, who decides which public gatherings are included? Some public gatherings are obviously morally good for people. Do we not want them to go to a political public gathering?

Can the Minister just clarify how it is decided which person in the community gets one of these orders and who makes a decision about who should be banned from a pub, football match, public gathering, political gathering or what have you?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Prashar, and the noble Lords, Lord Marks, Lord Foster and Lord Jackson, for tabling these amendments.

Amendments 60, 61 and 66 refer to the enforcement of the new community requirements. I hope that the noble Baroness and noble Lord will be satisfied with a summary of the answer I gave in the previous group: responsibility for enforcement sits with the Probation Service, which has a range of options available to respond to non-compliance. This includes returning the offender to court, where they may face further penalties. This can include being sent to custody.

The noble Baroness asked how this works in practice, and I hope I can assist. Where electronic monitoring is imposed, the electronic monitoring service provider will receive an automatic breach notification if the offender breaches a licence condition predetermined by a court or probation officer. They will then provide information on the breach to the individual’s probation officer by 10 o’clock the following morning, for them then to take the appropriate action. If the noble Baroness would like further clarification and to speak to the experts whom I work alongside, I would be very happy to arrange that.

Amendments 102 and 104, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, concern the enforcement of new licence conditions. As with the new community order requirements, the enforcement of licence conditions will mirror current practice. Where it is supervising offenders, the Probation Service will monitor offenders’ behaviour and any potential breach of licence conditions. It will have available to it a suite of options to respond to the breaches, including issuing a warning and increasing supervision; where needed, it also includes recall to custody.

Again, I hope that an example will assist your Lordships. Lucy has recently been released from prison after serving a custodial sentence after seriously assaulting someone in a pub. Her licence condition includes a ban on entering any drinking establishment. After several weeks, Lucy admits to her probation officer that she has frequently been going to pubs and clubs. Even though she has not been arrested, her probation officer decides that more intensive supervision is needed to manage her risk, and puts this in place.

As with community orders, where an offender is on licence, there is no expectation for businesses or venues to manage these conditions. As the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, rightly pointed out, imagine a probation officer, already under pressure, having to notify every pub, bar and venue within 20 miles that certain offenders cannot go there. Imagine businesses having to store securely, monitor and update this information and, by implication, having to be responsible for enforcing these conditions. This is not for venues or people in the community to manage, and it will not help offenders integrate back into their communities. The Probation Service will continue its management and supervision of these offenders; it is best placed to respond to any breaches, including recalling offenders to prison if necessary.

However, we must be clear: we cannot monitor every offender in every moment of every day, and nor should we. Complying with licence conditions is an important way in which offenders can show a reduction in their risk as they reintegrate into their communities. It is how they can rebuild the trust they have lost by committing crimes. The punishment correlates to offending behaviour and the decision of the sentencer who takes into account the nature of the offence.

I hope that this reassures noble Lords and noble Baronesses that these measures will provide our Probation Service with a full suite of options to support it in managing offenders in the community—a task it is best equipped to do. Of course, we are also supporting the Probation Service with more funding, more recruitment and better tools to help it do what it does best: keeping the public safe. We therefore believe that these amendments are unnecessary, and I urge noble Lords to withdraw or not press them.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

With all due respect to the Minister, that is not a great example, because the example he gives is that Lucy has volunteered the information that she is in breach of her licence conditions. Given that the licence conditions are a de facto replacement for potential custodial centres, had she not told the probation officer, she would still have been in breach of the licence conditions as she was still going to the pub. I do not really think that that is a great example, with all due respect to the Minister.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am happy to provide further examples if that would be helpful but it may be that the tag, if Lucy had had one on, would have been used by the monitoring team to identify where she had or had not been.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for Amendment 106, which would allow for exemptions to restriction zone conditions. I am proud to be a Minister in the Government who introduced this measure. These zones will pin certain offenders down to a specific geographical area to ensure that victims can move freely everywhere else. I must pay tribute to those who campaigned tirelessly for this crucial change, including Diana Parkes and Hetti Barkworth-Nanton.

I hope that it will help your Lordships if I explain in a little more detail how the process of drawing a restriction zone will work. Where a restriction zone is deemed necessary and proportionate to manage risk, probation officers will conduct a detailed risk assessment. They will work closely with victim liaison officers, to ensure that victims have been given the chance to make representations where appropriate, but they must also ensure that offenders can access all necessary services, including employment, with consideration of public protection and risk. They must not be a barrier to employment or prevent rehabilitation; as someone who has championed the employment of ex-offenders for years, noble Lords will know that this is the last thing I would want to happen.

On a recent visit to the Serco office in Warrington, I saw at first hand how exclusion zones are designed. I saw the detailed consideration and care that is given when developing them; I will ensure that the same level of attention is given to restriction zones when those are being drawn, with due consideration given to the needs of both the victim and the offender. Let us be clear: these considerations are inextricably linked. Supporting offenders to rehabilitate and stopping the cycling of reoffending are vital parts of ensuring that restriction zones protect victims. Restriction zones, like all restrictive measures, must accommodate rehabilitative aims, such as employment; that way, we will better protect not just a single victim but all victims.

Amendment 101A from the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, would give the Parole Board oversight of restriction zones. Although I thank the noble Baroness for raising this matter, my firm view is that, as I have set out throughout this speech, the Probation Service is best placed to monitor and request licence conditions; and that the judiciary is best placed to hand out orders.

The Parole Board is best placed to develop risk management plans on release for indeterminate sentence offenders and more serious determinate sentence offenders whose release it directs. It is not for it to do so in cases where offenders are subject to automatic release. If an offender is released automatically without any involvement of the Parole Board, it would be inappropriate for the board then to be asked to approve a restriction zone for an offender whose release it did not direct; it would have no knowledge of the individual and their case. As with current provisions, it is right that the Probation Service will manage the licence for these cases. It is the one who know the offender and the risk they pose best.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for his Amendment 110ZA. I agree that it is important to ensure that electronic monitoring is imposed where it is proportionate and necessary to do so. When an electronic monitoring condition is being considered following an individual’s release from custody, the Probation Service will carry out an extensive assessment of that individual’s circumstances to ensure that electronic monitoring is used appropriately as part of its wider supervision. Conducting these assessments via the professional judgment of our Probation Service remains a core principle to ensuring that electronic monitoring is used only where it is proportionate and necessary. I have full confidence in the checks and decisions taken by the Probation Service, and I have confidence in the technology that is used to enforce any electronic monitoring requirement. I can assure the noble Lord that the electronic monitoring suitability checks currently in place and carried out by the Probation Service are robust; they ensure that the imposition of electronic monitoring will not result in harm to victims or perpetrators.

We are confident that probation officers will continue to impose electronic monitoring where it is proportionate and necessary to do so. I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those occasions when scrutiny is important to both the proponents and opponents of a proposition. Some of us want to make sure that it works; others want to show that it will not. I hope that the Minister will understand that, certainly from these Benches, we are seeking not to oppose what he is planning but to understand how it will work. To me, identifying where there is a breach is the big question mark. I enthusiastically accept his suggestion that we can have further briefings; although I never like doing things in private, those are a necessary step.

The noble Viscount criticised my drafting rather than the substance—at least, I hope that was the case. I know of the case of the lady whose wrists were too slim to take a tag. It was worse than that. She kept being told that she was in breach because it was understood that she was refusing to wear a tag, whereas she could not. There are a lot of situations that one cannot quite imagine until one discovers that they have actually happened.

I am sure that we will come back to this subject of enforcement. Having had a look at the relevant clause just now, I am relieved that these are not among the provisions that will commence immediately on the passing of the Act. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments were tabled by me and my noble friend Lord Sandhurst.

As we have already seen, the Bill introduces new prohibition powers: prohibitions on attending public events, restrictions on entering drinking establishments, restriction zones limiting movement and electronic monitoring to enforce compliance. In principle this all sounds very sensible, but we must again ask the critical question: how will these powers work on the ground?

On the prohibitions with respect to drinking establishments, legally the offender must comply but enforcement is then shared. Probation must monitor and the police must act. In practice, this is far from straightforward. How will breaches be reliably detected? GPS or electronic monitoring may indicate proximity but cannot confirm entry. Reporting from licensees or police may be inconsistent. Once a breach is detected, how quickly can probation services respond and are resources sufficient to manage multiple offenders across wide areas? Without clarity, we cannot be confident that these powers will work.

That is precisely why Amendments 71 and 76 are tabled. They would require the Probation Service to record and publish breaches, repeat breaches and underlying offences. They also probe the reliability of electronic monitoring. Can GPS monitoring operate reliably in towns, cities and rural areas? Will probation teams receive training to know how and when to respond? As I have said before, we know that probation services are already stretched. Surely new powers that add a substantial responsibility to their workload have to be considered with care. We simply seek clarity as to how these services will be managed in these circumstances.

These amendments come from a place of reality, not of opposition. They affirm the Government’s policy while probing whether it can be delivered reliably. I look forward to the Minister’s response on how these powers will operate in practice. I beg to move.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for their amendments. The new community requirements in Clauses 13 to 16 are vital reforms. I am glad that I have had the opportunity to speak to them in some detail today. Amendments 65, 71 and 75 seek to require HMPPS to publish the number of offenders who breach these requirements and to log what their associated offences were. While I am sympathetic to the intent behind this, we do not agree that it is necessary. The Ministry of Justice already publishes detailed sentence outcome statistics. These include the type of disposals handed out at court and are split by detailed offences and offender characteristic. We regularly assess the effectiveness of all community requirements.

Furthermore, HMPPS publishes a range of staffing and case load data on a quarterly basis. We must be conscious of adding more work into the service. We also place great value on the independent oversight and assurance provided by HM Inspectorate of Probation. It already inspects the service and provides insight into how it is performing. Given the information that is already available, we do not agree that adding a statutory requirement to publish this information is necessary or proportionate. But I assure the noble and learned Lord that I will keep an open mind. I will continue to review regularly what data is published, what can be stopped and what can be added.

Amendments 74 and 76 probe the use of electronic monitoring to enforce restriction zones as part of a community or suspended sentence order. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for tabling these amendments. With regard to Amendment 74, I can assure him that electronic monitoring will be imposed alongside these orders in the vast majority of cases. However, electronic monitoring is not appropriate in all cases. Some offenders have no fixed abode. They may live complex and chaotic lifestyles. Imposing an electronic monitoring requirement would likely set up these individuals to fail, instead of helping them to improve outcomes for victims, the public and the offender themselves. A court will be able to impose a restriction zone without electronic monitoring when it cannot obtain the consent of someone whose co-operation is required, such as the home owner, where the appropriate local arrangements are not in place to enable electronic monitoring, or where it would be inappropriate. It is right that the decision about what requirements to include as part of the sentence sits with the judiciary hearing the individual case.

If a court does not believe that a restriction zone will be effective without electronic monitoring, it has a range of other requirements at its disposal. When a requirement is not electronically monitored, the Probation Service will monitor offenders’ behaviour for any potential breach. It will have a suite of options available to respond to breaches if it identifies that they have not complied—for example, from police intelligence or victim concerns.

I will end by briefly turning to the question of how these are to be monitored in practice and the reliability of the technology that allows the Probation Service to do so. The use of electronic monitoring to enforce these requirements will mean that we receive retrospective data that provides clear evidence of an individual’s whereabouts. This ensures that those receiving a restriction zone are robustly monitored. GPS is a reliable technology that has been part of electronic monitoring since 2018. This will allow the Probation Service to assess whether someone has breached their restriction zone. As I have said before, if this happens, probation staff have a range of enforcement options at their disposal.

I thank the noble and learned Lord for the constructive discussions on these matters and hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance on the points raised. I therefore urge him to withdraw Amendment 65.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for moving his amendment. Providing care for individuals with addictions, gambling in particular, should be a fundamental role of a national health service, and we support his aims.

As the noble Lord explained, gambling addiction is a chronic issue across this country. Roughly 2.8% of all adults are engaged in at-risk or problem gambling—a huge number of people either in need of, or at risk of needing, support services. His amendments highlight this issue and the need for our services properly to address gambling addiction.

We support the sentiment behind the approach to general addiction recovery services of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe. Often, individuals with addiction either cannot or do not want to accept recovery services. To introduce a requirement to engage with services would serve those people. This is particularly the case in prisons. Last year, there were almost 50,000 adults in recovery in alcohol and drug treatment centres in prison and secure settings. Almost 60% of those individuals were undergoing treatment for crack or opiates. That 60% comprises vulnerable individuals being treated for misuse of the hardest substances.

The principle behind Amendments 131 to 133, from the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, clearly reflects the reality of the situation. We heard an interesting proposal from the noble Lord, which merits consideration. We also heard an interesting speech from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, who of course has great experience as a Minister in this field. We remain, however, not fully convinced that this group of amendments would have the desired effect.

There is a large question mark hovering over the whole Bill: the general enforceability of the new orders it introduces. We have explained that we do not agree with the decision to suspend sentences under 18 months—that is, 18 months because the Government have opposed our guilty plea amendment—but if the Government are to make this all work, the new orders they impose have to be effective. As I have said before, we are not convinced that they will be.

As I have already argued, the Government’s new drinking establishment entry prohibition requirement realistically is unenforceable. Public event attendance is too vague and too broad. The Government’s approach to new orders is largely deficient. We do not think they should be taking on new responsibilities, even if there is a need for them, as is the case with gambling addiction, when they have demonstrated an incapacity to plan for the existing responsibilities that are being imposed.

The onus, therefore, is on the Government to demonstrate that the noble Lord’s well-intentioned amendments can be accepted, if possible, and then implemented. We would like this to be the case, but only if possible. Gambling addiction and addiction in general require attention from our state, but the state must first prove itself competent. We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for sharing their views and tabling these amendments, which raise important issues around tackling gambling harms and the harms caused by other addictions. Just last week I met a prisoner at HMP Wormwood Scrubs whose life have been devastated by gambling harm. Although the data on gambling is limited, I understand that this is an important issue impacting the lives of offenders and their families.

Amendments 70 and 78 would introduce new community order requirements: one prohibiting an offender from entering a gambling establishment, and one introducing a mandatory treatment requirement. I wholeheartedly share the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, to supporting offenders whose lives are impacted by gambling. I assure noble Lords that courts already have the power to prohibit offenders serving a community or suspended sentence from entering gambling premises. They can do this through a prohibited activity requirement.

However, I reassure the noble Lord that we will continue to keep the menu of community requirements under close review. Clause 17 introduces a power to add or amend community requirements using secondary legislation. This will provide further flexibility to ensure that the framework is kept relevant to the offending behaviour.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and my noble friend Lord Brooke, and supported by my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, speak to the wider issue of how the criminal justice system can support and treat those whose offending is driven by addiction or mental health needs. I know this issue is close to noble Lords’ hearts and I agree completely that alongside effective punishment we have a duty to rehabilitate offenders with gambling addictions and other needs. We must provide them with the right support throughout the criminal justice system to rebuild their lives. I hope it will help your Lordships for me to set out the ways in which we are already doing so.

Pre-sentence reports help the court identify underlying issues such as harmful gambling, mental ill-health and addiction, which may influence offending behaviour. Mental health conditions and addictions can be considered at sentencing where they are relevant to the offence or the offender’s culpability. Courts are encouraged to take an individualised approach, particularly where the condition contributes to someone’s offending. Where appropriate, courts may consider mental health treatment requirements, funded by NHS England as part of a community or suspended sentence order, where mental health has been identified as an underlying factor. The use of these requirements has increased significantly in recent years.

Alongside this, HMPPS delivers a broad range of rehabilitative interventions through probation, which can help address wider gambling-related harms. This includes support with thinking and behaviour, homelessness or unemployment. We also work closely with health partners to ensure that pathways to treatment and recovery services are accessible for offenders and aligned with prison and probation services. This includes increasing the use and effectiveness of mental health, alcohol and drug treatment requirements as part of community and suspended sentences.

For those in prison, there is already a statutory duty for prison governors to provide health services in custody, with our approach guided by the principle of equivalence of care to patients in the community. We are ensuring that prison leavers remain in treatment on release by strengthening links to prison, probation and treatment providers.

Finally, support for those with gambling-related harms in the criminal justice system will be bolstered by funding from the statutory gambling levy. The Government have committed to publishing an annual report on the progress of this. I will also reach out to representatives in the gambling industry and will look to host a round table with them next year to better understand the impacts of gambling harm and what more we can do.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, also tabled Amendment 108, which would give new powers to set licence conditions prohibiting offenders from entering a gambling establishment. I want to be clear that the provisions in Clause 24 will support our aim to give practitioners a full range of tools to manage and support offenders. Existing powers enable probation to set additional licence conditions related to gambling, including prohibiting offenders on licence from gambling or making payments for other games of chance.

Probation also has an existing power to request an additional licence condition, directing offenders to undertake activities to address their gambling activities, where necessary and proportionate to their risk. HMPPS delivers a broad range of rehabilitative interventions through probation, which can help address wider gambling-related harms. We will be looking at issuing operational guidance to practitioners on effective usage of gambling-related licence conditions, alongside implementation of the new conditions set out in Clause 24. I would very much like to harness the considerable expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on this topic. I hope that he will be keen to work with me and my officials as this work develop0s.

Finally, I thank my noble friend Lord Bach for his Amendment 101. I reassure him that probation practitioners carefully consider what licence conditions to recommend as part of their supervision and management of an offender. They can tailor conditions to the specific needs of the offender, in line with managing public protection.

Although there is no formal process for representations, this is not considered to be necessary. Probation practitioners draw on a range of information when applying licence conditions and discuss conditions with offenders as part of release planning. They must ensure that licence conditions are necessary and proportionate, and they can grant necessary exemptions to licence conditions for rehabilitative purposes. This will be the same for the new conditions.

I repeat my thanks to noble Lords for allowing the Committee to debate these important subjects, but I hope I have explained why the Government do not agree that these amendments are necessary. I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for agreeing, in principle at least, with the amendments and rightly saying that he wants them accepted and implemented, but only when he can be convinced that they can be enforced. In so doing, he draws attention to the well-known problem of the shortage of support, even at present. For example, of those who are identified as having a mental health problem when they enter prison, only 1.8% actually even start treatment. He is quite right that we have to do much more. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, also pointed that out. We must do much more about the provision of support.

The Minister also described this as a serious problem. He is quite right, because the percentage of people in prison who suffer from a gambling disorder is many times greater than in the population at large. The amount of gambling that goes on in prison is now very well documented and, sadly, on occasion involves prison officers.

The one disappointing thing in the Minister’s response is that he seemed to believe that it is still perfectly all right to separate out from mental health the two issues of drugs and alcohol but not even to include the words “gambling disorder” in the list, the assessment procedure and so on. I hope I can persuade him, in the discussions he is obviously keen to have—I am keen to have them as well—that we can find a way forward. I am very keen indeed to ensure that those words are included in the relevant documentation. Having said that, for the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Porter of Fulwood (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome Amendment 148A. The Bill will shape the ecosystems of support that underpin and surround our entire justice system. A recurring theme through Second Reading and Committee so far has been the question of resourcing. While the focus of these discussions has been largely around the Probation Service itself, we cannot ignore the 1,700 community and voluntary organisations that work in this area, both inside and outside prisons.

We know that there are many aspects where community and voluntary organisations excel. There are some dimensions, the evidence shows, where they provide better than private companies or the public sector. They build social capital, enable trust and often have an understanding of vital contextual points related to specific communities or issues. I am sure any of us who have spent any substantial time volunteering and working closely with people in very vulnerable situations understand this dynamic.

In general, this sector in the UK is facing challenges on many fronts. The rise in national insurance, corporate giving stalling and increasing overheads across the board, combined with growing demand, are all contributing to what the National Council for Voluntary Organisations refers to as the year of the “big squeeze”. Clinks’ State of the Sector 2024 report makes for sobering reading, and that is the situation as things stand. If the vision that sits behind the Bill is to stand any chance of success, not only do we need to find a way to support and shore up the existing voluntary and community sector but we need to prioritise expanding its capacity and growing it.

That is more straightforward than it sounds. There is a remarkable level of agreement across organisations such as the Charities Aid Foundation, the Centre for Social Justice, Clinks and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, to name a few, about the kinds of policies that are needed. A lot of these are to do with processes: simplifying, contracting, commissioning locally and more collaboratively, introducing contract indexation and protecting local specialist funding. Others are about finding ways of attracting more private and corporate donations into the sector; for example, making changes to gift aid and introducing matched funding. Others, as the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee report Better Prisons: Less Crime highlighted, are practical points about how HMPPS and individual prisons can co-ordinate better with the third sector.

This amendment by itself is not an answer, but it is a prerequisite for bringing the level of transparency and accountability that is needed into this system. This provides a powerful opportunity, if used correctly. We need to understand in more detail the plan for addressing the impact of the Bill by requiring a formal report on its impact and on the capacity of the voluntary and community sector to meet any increased demand. This amendment will build accountability into the system.

If we fail to monitor the effects of this legislation on the very organisations that underpin rehabilitation and community safety, we risk creating new pressures in the system. By amending the Bill to provide for this assessment, the Government have the opportunity to send a clear signal here, demonstrating that they believe that policy should be informed by data and that the community and voluntary sector is a valued partner. This amendment would strengthen oversight, support the sector and ensure that the promises of the Bill are matched by the capacity of the community to deliver them.

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord for the opportunity to discuss these important issues. I appreciate that these amendments seek to improve transparency and public understanding of the criminal justice system, and this Government agree wholeheartedly on the importance of open justice. However, we do not consider that these amendments are necessary to achieve that aim.

I turn first to Amendment 84. I reassure noble Lords that the Government are taking action to increase the openness and transparency of the system. In certain cases of high public interest, sentencing remarks are already published online, and sentencing remarks can also be filmed by broadcasters, subject to the agreement of the judge. The sentencing of Thomas Cashman for the appalling murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel was one such example. The Government have recently extended provision of free transcripts of sentencing remarks to victims of rape and other sexual offences whose cases are heard in the Crown Court, and it remains the case that bereaved families of victims of murder, manslaughter and fatal road offences can request judges’ sentencing remarks for free. We are also actively exploring opportunities offered by AI to reduce the costs of producing transcripts in future and to make transcripts across the system more accessible. But this amendment introducing this additional provision of court transcripts would place a significant financial burden on the courts and divert resources away from where they are needed most in the wider system.

The release of any court transcript requires judicial oversight to ensure accuracy and adherence to any reporting restrictions and to make sure that other public interest factors have been considered. This amendment would therefore have significant operational and resource implications for HMCTS and the judiciary. It would place extra demands on judicial capacity in the Crown Court and on HMCTS at a time when the system is under immense pressure, so while we agree entirely on the importance of transparency within the justice system, we cannot accept the amendment at this time. However, I reassure noble Lords that we will continue to consider this closely. In particular, I want to explore what opportunities AI presents to improve transcriptions and data. I am sure that noble Lords agree that the potential is there and that we need to find the best way to harness it. I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on the point around data and accuracy.

I turn to Amendment 85. Again, we agree with the principle of improving transparency but not with the necessity of the amendment itself. This Government are committed to improving the collection and publication of data on foreign national offenders. The Ministry of Justice has already taken action to increase transparency on the data published. Notably, in July, for the first time the offender management statistics included a breakdown of foreign national offenders in prison by sex and offence group. We are also working closely with colleagues in the Home Office to establish earlier identification of foreign national offenders. Being able to verify the nationality of offenders ahead of sentencing will facilitate more timely removals and may also provide an opportunity for enhanced data collection. We will keep this under review as part of our ongoing work to strengthen the data collection and publication system that we inherited from the previous Government.

Implementation of these measures may require a new mechanism to verify the information provided, which must be cost effective and prevent placing additional pressure on operational staff. For this reason, we cannot accept a statutory duty to publish this information before the necessary infrastructure is in place to support it. Our measured approach will continue to support the return of more foreign national offenders while ensuring maximum transparency for the public.

I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord for Amendment 148A concerning measuring the impact of the Bill on the voluntary and community sectors. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Porter of Fulwood, who has championed this subject during the Bill’s passage. She made a thoughtful and impassioned contribution at Second Reading and in today’s debate. The voluntary and community sector plays a vital role in developing and delivering services to people in our care. The sector supports HMPPS and the MoJ by bridging gaps and providing continuity that reduces reoffending and drives rehabilitation through targeted specialist support. Many of the services we provide would not be possible without the vital contribution of the voluntary sector, including charities such as Women in Prison, the St Giles Trust, PACT and many others. The Independent Sentencing Review made recommendations for where the third sector can be utilised to support the Probation Service and offenders on community sentences or on licence.

We already work closely with third-sector organisations to deliver better outcomes in the criminal justice system. For example, we work in partnership with the charity Clinks through the HMPPS and MoJ infrastructure grant to engage a network of around 1,500 organisations. In collaboration with Clinks, we have convened a series of roundtables with voluntary and community sector representatives and policy colleagues to explore the review’s recommendations and how the sector can make the greatest contribution to probation capacity.

I have carefully considered Amendment 148A. However, it will not be possible to fully understand the impact within 12 months, nor based just on data from the first six months of the Act being in force. Implementation of the Bill’s provisions will be phased over time and closely linked to the outcomes of the Leveson review and its implementation. In addition, the sector’s experience will be influenced by the introduction of new commissioned rehabilitative services contracts. Measuring the impact within such a short timeframe amid these overlapping and confounding factors would be highly complex. But again, I want to explore the opportunities that AI presents to collect and use better data in future. I can assure noble Lords that we will continue to work closely with the sector to ensure that it is considered and utilised in the implementation of this Bill.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken on this group. Their contributions have underscored the wide recognition across this Committee that transparency, accountability and evidence must underpin any credible approach to sentencing reform. These amendments do not seek to frustrate the Bill in any way; they seek to ensure that its objectives can be properly understood, monitored and delivered. Regarding Amendment 84, we have heard throughout this debate the importance of public confidence in the criminal justice system, and confidence cannot exist without visibility.

On Amendment 85, I once again make the simple point that you cannot manage what you do not measure. With respect to Amendment 148A, I too acknowledge the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Porter; her thoughtful and insightful contribution reflected her long-standing experience and interest in this issue. At this time, I withdraw the amendment, but I give notice to the Minister that we will return to this issue at a later point in the process of the Bill.