Sentencing Bill

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am co-chair of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group, and I very broadly welcome this Bill as a logical and rational response to the serious problems of prison overcrowding and of years, even decades, of sentence inflation. I will focus my remarks on two areas, if I may: on concerns with the Bill expressed to me by the justice unions, especially Napo—formerly the National Association of Probation Officers—and also on something seriously lacking from the Bill, which has already been pointed out, namely a viable way to wipe away the vile stain of IPP sentences.

I echo the concerns raised in the other place on probation capacity, unpaid work and electronic monitoring, following warnings by Napo, which led to three amendments tabled, as the Minister knows, at Committee and Report stages. The first of these gave the chief inspector the power to delay any aspect of the Bill that places extra pressure on probation until the service is indeed ready. The second stopped the private sector profiting from the expansion of unpaid work orders or community sentences, which are only run by the Probation Service, charities, local authorities or other non-profit organisations. The third aimed to bring tagging operations into the public sector Probation Service and out of the hands of the failing and corrupt privateers, such as Serco and G4S. On this point, I note last week’s letter to Ministers from the Justice and Home Affairs Committee warning that probation is being “set up to fail” with electronic monitoring. It also called for an independent review on tagging

“with a view to operating parallel contracts managed by a fully funded and supported Probation Service”—

something staff would very much agree with; I have no doubt about that.

I raise these points today because, unfortunately, none of the concerns was addressed during the debates in the other place, nor has the promised union meeting with Commons Ministers materialised. That is what I believe. I hope that, by my putting all this on record, the Minister will appreciate the depth of feeling among front-line staff on these issues and seek to reassure them appropriately.

Turning to IPP sentences, I have listened to the previous contributions, including from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. He talked about “progress, but”—and it is a big but—and he gave a tremendous overview of IPP and its potential way forward. As always on this subject, the contributions from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, were outstanding, and I thank them on behalf of prisoners and their relatives.

Your Lordships will know that I am currently sponsoring a Private Member’s Bill, as has been mentioned, to resentence everyone still serving these torture sentences. IPP resentencing was debated when this Bill passed through the Commons with different amendments proposed by—wait for it—the Liberal Democrats and the chair of the Justice Select Committee. Although the power of the Whip meant that these initiatives were unsuccessful, it is important to continue to use this Bill to highlight the plight of IPP prisoners, both to pressure the Government and to continue to raise public awareness.

That is why I intend to table my own amendment on IPP resentencing, based on the text of my Bill and incorporating the helpful amendments proposed by Members of the Committee on my Bill. These include the secure-hospital backstop proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, so that anyone whom the resentencing court considered too mentally ill to be released into the community yet could be moved to a secure hospital to receive badly needed therapeutic resources. I wish to table this new amendment, because I want the Government to put their objections to it on the record, for them to be judged fully and fairly in the future by action on IPP—not just warm words and slow actions, which, unfortunately, is still the case at the moment.

It genuinely pains me to say this, but I am starting to lose a little bit of faith that Parliament will fix this appalling injustice that Parliament itself created well over 20 years ago. That does not mean we should give up fighting—no, not at all. We must fight harder, for fairness and, indeed, for justice. But until we see an ITV docudrama made about this scandal, like “Mr Bates vs The Post Office”, or until MPs’ mailboxes are full of messages from constituents, our best hope lies with the courts and with them showing the justice and mercy that successive Governments have failed to. That is why it so important for the Minister to explain the Government’s position fully and fairly on why they will not support resentencing with a secure-hospital backstop.

As perverse as it might sound, the more stubborn and unreasonable the Government sound, the more likely it is that the judiciary will side with those of us who are desperate to end this injustice. Indeed, so will the United Nations, which is currently considering a complaint brought by IPP campaigners against our own Government. It is shameful. People imprisoned for public protection and their families know that there are a growing number of us in this House and in the other place that will not give up until this stain is wiped clean. Noble Lords had better believe that.

In finishing, I repeat what my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said: I give compliments to our Minister, who deserves praise where praise is due. I look forward to the Minister’s response and to a further debate on these issues as the Bill progresses and to our next IPP update on 10 December.