The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana
Mahmood) With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to
make a statement on how the Government will address the crisis in
our prisons, not just today, but for years to come. The House has
heard me recount my inheritance as Lord Chancellor before. The
crisis in our prisons was, I believe, the greatest disgrace of the
last Conservative Government. They left our prisons on the point of
collapse—a...Request free trial
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice ()
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a
statement on how the Government will address the crisis in our
prisons, not just today, but for years to come.
The House has heard me recount my inheritance as Lord Chancellor
before. The crisis in our prisons was, I believe, the greatest
disgrace of the last Conservative Government. They left our
prisons on the point of collapse—a situation that would have
forced us to close the prison doors, cancel all trials and force
the police to halt arrests. Crime would have gone unpunished,
victims would never have seen justice done, and we would have
witnessed the total breakdown of law and order. The previous
Prime Minister knew he had to act. His Lord Chancellor begged him
to do so, but instead he called an election.
As I announced to the House on 18 July, we had no choice but to
bring forward the release point for some prisoners. Some of those
serving standard determinate sentences have seen the custodial
element reduced from 50% to 40%, spending the rest of their
sentence on licence. They can be recalled to prison should
probation staff judge that necessary to protect the public. As we
saw over the summer of disorder, these releases could not come
soon enough. After the August bank holiday, we were left with
fewer than 100 spaces in our men's prisons. The system was only
held together by the heroic work and considerable good will of
our prison and probation staff. We were, on many occasions, just
one bad day from disaster.
Today, the second tranche of emergency releases takes place,
creating desperately needed space in our prisons, but that is not
the long-term solution. I will now set out the long-term plan for
our prisons, which will ensure that never again is a Lord
Chancellor placed in the invidious position that I was on taking
office.
This must begin by building more prisons. For all their rhetoric,
the last Conservative Government's record on prison building was
abject. They like to mention that, between 2010 and 2024, they
built 13,000 places. What they are less keen to admit is that, in
the same time, they closed 12,500. In 14 years, they added just
500 places to our prison capacity. In our first 100 days, this
Government are already close to matching that. The previous
Government promised to build 20,000 new places by the mid-2020s,
but by the time they left office, they had built only 6,000. They
were simply too terrified of their own Back Benchers, who
supported prison building vociferously, as long as those prisons
were not built anywhere near them.
This Government will build the prisons that the last Conservative
Government promised but failed to deliver. In seeking a lasting
solution to our prisons crisis, we must be honest, in a way that
my predecessors were not. We cannot build our way out of this
problem. Every year, our prison population grows by around 4,500
prisoners. This is a question of simple mathematics. To build
enough prisons to meet this demand we would have to build the
equivalent of HMP Birmingham—which is in my constituency of
Birmingham Ladywood—four and a half times over, every single
year. To put that in context, in the past 10 years, the last
Conservative Government built just three prisons. While we will
speed up prison building and build as fast as we can, that pace
is simply impossible. For that reason, if we are to address our
prisons crisis, we must be smarter about who receives a prison
sentence.
Let me be clear: there will always be a place for prison, and
there will always be offenders who must be locked up, but we must
expand the range of punishments we use outside prison and
consider how we punish those offenders who have broken our rules
but are not a danger to society. For that reason, today I am
launching a review of sentencing. It will have one clear goal: to
ensure that we are never again in a position where we have more
prisoners than we have space in our prisons.
The review will follow three principles. First, sentences must
punish offenders and protect the public. For dangerous offenders,
prison will always remain the answer. Punishment and public
protection will be the Government's first priority. There are
some offenders whom I will task the review with considering, such
as prolific offenders, who account for just one in every 10
individuals, but nearly half of all sentences. Some of them are
hyper-prolific offenders, committing hundreds of crimes. I will
ask the reviewers to consider whether a longer sentence might
punish them better and force them to engage with rehabilitation
on the inside.
The second, related, principle of the review is that sentences
must encourage offenders to turn their backs on crime—we need
both sticks and carrots. I will be encouraging the reviewers to
learn from others who have succeeded. In Texas, for instance,
Republican legislators faced a problem similar to ours: a soaring
prison population; sky-high reoffending rates; and prisons that
had run out of space. Working across political divides, the
Texans introduced a system of good behaviour credits, where
well-behaved prisoners could earn time off their sentence by
engaging in rehabilitation programmes. The results were
remarkable. Crime fell by nearly a third, reaching the lowest
levels in half a century. The prison population fell by over
20,000, and after two decades, the Texans had closed 16 prisons
rather than building new ones.
The third principle of the review is that it must expand the
punishment that offenders receive outside of prison. There are
already ways that we severely constrain offenders, limiting their
freedom outside of prison. Those under home detention curfews
are, in practice, under a form of house arrest. With a tag on
their ankle and a sensor in their home, they are placed under
curfew, generally for 12 hours each day. Should they break that
curfew, they can be picked up and, if needs be, locked up.
In some ways, punishment outside of prison can be even more
restrictive than prison. It is a sad fact that in many of our
prisons today, a drinker can all too easily procure a drink. On a
sobriety tag, however, with their sweat measured every 30 minutes
and a 97% compliance rate, their teetotalism is almost as strict
as mine. All of that is just using the technology that is
immediately available to us, and used already in this country. I
will be inviting the reviewers to consider the technology they
have available to them now, and the next frontier of technology,
used in other countries but not yet in ours. I believe that the
modern world presents us with the opportunity to build a prison
outside of prison, where the eyes of the state follow a prisoner
more closely than any prison officer can.
Moving punishment out of prison for those who can be safely
managed there has huge benefits. Outside of prison, offenders can
engage in work that pays back the communities and individuals
whom they have harmed. The evidence is abundantly clear that
those who serve their sentences outside prison are far less
likely to reoffend. That cuts crime, with fewer victims and safer
streets, and reduces the huge cost to society of reoffending,
most recently valued at over £22 billion a year.
This Government believe that crime must have consequences and
criminals must be punished. We also believe in
rehabilitation—that those who earn the right must be encouraged
to turn their backs on crime. This Government believe in prison,
but we must increase the use of punishment outside of prison too.
The sentencing review will be tasked with pursuing those
goals.
I am pleased to say that the review will be led by a former Lord
Chancellor, , a highly regarded Minister who
served in multiple roles across Government. He has rightly gained
the respect of both the judiciary and the legal sector, as well
as many within this House. I will work with him to assemble a
panel of reviewers who will draw together deep expertise and
experience in the criminal justice system. The review will take a
bipartisan and evidence-based look at an issue that has for far
too long been a political football, booted around by both sides.
will report back with his
recommendations in the spring, and I have placed a copy of the
complete terms of reference of the review in the Library of the
House.
It is right that the review is given time to do its work. As I
have noted already, however, the capacity crisis in our prisons
has not gone away. When we introduced emergency measures we
believed that they had bought us about a year, but after the
summer of disorder, the next crisis could be just nine months
away. For that reason, I announced last week an extension of the
sentencing powers of magistrates courts, which allows us to bear
down on the remand population in our prisons. But we must go
further.
While I will not countenance any further emergency releases of
prisoners, there are operational measures that I will lay before
the House in the months ahead. The first, which I have already
referenced, is home detention curfew. This modern form of house
arrest curtails freedom and helps offenders turn their lives
around. Offenders are subject to electronically monitored
curfews, which must be imposed for nine hours a day, are
generally 12 hours long, and can extend to 16 hours.
As the shadow Lord Chancellor noted in the House in February, the
reoffending rate for the average prisoner, which was measured a
few years ago, is close to 50%, but for offenders released on a
home detention curfew, it is 23%. This Government will soon
extend the use of that measure, following in the footsteps of the
previous Administration, who rightly expanded its use on a number
of occasions. We will increase the maximum period that eligible
offenders can spend under house arrest from six months to 12
months.
The second measure that we will introduce will address the
soaring recall population, which has doubled from 6,000 to 12,000
in just six years. Risk assessed recall review is a power of the
Secretary of State to re-release, on licence, those who pose a
low risk to the public, avoiding the long waits they often face
for a Parole Board hearing. In the past, the measure was used
often: it was used between 1,000 and 1,500 times each year
between 2017 and 2019; but its use has fallen in recent years,
reaching as low as 92 times in 2022.
Later this month, I intend to review the risk assessed recall
review process, so that lower-risk cases can be considered for
re-release after they have been recalled to prison for two to
three months, and where their further detention is no longer
necessary to protect the public. I should note that this will
only change the cases that can be considered for release, with
the final decision still in the hands of experienced probation
officers and managers.
The final area where I intend to make progress is in the case of
foreign national offenders. I share the public's view that, with
10,000 in our prisons, there are far too many foreign offenders
in this country, costing £50,000 each a year to house at His
Majesty's pleasure. It happens to be my personal view that
deportation is as good a punishment as imprisonment, if not
better. We are currently on track to remove more foreign national
offenders this year than at any time in recent years. But I will
now be working with my colleagues across Government to explore
the ways that we can accelerate that further, including working
with the Home Office to make the early removal scheme for foreign
offenders more effective.
When I walked into the Ministry of Justice for the first time as
Lord Chancellor just over three months ago, I encountered a
prison system on the brink of collapse. It was the result of the
inaction of the last Government, who thought they could dither
and delay, and led us to the precipice of disaster. But their
failure was longer in the making: they failed to build the prison
places this country needs, and they failed to address the
challenge of an ever-rising prison population.
In July, this Government took action to avert immediate disaster,
but the plan that I have set out today does more than that. It
will ensure that this Government and our successors are never
forced to rely on the emergency release of prisoners again—a
measure over which I had no choice, one that I took despite my
personal beliefs, and one that must never happen again. I commend
this statement to the House.
1.47pm
(Melton and Syston) (Con)
As always, I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for early sight
of her statement, and for her coming to the House to deliver it,
giving us the opportunity to ask questions. She is always
unfailingly courteous in her dealings with this House.
The Lord Chancellor made several announcements today. It is
important that we see the detail of her sentencing review, and
that, whatever the outcome, it ensures that victims' voices are
heard throughout, that the worst offenders—for example, violent
or sexual offenders—stay behind bars for longer, and that, as she
alluded to, prolific offenders who cause so much blight and harm
can still be subject to a custodial sentence where
appropriate.
We saw an overall fall in reoffending since 2010 under the last
Government, from around 31% to just over 25%, but there is of
course still more to do. It is right that we look at all
sentences, including tough community sentences, through the prism
of what reduces reoffending, boosts rehabilitation and best
protects the public. With that in mind, I know well; he was my first boss as a
Minister. He is a decent, honourable, able and thoughtful man,
and I regard him as a friend, so I will not prejudge what he will
conclude in his review. But the Opposition will rightly, as the
Lord Chancellor would expect, scrutinise the review when it is
published, and hold the Government to account on the choices they
make on how to proceed subsequently. I hope the review's terms of
reference might include not just male prisoners, but female
prisoners and female offenders, building on the female offenders
strategy that and I put in place many years
ago.
As the Lord Chancellor has set out, prison capacity has been
under significant pressure for some time, and while the situation
was incredibly acute in 2008, 2009 and 2010, it remains a
significant challenge. That is due to an increased average
sentence length for first offenders—for which we make no
apology—matched by the biggest prison-building programme since
the Victorian era, with thousands of additional places built
while tackling the legacy of the crumbling prison estate we
inherited in 2010 and the Labour party's absolute failure to
build the 7,500 Titan prison places it promised while in
government. Of course, though, the impact on the remand
population of the decisions to not mass release during the
pandemic and to rightly retain jury trials, compounded by the Bar
strike, undoubtedly significantly increased pressure despite our
prison-building programme.
The Lord Chancellor has set out her chosen approach, with more
convicted criminals released today at the 40% point of their
sentence, rather than the 50% point in tranche 2 of SDS40. We are
seeing significant levels of concern from victims of crime about
that approach—Sky News ran a powerful package this morning
highlighting that concern—so I have several important questions
on that aspect of the Lord Chancellor's announcement. She said
that she will publish data on SDS40 in the coming weeks in the
normal run of statistics. I understand that, but we would be
grateful if she could provide the date on which those statistics
will be published. In the media this morning, she alluded to the
rate of recalls being “very high” but disputed—based on her
internal data—that it was as high as 50%, as was suggested on
Radio 4. Can she expand on what that rate looks like?
In response to a written question from me, the Under-Secretary of
State for Justice, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Sir ) acknowledged that hotels
are now being used in some cases to accommodate released
prisoners under SDS40. In the light of the Lord Chancellor's
commitment at oral questions last month to be transparent about
this matter—although it took a written question from me to get
that confirmation—how many hotel rooms or places are being used,
and at what cost? We have heard little thus far about deporting
FNOs, so I am pleased that she has focused on that issue in her
remarks, but when will she set out more details of her plans to
improve the deportation rate of FNOs, and what targets is she
setting for that?
Does the Lord Chancellor now acknowledge that—as we pointed out
at the time, and as victims also pointed out—although the
Government claimed that domestic abuse and domestic violence
offences would be excluded from SDS40, that is simply not the
case? DA offenders committing actual bodily harm or grievous
bodily harm are not excluded. Will she revisit the exclusions
list to review this matter? Will she also commit to building more
prisons, over and above the six new prisons that we funded and
have already been completed or are being built, and will she
commit to funding that additional prison building?
Home detention curfew will further reduce the time that convicted
criminals spend behind bars. Someone with a four-year sentence
who is not excluded from SDS40 would now be out at around 19
months; with the possibility of 12-month HDC, that could mean
that they were only inside for just over six months of a
four-year sentence. I recognise that the interaction between
different schemes and calculations is complex and may be
different in individual cases, but can the Lord Chancellor
reassure the House that a fixed minimum percentage will always be
served by those sentenced to prison?
The Lord Chancellor will appreciate that with layer upon layer of
reductions, some people will struggle to see that punishment or
public protection are at the fore, so can she clarify a number of
further points? While most DA offences would be presumed
ineligible for HDC, that presumption is not absolute, and again,
many common DA offences such as ABH or common assault are not
presumed ineligible. What will the Lord Chancellor do to address
that issue? Does she intend to examine the list of exclusions for
both schemes—SDS40 and HDC—and come back to the House with a
tougher list? Tagging is a vital part of HDC, but while there may
be the tags, as she has mentioned, it appears that the ability to
fit them swiftly is sadly lacking at present. What reassurances
can the Lord Chancellor give that there is now no backlog at all
in tagging? What steps is she taking to ensure that victims are
contacted when perpetrators are released, and what additional
resource is going into victim support services and probation,
over and above what we had already committed to?
Turning to the rehabilitation activity requirement, it is right
that experienced staff judge these cases. As the Lord Chancellor
knows, the smaller numbers reflect both risk assessment and the
complex interaction of RAR with other release schemes. I
therefore fear that the bounty she might expect to get from the
changes she intends to make will be limited. Will she confirm
details of those proposed changes for the House in due
course?
Finally, and most importantly, as I pressed the Lord Chancellor
on last week, it is vital that the criminal justice system is not
subject to a flat budget or, worse, cuts in next week's
Budget—cuts that would let down victims, those who work in the
system, and the public. I fully appreciate that she will not be
able to prejudge that Budget, either at the Dispatch Box or in
the media, but a fair financial settlement, alongside her setting
out her long-term plans for the system—a little of which I
acknowledge we have seen today—will be absolutely essential if
victims and the public are to have confidence in her Government
on law and order.
I thank the shadow Lord Chancellor for the courteous way in which
he has approached this debate, and for his detailed
questions.
Let me start with his point in relation to the sentencing review.
The voice of victims will be heard: there will be a
representative with experience of working with victims to make
sure that is covered in the review, and I look forward to
announcing further members of that review panel over the coming
days. The review will be free to consider every aspect of the
sentencing framework, including the use of whole-life orders and
minimum sentences. We have not constrained the sentencing review
in any way: the review panel should take a proper look at the
sentencing framework that we have and go where the evidence takes
them.
I acknowledge the progress that was made on reducing reoffending,
but as the shadow Lord Chancellor accepts, there is much more to
do. We know that 80% of offenders are reoffenders and that 90% of
those sentenced to custody are reoffenders. We have a big problem
with that revolving door in and out of our prisons—as a country,
that is a significant challenge that we must overcome. As I said,
I will be placing the terms of reference in the House of Commons
Library. The shadow Lord Chancellor will be pleased to see that
those terms of reference refer to cohorts of offenders, including
female offenders. He will also know that in my conference speech
in September, I laid out a different approach to how this
Government deal with women in our prisons.
I followed it closely.
I know that the shadow Lord Chancellor followed it closely. I am
setting up a women's justice board, which will report with a
strategy in the spring. We need to do more with female offenders,
especially given the impact that the incarceration of women and
the breaking up of family homes has on their children,
particularly as two thirds of women in prison are there for
non-violent offences. I hope there is cross-party consensus in
this House on dealing with women offenders differently.
On prison capacity, I say gently to the shadow Lord Chancellor
that we can trade numbers across this Dispatch Box about things
that the last Labour Government did before 2010, or he might want
to acknowledge the failure that took place over his Government's
14 years in power. He knows that only 500 net prison places were
added by his Government over those 14 years, and that the crisis
that faced me when I walked into the Department was acute—he
knows that, because he had walked out of that same Department
only a few days before. The previous Government ran our prisons
boiling hot for far too long, so my inheritance when I took over
was dire, leaving me with no option other than the emergency
release of prisoners.
I note the shadow Lord Chancellor's point about domestic abuse
and domestic violence cases, but I remind him that his own early
release scheme that his Government implemented for many months
before the last general election—the so-called end of custody
supervised licence scheme—contained none of the SDS40 exclusions.
He knows that; he also knows that we pulled every lever available
to us within the law to exclude the offences that are most
closely connected to domestic abuse and domestic violence. As a
matter of law, it is only possible to exclude offence types,
rather than offenders. I have had to pull that emergency lever; I
have sought to do so in the safest way possible, to make as many
exclusions as possible, and to give the Probation Service the
time it needs to prepare for this measure and to make sure
victims are notified under victim notification schemes in the
usual way.
I will be publishing the data in relation to tranche 1 and 2
releases in two ad hoc statistical releases before Christmas, so
that data will be in the public domain. As the shadow Lord
Chancellor will know from his time in the Department, the recall
rate usually hovers between 6% and 10%—it can vary quite a bit
between those numbers. Our current information is that the SDS40
releases are not showing a higher recall rate than we would
expect compared with normal releases, but those statistics will
of course be published in the usual way in due course.
On hotels, I made provision to allow the emergency use of hotel
accommodation for prisoners released under the SDS40 scheme to
prevent any homelessness that might lead to higher rates of
recall. Fewer than 20 prisoners have been housed in hotels, and
at a very low cost. This is a temporary measure, and I do not
anticipate that it will be used any more extensively than it has
been already. On foreign national offenders, I will return to
this House on that matter, but work is under way across
Government and I am working closely with my colleagues in the
Home Office.
I will be publishing for the House, and will return to the House
with, the detail of the further measures on the home detention
curfew. The shadow Lord Chancellor rightly says that not
everybody is automatically eligible for a home detention curfew.
There is still a risk assessment, and safeguarding concerns are
the No. 1 way in which domestic abuse issues show up as a red
flag for a particular prisoner. I would not imagine that those
previous and current arrangements will change very much with the
measures we will take.
I thank the shadow Lord Chancellor for the contract concluded
with Serco to deliver the tagging. It may not have been him
directly and personally, but it was his Government. The
performance of Serco has been unacceptable. Let me be very clear
with the House: there is no shortage of tags in this country. It
has failed to make sure that it has enough staff in place to tag
everybody who needs a tag. Its progress has been monitored daily
by me, my Ministers and officials in the Department, and we will
continue to hold its feet to the fire. We will levy financial
penalties, and all options remain on the table. Performance has
improved a little—it has made progress—but all options are on the
table if that falls back in any way.
The shadow Lord Chancellor will know that I am not going to
comment on anything relating to the Budget. The Chancellor will
make her statement in due course. I gently remind him that the
budgets of the Ministry of Justice under the Tory party left a
lot to be desired.
Madam Deputy Speaker ()
I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.
(Hammersmith and Chiswick)
(Lab)
I welcome the approach the Lord Chancellor is taking to the
management of the prison system, and the appointment of to head the sentencing review.
Given that the initiatives she has announced today to relieve
pressure on prisons will create additional work for already
overstretched probation officers, will she make a further
statement when she has decided what operational changes she is
going to make to the Probation Service? The additional 14,000
prison places she has promised to build will take prison capacity
to above 100,000. Is that desirable in the long term? Given her
intention to expand punishment outside prison, will she make it
her aim in time to close some of the worst of our existing
prisons, built two or three centuries ago, which warehouse crime
and, despite the best efforts of prison staff, do little or
nothing to reform or rehabilitate their inmates?
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his questions. On
probation, I recognise the very high workloads that probation
officers are working under. We committed in our manifesto to a
strategic review of probation governance. I have made sure that
we have brought forward the recruitment of an extra 1,000
probation officers by March next year. We are working closely
with probation unions and probation staff on the frontline to
manage the situation. I am very conscious that we do not want to
take the pressure out of the prisons and just leave it with the
Probation Service instead. This is a whole-system response, and
the whole system needs to be stabilised and able to face the
pressures we see in it.
On the prison population, make no mistake: the number of prison
places will increase in this country. We will deliver the 14,000
the previous Government did not deliver, and the prison
population will therefore rise. However, as I have said, we
cannot build our way out of this crisis, and we do have to do
things differently. We are a very long way away from any of the
changes the Chair of the Select Committee may want to see, but
fundamentally we must make sure, and the review must make sure,
that we never ever run out of prison places in this country
again.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
(Eastbourne) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her
statement.
Having myself grown up in a home of domestic violence at the
hands of my mum's former partner, I share the concerns of the
Victims' Commissioner and survivors of domestic abuse that
loopholes in the early release scheme's criteria could mean that
some of their abusers, who have been convicted of violent
offences but not of domestic violence-specific offences, may have
been released early today. I know the Secretary of State
attempted to provide some reassurances, but I can say to her that
I have received communications from affected people outside this
Chamber who are not satisfied with those assurances yet. Domestic
abuse survivors deserve to be safe. Can she address these
concerns today?
We welcome the Government's determination to fix the mess that
the Conservatives made of our criminal justice system through the
evidence-led, independent sentencing review. The former Lord
Chancellor chairing it and I have a track record of fixing things
together. In my past life, I used to run a social enterprise
phone repair company staffed by ex-offenders, and we ran pop-up
repair shops in the MOJ, at one of which the then Lord Chancellor
eagerly presented his phone for
repair. I hope this Lord Chancellor shares that collaborative
fixing spirit when it comes to engaging with the Liberal
Democrats and me on this review—and I will happily sort the
Secretary of State out with a phone repair if she needs one.
While empirical evidence will be critical to this review, some of
the most valuable insights on this matter are held by victims and
survivors themselves. I was therefore disappointed not to find
the words “victim” or “survivor” mentioned once anywhere in the
terms of reference, although I have heard the Secretary of State
say them today. Will she put that right, and outline specifically
how victims and survivors will be represented and formally
consulted in the sentencing review?
Finally, even though the Secretary of State has said there will
be no constraints and no constrictions, something else missing
from the review is the injustice of indeterminate imprisonment
for public protection sentences, under which almost 3,000 people
remain imprisoned with no release date. What is more, people are
serving IPP sentences who have committed lesser offences than
those being released today under the Government's early release
scheme. Reforming these sentences could help address prison
overcrowding and the safety crisis, so why have the Government
explicitly excluded IPP sentences from this review, and will she
reconsider that decision?
I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for his questions. I am
sorry to hear about his personal experiences, but they will of
course inform the valuable contributions that he makes in this
House from his own lived experience.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is not a specific offence of
domestic abuse in our legislative framework. To bring in the
emergency release scheme to prevent us from running out of prison
spaces in July, I have pulled every lever at my disposal. We can
make these changes in law only by excluding offences, not
offender cohorts or offender types. That is why the list of
offences covered includes those most closely connected to
domestic abuse situations, but it is not of course fully
comprehensive. It cannot be, because we can exclude only
offences, not offender types. I hope he will recognise that I
pulled these levers as early as possible in the Parliament—almost
as soon as I walked into the Department—because I wanted to give
the Probation Service time to prepare for this change.
Specifically, it was so that it could notify victims, work on
proper release plans for these offenders, make sure that the
licence conditions are the right ones and make sure that the
monitoring of these offenders in the community is as strong as it
needs to be.
The hon. Gentleman will also know that those who are flagged as
having a domestic violence background are prioritised for tags.
Every choice I have made in bringing forward these emergency
release changes has been made to try to minimise the impact on
victims. I really empathise with and am very affected by the
concerns of victims that those who have offended against them are
being released some weeks or months early. That might sound
small, but I know it has a huge impact, and I do not seek to
minimise that in any way. As I say, I have pulled every lever at
my disposal to try to minimise those concerns.
On the sentencing review, when we reveal the whole panel we will
ensure that victims' voices are represented, as that is
important. In the terms of reference we have tried to capture the
fact that all of society suffers collectively when we do not get
reoffending rates down. This is a strategy for cutting crime and
producing fewer victims in future, which I hope the hon.
Gentleman will support.
IPP sentences are specifically excluded. That is a challenging
cohort of prisoners in our system, and where it is safe to do so
I am determined to make progress on releasing those who are
currently serving an IPP sentence. I worked with the previous
Government and supported changes to the licence terms and
conditions brought in by the Conservative Administration. We are
implementing changes that were made in the Victims and Prisoners
Act 2024, which was enacted just before the general election.
What we cannot do is release people who still pose a risk to the
public, and with this cohort of offenders I cannot release those
who are still a danger to themselves and to others. Getting that
balance right is incredibly important, and I hope the hon.
Gentleman will acknowledge that it is not appropriate to put that
cohort of offenders within the sentencing review.
(Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)
Under the Conservative Government, more than one in two people
who served short-term custodial sentences went on to reoffend. In
total, reoffending is costing our country £20 billion a year.
That is not working at all, and not working for the taxpayer. In
my constituency, and across Hertfordshire, fantastic charities
such as the Hertfordshire Association for the Care and
Rehabilitation of Offenders are running innovative and pioneering
programmes, and working with ex-offenders to ensure that they do
not offend again. Will my right hon. Friend say a little more
about how the Government will adopt a new approach and work with
charities and broader civil society to cut reoffending for
good?
My hon. Friend is right: reoffending has a huge cost for us all
as a country because it creates more victims of crime. Indeed, it
costs us more than £20 billion at about £22 billion a year.
Charities and other groups have a huge role to play in helping to
bring down the reoffending rate, but to allow that work to
succeed we must bring down overcrowding and the capacity crisis
in our prisons. I hope the sentencing review will help us to
chart a new course when it comes to bringing down
reoffending.
Sir Ashley (Bridgwater) (Con)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for her statement. In the first wave
of early releases, 37 prisoners were wrongly released. What steps
is she taking to ensure that those mistakes are not repeated?
Does she agree that the best way to reduce reoffending is to
ensure that released prisoners are able to participate in the
labour market, and what will she do to improve education and
training within the prison system?
On the 37 who were wrongly released, I had never imagined that it
would be possible for people to be charged and sentenced under an
older Act of Parliament, and not the more recent Sentencing Act
2020, and as soon as that issue was brought to our attention we
took immediate steps. All 37 were ultimately returned to custody,
and I will ensure that that mistake cannot happen again. The hon.
Gentleman makes a good point about reducing reoffending. Access
to literacy training and skills and the ability to get a job are
important in helping an offender turn their back on a life of
crime, and I hope the sentencing review will make further
positive suggestions on that. We know we have to tackle
reoffending, and we know that jobs, housing and so on are part of
the picture if we are to persuade people to become the better
citizens that we need them to be, rather than the better
criminals that our system currently produces.
(Southgate and Wood
Green) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State's review of sentencing, but as
she may know, people who are neurodivergent are hugely
over-represented in the prison population. What steps will she
take to ensure that prisoners with attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder and autism do not reoffend?
My hon. Friend is right to say that the support prisoners receive
in prison must be tailored to take account of needs such as
neurodivergence and autism, much of which has gone undiagnosed in
the life of prisoners, and often does not even get diagnosed
within the prison estate. We must obviously turn that around, and
I am confident we can make progress in that area. First we have
to deal with the capacity crisis, because when prisons are very
overcrowded offenders are locked up for 23 hours a day, and in
that one remaining hour little good work can be done. We must
deal with the capacity problems so that we can then deal with the
underlying issues that prisoners face before they can make the
positive choices that we all want.
Dr (Bexhill and Battle)
(Con)
The Secretary of State has identified a good set of principles
for her review. On the Texan approach, does she think that it
would be fairer to victims if, rather than us looking at
extending early release further, we used the reward of the
existing access to early release? She talked a lot about
evidence, but she will understand that it is harder to evidence
victims' feelings about justice, and that risks greater weight
being given to statistics on reoffending, and other information
that the Ministry of Justice has to hand. How does she propose to
close the gap in evidence relating to how victims and their
families feel about sentencing?
The hon. Gentleman makes good point. The Texan model is of
interest because it sought to incentivise the positive behaviour
that reduces reoffending and ultimately cuts crime, and Texas saw
some pretty spectacular results. There is no exact read-across
from that model to our system, and it will be for the review to
consider that model and others around the world to see what
approaches might work here. It is imperative that any measures we
take retain the confidence of victims and the wider public. Any
punishment that takes place outside a prison needs to still look
and feel like proper punishment to every community in our
country. That is non-negotiable. Public confidence must be
maintained, and that speaks to the hon. Gentleman's second point.
Evidence is important, and in my experience, when victims are
engaged in the process, they appreciate the need to reduce
reoffending, because they do not want other people to be victims.
Their voice will be heard in the review; I hope that reassures
him.
(Rother Valley) (Lab)
In June 2019, made a speech as Lord
Chancellor on smarter sentencing. It was a helpful, coherent,
cogent, evidence-based speech about sentencing reform. Four
Conservative Prime Ministers later, no progress has been made, so
I am pleased that the Labour Government will grasp the nettle. We
were just discussing the Texan example of problem solving and
sentencing, but can the Lord Chancellor reassure me that the
review will also consider family, drug and alcohol courts, and
the progress and positive results that we have seen in the family
courts?
My hon. Friend makes the case well for why is the right person to lead
this review. As I said, he brings deep expertise to this debate.
I am sure that the sentencing review panel will be interested, as
many are, in some of the pilots that are being run on
problem-solving courts, and also in the family courts.
(Wells and Mendip Hills)
(LD)
What measures is the Lord Chancellor taking to ensure that the
review considers the impact of sentencing polices on different
socioeconomic groups, and addresses concerns about
disproportionate sentences for marginalised communities and
minority groups?
The hon. Member raises an important point. That issue is not
within the review's terms of reference. It will not consider
disparities in sentencing because it is looking at the overall
sentencing framework, and how we ensure that we never run out of
prison places again. There is an important debate on disparities
in the criminal justice system. The review on sentencing is not
the proper place for that, but we will take forward that other
work in due course.
(Hayes and Harlington)
(Ind)
I declare an interest: I am the honorary life president of the
Prison Officers Association. I thank the Secretary of State on
behalf of the POA for her open-door policy on engagement with the
union. I congratulate her on bringing forward the sentencing
review. The POA has long argued that there are too many people in
prison, in particular with mental health problems. They include
veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder who should not be
there, but should be treated elsewhere. Will she ensure that the
unions are fully involved in deciding on the composition of the
panel and the engagement process for the review?
Working closely with our trade unions is important to us. We have
already engaged with the Prison Officers Association. Let me
place on record my thanks to all who work in our prisons and our
probation system. In our prisons in particular, the rates of
violence against prison officers have been too high for too long.
I salute the hard work that prison officers do in a difficult job
on behalf of us all. My right hon. Friend can be assured of our
close engagement with everybody who works in His Majesty's Prison
and Probation Service going forward.
(North West Norfolk) (Con)
Parliament legislated for a maximum sentence of life imprisonment
for causing death by dangerous driving, but judges are yet to
impose such a sentence, despite such cases as the one in my
constituency in which three people were killed by a driver in a
case with five aggravating factors. Will the Lord Chancellor
ensure that when the review considers longer custodial sentences,
it looks at how victims can get justice, and how the maximum
sentences legislated for by this place are applied?
The hon. Member will know that sentencing decisions in individual
cases are a matter for the independent judiciary, who have to
consider all the facts in front of them and sentence accordingly,
based on the law, the sentencing guidelines and the framework. I
cannot comment on the specifics of the case he mentions. The
review will not be constrained in any way in its inquiry, or on
maximum sentences, whole life orders and so on. The whole range
of sentences that are available is open for the review panel to
consider and make recommendations on.
Mr (Leyton and Wanstead)
(Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her handling of the issue and
the approach she is taking in response to the challenges she
faces. This morning, I met local police leadership to discuss the
challenges around drug-based criminality in Leyton and Wanstead.
The situation they face could not be clearer. After 14 years of
Tory failure, overstretched police services, over-capacity
prisons and woefully underfunded probation services and councils
have led to a vicious cycle of reoffending. Does she agree that
the whole system needs reform and investment to restore public
trust in our justice system, and to keep my constituents
safe?
My hon. Friend will know that in our safer streets mission,
improving confidence in the criminal justice system is one of the
key outcomes we are focused on. He is right to make the point
that the whole criminal justice system requires stabilisation. It
all needs to be put on a better trajectory than the one we
inherited from the previous Government. We are talking in detail
about prisons, but it is difficult to divorce what is happening
in our prison system from what is going on in probation and the
courts. I reassure him that I conceive of this as a whole-system
approach. I am aware of the challenges in other bits of the
system; they are things that this Government will ultimately sort
out.
Sir (New Forest East) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor speaks with great clarity and determination
on this issue, and I am sure that she will remember last week
promising me a ministerial meeting involving my constituent,
Andrew Duncan, and a specialist team. They are working on a new
concept of community detention that I believe is tailor-made for
the vision that the Lord Chancellor has outlined to us today. Can
she confirm that the meeting will go ahead, notwithstanding the
extra opportunity to give evidence to the Gauke review in due
course?
I knew immediately that the right hon. Gentleman was going to ask
about the meeting he referenced last week, when I made my other
statement. I assure him that I will follow that up. I am
interested in the work of the group that he mentions, and I am
sure that the sentencing review panel will also be interested in
it.
(Warrington North)
(Lab)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for her statement, and for the
leadership she has shown in trying to turn around a Department
that, by any metric, was failing. I thank her for the transparent
and considered approach that she has taken in reaching some of
the difficult decisions she has had to make since taking office.
While I accept the inevitability of the early release scheme,
what conversations has she had with ministerial colleagues on
improving victim support for those who have seen perpetrators
return to the community earlier than they were perhaps mentally
prepared for, so as to reduce harm as far as possible?
I can assure my hon. Friend that my ministerial team and I have
been working closely with our colleagues, primarily in the Home
Office, but also across Government. Support for victims sits in
different Departments, but we are making sure that we have a “one
team” approach to this important matter. I have sought to pull
the levers at my disposal in such a way that we gave the
Probation Service the time it needed to prepare for the SDS40
changes. I did that because I wanted to ensure that our
obligations under the victim notification scheme could be met. I
am monitoring progress on that regularly, and I will ensure that
any improvements required are made on a continual basis. We keep
this under constant review.
(Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
(PC)
Neil Foden is in prison for the sexual abuse of four vulnerable
schoolchildren. He was the headteacher and strategic headteacher
at two secondary schools in Gwynedd. Foden was convicted of 19
charges and sentenced to 17 years in July this year for his
abhorrent crimes. The judge said he showed no remorse. Can the
Lord Chancellor advise me how to seek assurance for his victims
that Foden will not be released until he has served at least two
thirds of his sentence?
I can confirm that all sex offences of all types are excluded
from the SDS40 measures.
(Salford) (Ind)
I very much welcome the Lord Chancellor's sentencing review, but
on immediate systemic issues, privately run Forest Bank prison in
Salford is at 138% capacity, with continued reports over the
years of high levels of violence and insufficient rehabilitative
training for prisoners. The contract runs out in January. Can the
Secretary of State confirm who will be running the prison after
that date? Will she be bringing it back under state control? What
measures is she taking to urgently ensure safety in the prison
and adequate rehabilitative training?
I will not pre-empt any future decisions on any particular
prison, but I am not ideological about whether a prison is run by
the state or privately. There are good prisons of both types in
the sector. There are some failing state-run prisons and some
failing privately run prisons. The most important thing is that
we get on top of the capacity crisis across the whole prison
estate. We have to reduce overcrowding so that we can focus on
the good-quality rehabilitation activity that I know governors in
every type of prison want to ensure, so that prisoners can be
helped to turn their life around.
Sir (New Forest West) (Con)
I congratulate the Lord Chancellor on recognising that for some
prisoners, the shortcomings of short sentences are properly
remedied by providing for longer ones. On the review and , it is difficult not to like
him and even admire him, but I am not alone in regarding him as a
notorious wet, am I?
I will leave those characterisations to the internal workings of
the Conservative party. I consider to be a person with deep
expertise in this area. He is a former Lord Chancellor who knows
this territory very well. He will be able to hit the ground
running, and I know that he will go where the evidence takes
him.
(Runcorn and Helsby)
(Lab)
The Lord Chancellor referred to successful work in Texas. If we
adopt such a model over here, how will victims be involved in
shaping that tough rehabilitation approach?
We will make sure that the review panel, when it is fully put
together, includes somebody with experience of working with
victims of crime to make sure that that perspective is fully
reflected in the investigations that the review undertakes and,
ultimately, in its findings and recommendations.
Mr (Wimbledon) (LD)
May I congratulate the Lord Chancellor on the terms of reference
of this review, and the appointment of the excellent ? I remain concerned, however,
about the Government's evident enthusiasm for increasing
capacity. May I ask the Lord Chancellor directly whether she
agrees with her colleague in the other place that we imprison too
many people in this country? Is the Lord Chancellor's ultimate
aim to reduce the prison population?
We need to make sure that we have the prison places we need to
lock up those who have to be locked up. That is fundamentally
non-negotiable. We have to see an increase in prison capacity. I
mentioned earlier that the previous Government failed to deliver
14,000 places. Without them, we will run out of prison places
again. We have to build the supply, and we have to do better on
reoffending. All these things are equally important, and they all
have to be done at the same time. I will not set arbitrary
figures for how many people can and should go to prison. I want
to ensure that we never again run out of prison places, that we
do better on rehabilitation and that we expand punishment outside
prison.
Mr (Cardiff West)
(Lab)
I welcome the announcement of the bipartisan sentencing review
panel and thank my right hon. Friend for her continuing work to
fix the mess of the last 14 years in this Department. The
evidence shows that 55% of adults on short sentences go on to
reoffend, while community orders have a 34% reoffending rate. Can
she assure me that the panel will consider that as part of its
remit?
That is exactly the sort of area that the panel will review.
Although the reoffending rates for community orders are lower,
they are still far too high. I am sure that the sentencing panel
will want to consider how to bring all the numbers down so that
we can ensure we are rehabilitating more people and ultimately
cutting crime.
Dr (Worthing West) (Lab)
In 2021, the Justice Committee highlighted the fact that too many
offenders were imprisoned because community orders with mental
health requirements were unavailable in many areas across the
country. Does the Lord Chancellor agree that we must now work
across the health and justice systems to ensure that adequate
provision is available in this essential area?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I can assure her that I will
work closely with the Secretary of State for Health and Social
Care to make sure that there is join-up across Government and
that we do everything we can to reduce reoffending, rehabilitate
more people and ultimately cut crime.
Mr (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State's statement, particularly her
preference for the deportation of foreign criminals and her
comments that for hyper-prolific offenders, a particular problem
in my constituency, longer sentences may be best. Whatever the
outcome of the review, can she commit that dangerous criminals
who pose a threat to the public, in Hartlepool or anywhere else,
will always be locked up under this Government?
Yes, I absolutely can. The whole point of the review is to ensure
that the country is never again in a position in which we might
run out of prison places, and to ensure that those who must be
locked up to keep the public safe will always be locked up.
(Wolverhampton West)
(Lab)
Keeping a prisoner in prison costs the taxpayer over £50,000 a
year, whereas punishing the prisoner out of prison costs less
than £5,000 a year. What is more, the prisoner is then far less
likely to reoffend. Does the Secretary of State agree that
taxpayers' money would be better spent on having a much cheaper
and better alternative to prison?
My hon. Friend makes a really important point about the relative
costs of imprisonment and of punishment out of prison. Delivering
the 14,000 prison places that the previous Government failed to
deliver is a big cost, but it will be met by this Government. We
must also ensure that we expand punishment out of prison. All
options must be pursued if we are to get to grips with this
crisis.
(Rugby) (Lab)
I am not given to hyperbole; I will simply say that my right hon.
Friend has inherited a shocking and dangerous situation and is
dealing with it in a calm and collected manner. I applaud and
support the move to a more sensible and sustainable policy on
sentencing, but will she assure my constituents in Rugby that we
will always lock up violent and dangerous offenders where
necessary to keep the public safe?
Let me assure my hon. Friend that the answer to his question is
yes and yes. Part of the reason for doing the review is to ensure
that this country is never again on the brink of running out of
prison places, and that dangerous offenders who need to be locked
up to keep the public safe will always be locked up.
(Rochester and Strood)
(Lab)
I welcome the sentencing review and thank the Secretary of State
for her explanation of why IPP sentences are not included in the
review. What steps will she take to accelerate routes out of
custody for prisoners serving IPP sentences, including a
re-sentencing review that can be done without prejudice to public
protection, to end an injustice once and for all and to increase
capacity on our prison estate?
I hear the point my hon. Friend makes, and she makes it very
well. We are not considering a re-sentencing exercise for IPP
prisoners, because that would automatically release a number of
people who we do not believe it would be safe to release. I am
not willing to compromise public protection. I know that there is
a huge injustice at the heart of these issues and that IPP
sentences have rightly been abolished, but we have a problem with
the cohort, in particular those under an IPP sentence who have
never been released at all. I am determined to make more
progress, wherever it is possible to do so safely, on releasing
more IPP prisoners, but never in a way that compromises public
protection.
(Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to cross-party
working, transparency and rebuilding public trust. Does she agree
that this is a significant departure from the previous
Government, who released over 10,000 prisoners not in the open
but in secret?
I agree. My hon. Friend is right to remind the House of the last
Conservative Government's end of custody supervised licence
scheme, for which we, in the end, had to release the numbers.
Over 10,000 offenders were released under that scheme, without
transparency and without the same exemptions that we have applied
to the SDS40 changes.
(Telford) (Lab)
What a mess we have inherited! I thank the Lord Chancellor for
the steps that she has taken today to sort it out. We know that
offenders who are subject to home detention orders are 50% less
likely to reoffend, but can we put them to work as well during
unpaid work sessions? Can we ensure that offenders who commit
further offences while on licence are dealt with more robustly in
the courts as they are recalled to prison?
My hon. Friend raises really important points about how we break
the cycle of recalls to prison and ensure that licence conditions
are abided by, and about the scope for putting more offenders to
work. I am sure that these will be matters of great interest to
the sentencing review panel. I look forward to seeing its
findings in due course.
(South Norfolk) (Lab)
The past 14 years have shown that Governments ignore the prison
estate at their peril. My right hon. Friend rightly says that we
must redesign punishment outside the secure estate. Will she
elaborate on how offenders will have their liberty curtailed and
how the public will be made aware of that liberty being taken
away?
The modern world, with different technology, presents the best
possible opportunity for us to expand the use of punishment out
of prison, but in a way that gives the public confidence that
offenders are being supervised, that the eyes of the state remain
on them and that their behaviour and their liberty are
effectively curtailed. I expect that new technology, as well as
current available technology, will be of great interest to the
review panel. I look forward to its findings when it reports in
the spring.
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