Lord Woodley (Lab)

With noble Lords’ indulgence, I wish to open this debate by saying that IPP—imprisonment for public protection—is as big a scandal as the Post Office and the infected blood scandal, as bad as they are. Almost 100 prisoners have taken their own lives, and hundreds more are being driven to insanity by this no hope, never-ending sentence. The only difference with IPP is that not enough people know about it, and that has to change. Now, speaking directly to everyone serving an IPP sentence, my message, quite simply, is: do not give up hope. You have more supporters here than you realise, and there are many Members in this House and the other place who will not rest until we have justice for everyone suffering these appalling torture sentences, but please understand that it is the Government who ultimately have the power to end this injustice. Sadly, my Bill by itself will not bring you justice, but it can help to build pressure on the Government to do the right thing and to build public awareness of this industrial-scale miscarriage of justice. Please, do not have false hope about this Bill. Have hope, but not false hope. That is my aim here today. By debating these amendments today, especially this first group of amendments, which probe the Government’s position, we can hold Ministers to account and expose the lack of logic behind their refusal to consider resentencing seriously and creatively. Each of these amendments restricts resentencing to a particular cohort or, in the case of one in my name, restricts resentencing entirely by committing the Government to establishing an expert committee to advise on resentencing. To be clear, this is not because I do not want to see resentencing happen at all. Of course I do. That is what the whole Bill is about but, with the Government resisting resentencing, these amendments allow us to focus on the specific objections. Why are they against forming an expert committee? Why are they against resentencing those who have suffered the greatest injustice? I put my name to all the amendments in this group because I genuinely believe that each asks legitimate and reasonable questions of the Government. Amendment 2 is also in my name. It would restrict resentencing to those already released by the Parole Board and living on licence in the community. Did I table this amendment because I believe they are the only ones who should be resentenced? Of course not. I did so, as I said, to probe the Government’s position and to test the faulty logic. If fears around public protection are all that stands in the way of full resentencing, what could be the objection to starting with those already released? This group, who have, by definition, been deemed safe for release by the Parole Board and the Government are still living the nightmare of unexpected and immediate recall, often for a minor breach of licence, or sometimes merely on allegation of an offence, and the Minister knows this. I have received so many examples from prisoners who have been recalled after a malicious allegation with no further action taken by the police, yet back inside they go to serve another indeterminate prison term along with those established sentences that they had. Even when no further action has been taken, people still face a year or more in jail, waiting for their next Parole Board hearing—if they are lucky. This is clearly not justice. There is no credible reason not to resentence these people already cleared by the Parole Board.