Lord Woodley (Lab)

My Lords, it is a great honour to open this debate today and to lead this important legislative campaign to abolish, once and for all, the great injustice that is imprisonment for public protection—or IPP sentences. Parliament abolished IPP sentences on human rights grounds in 2012 but not, unfortunately, retrospectively, leaving thousands stuck with no hope and serving long, long-discredited, sentences. At least 90 prisoners have taken their own lives. Some are now free, both from prison and from licence in the community, having jumped through the right hoops—at least those who were fortunate enough to have the hoops to jump through. I pay tribute, though, to the previous Lord Chancellor, and the current one, for making significant changes to shorten the licence period, ending this living nightmare for around 1,800 former IPP prisoners earlier this month. But many prisoners are still living this nightmare, and it is those people who I focus my Bill on, which quite simply seeks to convert these never-ending IPP torture sentences into regular, normal, determinate sentences with an end date, giving them hope. There are three groups we are concerned with here. The first is the never released IPP prisoners, of which there were 1,095 at the end of September this year. The second is the recalled 1,600 people who the Parole Board has at one point considered safe for release, but who have since been recalled to prison due to a licence breach, though in the majority of cases for no further offence. They now need again to prove to the board, 18 months or more into the future, that they will still be safe for release. The third is those now out on licence—around 1,200 people currently considered safe by the Parole Board, yet still living in a state of fear and paranoia about recall to custody. My Bill seeks to resentence all three groups eventually, along the lines suggested by the Justice Committee in the other place back in 2022. In fact, the Bill mirrors the amendment first moved by the committee’s widely respected former chair, Sir Bob Neill, to the Victims and Prisoners Bill, and then in your Lordships’ House by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. As your Lordships will no doubt be aware, resentencing was described by the committee as, “the only way to address the unique injustice caused by the IPP sentence”. Crucially, the committee also recommended setting up “a time-limited small expert committee to advise on the practical implementation of the resentencing exercise in conjunction with the senior judiciary”. The role of the expert advisory committee is extremely important but rarely, if ever, acknowledged by the Government. I sincerely hope the Minister will address this concern. The expert committee, hand-picked by the Government, alongside the judge nominated by the Lord Chief Justice, would be free to explore all options for resentencing and to make suggestions for how this could indeed be achieved, balancing the important fundamental principle of justice with the importance of public protection. My Bill then calls on the Government to enact legislation to enable this resentencing to take place for all three groups, but in whatever order the committee advises, perhaps prioritising those with the shortest tariff or the longest time over tariff. At this point, I make an apology for a couple of flaws in the Bill, which have been graciously pointed out to me by Nicholas Cooke KC, a former deputy High Court judge who has himself handed down IPP sentences. There are two flaws for us to be concerned with, and I will immediately table amendments that I hope will address them both in Committee. I genuinely apologise in advance if the following is less suited to Second Reading than Committee, but I believe that the Bill must be in the best possible shape if it is to find any favour with His Majesty’s Government. I hope there are elements of the Bill that the Minister might find palatable. The first flaw relates to Clause 1(6) about imposing no heavier penalty than the original tariff. Of course, the tariff was set as a minimum release date, equivalent to a standard release of 50% of the way through a sentence, which now, of course, is 40% with SDS40 involved. The correct maximum penalty to be imposed with resentencing, therefore, would be double this tariff. My first amendment will clarify this. The second flaw concerns those people who would otherwise be sentenced to life imprisonment had IPP not been available and who are still considered a substantial risk of causing serious harm if released. I accept that there should be provision for keeping an IPP sentence in place in those circumstances, although I suspect this would apply to only a relatively small number of cases. None of this is meant to distract from the very real need for movement by this Government on resentencing. I am aware, as are your Lordships, that the Government’s current position, as in Opposition and like the previous Government’s position, is that resentencing will not be considered on the grounds of public protection. This has been expressed by new Ministers, but there appears to be some confusion as to what resentencing actually means. Most recently, at a Westminster Hall debate last month, Minister Dakin expressed concern that “resentencing could result in dangerous IPP prisoners being released, without a licence period, into the community”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/10/24; col. 242WH.] With respect, this is a distorted reading of the Justice Committee’s report, and I hope the Minister will address this discrepancy in due course. The missing point, as was highlighted, I think, by every other speaker in that debate apart from the Opposition spokesperson, is that the expert advisory committee would be there to ensure that this is not the case. For example, the committee could advise that releases should be staggered so that probation can properly mitigate any risk, with suitable licence periods imposed. Please can we move the argument on from automatic release and no supervision to the practicalities of what a fair and safe resentencing exercise would actually look like? My Bill proposes, as did the Select Committee, that everyone on an IPP sentence—all three groups mentioned earlier—is resentenced within a set period of time. But if the Government cannot stomach what was described in last month’s debate as the “full-fat version” of resentencing then perhaps they might consider partial resentencing, which might look, for example, at just the second two groups to start with: those who the Parole Board has at one point considered safe for release. Surely the public protection argument against resentencing this safe for release group is less problematic. Or it might look at just the third group: those currently released and living as normal lives as possible in the community. Surely the public protection argument against resentencing them is non-existent, so why will the Government not consider sentencing these people who, I repeat, the Parole Board currently consider safe? The Minister in the other place made a valiant effort to explain why at the debate, claiming resentencing would “halt the risk management and support for these individuals, some of whom will be at the critical moment of having been recently released from custody”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/10/24; col. 243WH.] But of course, as I just explained, that would be entirely up to the Government. If the Government wanted to continue the risk management and support, all they would have to do would be legislate for this as part of a resentencing exercise. I hope all these issues can be properly explored in Committee if the Government grant time for it, but before I sit down I thank the dozens of individuals and organisations that have contributed to this really important debate. Most of all, I thank all the IPP prisoners and their families who have written to me with such heartbreaking stories of injustice. My message to them and to all those still serving IPPs in prison or in the community is: please do not give up hope. Likewise, I do not want to give false hope. They deserve better from us all. It is up to the Government, and the Government alone, whether my Bill becomes law, in whole or in part. IPP reform is clearly a matter of conscience, with the principle of justice to be balanced with protecting the public. Therefore, there should be a free vote on this Bill in both Houses, in my opinion, but I want to work now with the new Government to resolve this scandal for good. If that means making compromises to make progress then I am prepared to do just that. I want to use the Bill to find common ground to bring resentencing a step closer, even if we do not reach our final destination immediately. Let us work together to end this scandal and give hope, at long last, to the hopeless. History is being written right now, and my plea to the Government is this: do not be on the wrong side of history. Do not wait for the ITV docudrama to cast you unfairly as uncaring, cold-hearted time-wasters who left damaged people—many of them broken by the state—to rot away in prison while those in power stood by wringing their hands. No. Let us work to find a solution before any more lives are lost to this terrible stain on our precious justice system. In that spirit of co-operation, I beg to move.