Lord Moylan (Con)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, for bringing forward this Bill. I am conscious that one of the obligations on us in this House is not to raise expectations falsely among prisoners and their families as to what is likely to be achieved. We have heard many passionate speeches in favour of the resentencing proposed in this Bill. We are about to hear one—possibly two—speeches putting the case against resentencing. The last of those will be determinative. The Government are not going to agree —they have made that clear—to a resentencing exercise. They say that, for those who are out on licence, the measures passed in the Victims and Prisoners Act, which had cross-party support—proposed by a Conservative Government and now implemented by a Labour Government—should deal with them in the next couple of years, and the issue should go away. The question is about those in prison. For them, there is the action plan. I have a degree of confidence in the action plan—in both the officials behind it and the plan itself. I think there is a seriousness of purpose and intent on the part of Ministers and officials in making this work. An annual report will be published shortly, and I am sure we will have an opportunity—we should have an opportunity at least—to debate it in this House when it appears and hold the Government to account over the action plan. The difficulty is that, although the action plan will push ahead and, I imagine, secure the release of those IPP prisoners with whom it is easy to engage, there will still be a residue. There will be a number of IPP prisoners whom it is going to be very difficult for the Parole Board to recommend for release. I want to think ahead to what we should be doing, thinking and discussing about those people. They could potentially, if nothing is done, remain in prison for the rest of their lives, not because of the crime they committed but because of the position—often damaged by mental health issues—they are in today. One thing worth asking about them is why they should continue in prison at all. Why are they part of the prison system? In so far as they were in prison in the first place as a punishment, that punishment has been discharged and served; they are way beyond tariff. Many of them are in secure mental hospitals. Maybe a mental health setting would be more appropriate for many of these people. It is not easy to get into a mental health hospital if you are in prison—it is a little bit like that joke in “The Importance of Being Earnest” that you cannot get into Wandsworth prison after 4 pm; it is very difficult to get into prison. It is difficult to get into a mental health institution. Should we make it easier, or should we establish a single location—perhaps using part of the underoccupied open prison estate—where those prisoners who do not qualify for mental health hospitals could be brought together? The curative powers of the Probation Service and the Prison Service could be brought to bear on them to help them get out, rather than being left in a prison context. Time has run out, so I simply put that thought there and I hope the Minister might be able to respond. If he cannot today, could he at least give us some assurance that he will give thought to issues like that? This potentially quite large number of people who might never be released under the existing system deserve thought now. If resentencing is not on the cards, something along these lines should be considered.