Lord Woodley (Lab)

My Lords, I thank everyone for their thoughtful, enlightening and informative contributions, which have outlined the tragedy and scandal that is undoubtedly out there. The Minister’s contribution leaves a void in my mind: we are still not treating the prisoners or their families as an absolute priority and with the respect they deserve. There is no doubt as we sit here today that many prisoners’ families will be watching or listening to this debate. They, like me, genuinely believe that this is as big a scandal as the Post Office and infected blood scandals, terrible as they were. There are 90 dead—not nine or one, which would be bad enough, but 90. Many of them unfortunately took their own lives as a consequence of having no hope, as, in fairness, the Minister just mentioned. Thousands are sitting in prison with no hope. It is unbelievable. I listened with interest to the Minister, a man I have a great deal of respect for. I absolutely acknowledge his actions before he came into this place, employing, as he said, 30 IPP prisoners, all of whom he had no problems with and who were decent employees and did their job—those might not be his exact words, but he knows what I am saying. I know that he knows what he is talking about, and I know that he cares. That makes his disappointing answer even sadder. The Minister kept saying that the first thing we need to do is make sure that the public are safe while putting in place a variety of changes, many of which we all welcome and can see the benefits of right now, as he mentioned. Nevertheless, the simple truth is that our system at the moment, compared to what he thinks we should try to do—and I believe he is truthful in what he says—is not fit for purpose. The Minister had the decency to introduce me to one of his senior Parole Board people last week. I thank him again for that, but even that gentleman said that, if they had a person out for recall who was put back into prison, it could take 12 to 18 months at a minimum before their case would be reheard, irrespective of the fact that they may already have served 10, 11, 12, 15 or 16 years in prison. With the greatest respect, where is the duty of care not just to the general public, which I will come back to, but to those prisoners, many of whom, as I said earlier and the noble Baroness just said, have become mentally unstable as a consequence of their treatment? Where is the duty of care to them and their families? The Minister has not given any logical or legal reason why he cannot look at partial resentencing. He said that he does not think it would be fair for a particular reason, but where is the legal problem or impediment in resentencing those two groups found to be safe by the Parole Board? If there is such a legal opinion stopping him doing it, I would be most grateful if he could show it to us. If you cannot stop it, with the greatest respect, all of us should stop waffling here and start to do the right thing. As that old adage goes, where there’s a will, there’s a way. With a genuine Minister like the noble Lord, there is a way for us all to try to help, but we will have to wait and see. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Lords, Lord Carter, Lord Davies and Lord Wolfson, and others mentioned the mental state and health of these prisoners after having gone through such turmoil in recent years. Here lies the other problem with the proposals on the table. When people have given up and lost the plot because of what has happened to them, how on earth could they ever turn around and be fit to get through the Parole Board’s criteria? There is no way they could, to be quite honest. Nevertheless, I look forward to this Bill being given a Second Reading.