Contribution
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 89 on IPP resentencing, and in support of all the other amendments in this group.
I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity to make the argument for resentencing to your Lordships again, although I am under no illusions that the Minister is ready to announce a U-turn from this Dispatch Box to wipe this shameful stain off our justice system once and for all—at least not yet. I have no wish either to flog a dead horse but, as I said at Second Reading, it is important for us to continue scrutinising the Government’s position on this industrial-scale miscarriage of justice.
Ministers have consistently refused to consider IPP resentencing, which the Justice Committee in the other place called for as the only solution to this terrible injustice. To put it bluntly, Ministers are still defending the indefensible. We must see this for what it is: inexcusable excuses while more people die—yes, die—and more people give up hope. This must stop; action, not warm words, will be the most important thing going forward.
In this debate, I particularly want to hear the Minister’s objections to the kind of IPP resentencing exercise described by my amendment, which has not been presented to your Lordships in this form before. Crucially, what is new is that the resentencing court can impose a secure hospital order if it thinks this is necessary for public protection, and impose any kind of extended supervision post release—again, for the same reason.
It is widely acknowledged that the IPP sentence itself has caused harm, to put it mildly. Too many unfortunate souls have suffered problems between 2005 and 2012. It is understandable that the Parole Board might have concerns about the poor mental health of some of the people whose cases they are considering, but it is simply wrong and a great injustice that this poor mental health, in many cases caused directly by this long-discredited and abolished sentence passed by this Parliament, is being used to condemn anyone to indefinite preventive detention, stuck in prison where their mental health is just going to get worse. As I said, there will be more suicides and more hopelessness.
Noble friends from across the House have previously described this as a gulag sentence, and they are, of course, correct. The Minister has previously claimed that the Parole Board is best placed to decide whether an IPP prisoner should be released, but there is no evidence of this beyond the justification originally used to create this torture sentence in the first place. It is too slow and too laborious, in spite of recent helpful changes.
Natural justice dictates that it should be the courts, not the Parole Board, that are empowered to make this decision for this cohort. That distinction lies at the heart of this injustice and is the reason why IPP sentences were abolished over a decade ago. The Minister and his officials will of course say, “What about public protection?” The secure hospital backstop I am talking about—originally a suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, as an amendment to my Private Members’ Bill—is an elegant solution to this conundrum.
Under my amendment, if the resentencing court considers someone to be too mentally ill to be released, it can transfer them to a secure hospital where they can receive the therapeutic resources necessary for recovery. On release, all former IPP prisoners would have the supervision and support considered necessary by the court—another key safeguard to protect the public that should address the concerns previously expressed to us by the Minister. That is why I am proposing, in a nutshell, an IPP resentencing exercise with a secure hospital backstop and public protection right at its heart. I sincerely look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.