Prison and Probation Service
Thursday, 17 September 2026
Contributions
Motion to Take Note
Moved by
Lord Farmer
That this House takes note of the state of the prison and probation service in England and Wales.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I thank all who will contribute this afternoon. It is an impressive list, and I am looking forward to hearing some valuable contributions to what is, at the present time, a very important subject. I thank you for making time after a busy week. I particularly welcome the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, who is making his maiden speech here. I am looking forward to hearing his wisdom, of which he has much in this regard. I received a very supportive email from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, who is prisons Bishop. She is at the College of Bishops this week and is unable to attend, but she wants us to know that she would have been here if she could have been. This is a highly relevant debate to the public. The current state of our Prison and Probation Service constantly plays out on front pages of newspapers and online media sites. One of my pleas today is for politicians to resist the media drama, particularly of a single case, and keep rehabilitation at the forefront. The fact is that punishment is deprivation of liberty, not grim conditions. On today’s news, we heard that temporary prefabricated cells, sized for one, are now being fitted with bunk beds. Ten years ago, or more, former Chief Inspector of Prisons Nick Hardwick described such circumstances to the Commons Justice Committee, saying that many prisoners are now effectively living in toilets. Headlines about prison spaces running out should not be ignored. In August 2026, the total prison population was 86,843, which is 97.6% of the usable capacity. As around 96% are men, it is unrealistic to treat the women’s estate as a readily available solution to male overcapacity. The Government’s female offender strategy admits that some have committed crimes of such gravity that custody is the only sentencing option. Of course, women should be in prison if they have committed serious offences. The range of contributors to current major capacity pressures includes the increase in convictions for sexual offences. Many are historic, but their devastating effects on victims do not expire. There has also been sentencing inflation of 45% over the past 15 years. A response in no small part to penal populism has also clogged up our prisons and today’s need for early release of prisoners is a predictable consequence. It is ironic that a “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality necessitated the proposed earlier release of heinous criminals at the top of the new Prime Minister’s in-tray of wicked policy issues. Early releases started under the previous Conservative Government, with their end of custody supervised licence emergency response, which allowed eligible prisoners to be released up to 18 and then 70 days before their automatic release date. But eligibility excluded many serious offences. During the 2010s, the Government found money for new prison places, which will only become available under this Government, and this Government will get the credit—whatever. Short-termism does not work in penal policy. Even when a prison has opened under a highly experienced governor, it takes time to fill up gradually. We are building a community, not stocking a warehouse. The current scheme of early release cannot be characterised as a continuation of end of custody supervised licence. Moving the standard release point from 50% to 40% and now 33% represents such a significant change in the proportion of the custodial sentence spent in prison that sentencing is becoming increasingly meaningless. This is very worrying for public confidence in the courts and judiciary when they are under exceptional strain. We need sentences that are understandable and reflect the seriousness of the crime but also recognise the possibility and need for rehabilitation. Given the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, I hope he will comment on this, and I will say no more. One of my main points today is that the issue of prison capacity took the previous Government’s attention away from rehabilitation, and that trend has continued. The terms of reference for the Rudd review barely mention it. While it is a theme in the call for evidence, it does not look like a priority. Neither document mentions the importance of good relationships, despite them being essential to rehabilitation and to many other Rudd review priorities, such as safety, decency and strategy for future prison build. Yet I find HMPPS staff are very committed in this area. Their transforming prisons directorate is creatively building the importance of relationships into future prisons, but it is hard for them to build this culture without the oxygen of ministerial and political support. The 2016 White Paper, Prison Safety and Reform — in which my first review for the Government was announced—was also focused on Rudd review emergency issues, such as safety, security, new-build prisons and staffing pressures. However, it treated rehabilitation—prisoner reform—as equally important and called for “a huge cultural and structural change within our prisons—a transformation away from offender warehouses to disciplined and purposeful centres of reform where all prisoners get a second chance at leading a good life”. The MoJ’s own data showed the powerful positive rehabilitation effects of contact with families and significant ties. They exceed those of, say, education and employment, and provide the motivation for the latter—hence my reviews said that relationships should be the golden thread running through all the processes of prison and probation. Narrowly seeing this as only good family visits misses the fact that everything is mediated through relationships—relationships between governors and their officers, officers and the prisoners, prisoners and other prisoners, the prison and the community that surrounds it, and the prison estate and the society that it is part of—however difficult it might to define and cost them. The culture of prisons and probation needs to change so that a relational approach becomes business as usual, working with the grain of what it is to be human rather than against it. That is how professionals in the Youth Custody Service strive to operate. Yet when young people make the transition to the adult estate, too often they still fall over a cliff edge into a relational desert. It is 10 years since the Government commissioned my first review and accepted all its recommendations, but its emphasis on relational culture is frequently cut across by policy decisions. In response to understandable public outrage over non-attendance at sentence hearings, prison rules have been changed so that, as a general sanction, governors can remove all social visits for up to 27 days and restrict social visits to one visit in every 28 days for up to 84 days. Prisoners’ children can still visit, but that sanction rules out a very large range of other potentially prosocial visitors. When relationships wither, as they can quickly do when you are in jail, this might remove a key reforming influence on a troublemaker. One of the most extrovert prisons I visited, HMP Norwich—with its tourist café run by prisoners in open conditions—holds a surgery for family members every week so that the deputy governor can hear their concerns. The deputy governor told me about the mother fighting her teenage son’s corner after he had given her a sob story about how badly he had been treated, and how she turned that mother into an ally by saying, “He’s doing himself no favours. You need to help us help him get through this as well as possible”. I am also concerned about fathers in prison who might lose parental responsibility when the Courts and Tribunals Bill abolishes the rebuttable presumption in the Children Act 1989 that children’s best interests are typically served by both parents’ involvement. Being in prison does not automatically make someone a bad or damaging father or mother, but removing the presumption will make it easier to argue that they are not needed. Can the Minister confirm whether any guidance will be issued to mitigate that possible unintended consequence for these parents and their children—who are at a profound legal disadvantage—if the Bill becomes law? Such examples suggest that the culture is still punitive rather than rehabilitative. The problem with culture is its apparent intangibility for policy purposes, but its effects are anything but intangible. Where there is a culture of each government department or public service working separately and territorially, people fall through the cracks between operational silos. That still happens, despite the duty to refer when people released from prison are at risk of becoming homeless. Some local housing authorities work very well with prisons and probation and secure accommodation for prisoners, despite similar pressures on their housing stock as less integrated local councils. According to Nacro, last year in the north-west, 12% of people leaving prison were released into homelessness, compared with more than 20% of people released in south-central. If agencies in every region collaborated as well as they do in the north-west, there would be 3,700 fewer people released to homelessness every year, potentially preventing 1,500 reoffences. The proven reoffending rate of those released homeless—76%—was more than twice that of those released from custody into settled accommodation, at 36.4%. Some 4,500 inmates will be released early in 10 tranches between 1 October and 1 June next year, in addition to the 4,500 regular releases that take place each month. Prisons and probation are on the front line of the Prime Minister’s pledge to end rough sleeping. Almost one in six are released homeless, and the most recent snapshot found that half of all rough sleepers had been in prison at some point and that 15% of them had been released within the last year. This Government’s national plan to end homelessness calls out the deficiencies of the duty to refer and promises to legislate for a duty to collaborate as soon as parliamentary time allows. I tabled amendments to the Social Housing Bill to seize that legislative opportunity, but unfortunately to no avail. I was even told by the responding Minister that the duty to refer was working fine, so my amendments, which would have brought the Government’s own proposed reforms into statute, were not needed. It was rather an Alice through the looking-glass moment. Can the Minister report any new progress on bringing the duty to collaborate into law? What is being done to ensure that prisoners have good relationships and that someone is there when they are released, not just accommodation? One of the most effective ways to prevent homelessness after release is to maintain existing family and other relationships, or enable prisoners to build supportive connections both inside and outside prison. Effective peer mentoring schemes are creating valuable communities of support that start in prison but go beyond the gate for prisoners who have no contact with their families and cannot hope to have. Sex offenders, for example, lumped together as a universally heinous, also need to be given a second chance. Programmes such as these should become business as usual. When well supervised, they can be powerfully therapeutic. Trusted relationships can bring home to a prisoner the criminogenic influences they have to shrug off if they are to change. They create a sense of agency and dispel despair. Peer support can be game-changing for the 25% of male and female prisoners who are care experienced. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act requires prisons and probation to share corporate parenting responsibilities as part of a new, highly relational approach to care leavers. Peer support is key to fulfilling this. Can the Minister provide an overview of the spread of peer mentoring in prisons and support in English and Welsh prisons? Are there are any plans to integrate them into the Probation Service? The 19th-century social reformer Elizabeth Fry branded our violent and squalid prisons the “nurseries of crime”. She said: “The better the actual state of our prisons is known and understood, the more clearly will all men see the necessity of these arrangements by which they may be rendered schools of industry and virtue”. I will finish on one neglected relationship that I have already mentioned: between the prison and probation system and wider society. Most prisoners will be released back into that wider society, which needs to know and understand what it takes to reform someone who has transgressed, how to prioritise rehabilitation and how to prioritise good relationships while still being appropriately tough on crime. I beg to move.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, on securing this debate and I am grateful for how he opened it. I thought he was going to be a little more critical and, in turn, I have written a counter speech. I want to speak primarily about rehabilitation, which he mainly focused on. As he said, one of the big influencing factors has been 30 years of sentence inflation, with more and more, and longer and longer, sentences being handed out. I too look forward to the maiden speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, with great interest in what he may say on this. There have been 30 years of underinvestment, by all Governments, in the courts, prisons, the probation services and of course rehabilitation, which has been the Cinderella right at the end of the line. However, services have been particularly hollowed out since 2010, when George Osborne’s austerity programme was introduced. Then there was the calamitous, I believe, social experiment of the part-privatisation of the probation service by the Conservative Government, as well as a failure to build new prison places—we are still waiting for new ones to come on stream, as has just been mentioned. In 2024, Labour inherited a demoralised and understaffed workforce, with prisons almost full to capacity. We were almost at a point where, without radical action, the country faced the prospect that courts would not be able to send criminals to jail, because there were no places to incarcerate them. I am glad to say that we have not shied away from that challenge. I congratulate all those who have been involved in trying to right the wrongs, especially the now departed Prisons Minister, my noble friend Lord Timpson; he did outstanding work, which was recognised across the whole Chamber. He did it with enthusiasm and endeavoured—this particularly appealed to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and me—to re-energise the work on rehabilitation of prisoners, especially those with addiction problems relating to drugs, alcohol or the recent growth in problem gambling, on which the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, has done such valiant work. I am sure that we will hear more on that from him today. My noble friend Lord Timpson also recruited Professor Dame Carol Black. She was brought in, with her particular expertise, to assist with these long-standing addiction problems and with rehabilitation. The rehabilitation of offenders whose crimes are driven by drug or alcohol addiction is a crucial part of any strategy to reduce reoffending. Currently, services are still not fit for purpose. For example, half of all people on probation have a drug or alcohol problem, and over half of those arriving in prison are assessed as needing drug or alcohol treatment. Intensive drug or alcohol rehabilitation programmes in prisons were delivered to 11,000 people in 2012. We do not keep the figures now on what is being done, but the guess is that is in the order of as low as 2,000 a year—that is a terrible fall-away. The Sentencing Act envisages increased early release, or community sentences instead of short periods of imprisonment, for offenders addicted to drugs or alcohol, but there are no plans to ensure that these people get adequate treatment. If their addictions are not treated, we will see high rates of reoffending and licence breaches. Dame Carol will be giving an update on progress in her report entitled From Hope to Delivery: Drug and Alcohol Treatment Under a New Government . She will be doing this in Committee Room 5 on Wednesday, 14 October. I hope that many of us present today, and others, will be there to hear about the work she has been done to try to address, in particular, addiction issues linked to rehabilitation so that we can then, in turn, look forward to a more detailed programme of action on rehabilitation and recovery. I would be grateful if the Minister could give us an indication of how the Government are likely to respond to the report that will be coming from Dame Carol. I am also involved in some rehabilitation work being trialled shortly in a Kent addiction recovery centre that welcomes prisoners in its numbers. We are endeavouring to develop an AI companion linked to the 12-step recovery programme—I assure noble Lords that it will be entirely safe—so that prisoners there will be given a companion 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, if they are in need of someone to give them advice that has been based on the 12-step programme. We have managed to interest Stanford University in the USA in this, and we are hoping that King’s in London will also be associated, to validate a doctoral research project that is being set up alongside it. We also have enthusiastic support from the charity Forward Trust, which I am sure the Minister will know does valuable work in recovery and rehabilitation within, and for those leaving, prisons. We see this project as having considerable potential in assisting with rehabilitation. I wonder therefore whether the Minister can give an indication of whether, if we get this off the ground, there may be a possibility to trial it in prison. It has great prospects of meeting some of the many deficiencies we currently have from not having the numbers around to help people with rehabilitation.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and I join him in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, not only on the tremendous work that he has done in this particular area but for securing the debate and his excellent opening speech. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson. Just over a year ago, the Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee, which I chair, published Better Prisons, Less Crime . We quoted witnesses who described the prison service operating in, or on the verge of, crisis. We acknowledged the failures of successive Governments, but our purpose was not to catalogue failure: it was to identify practical ways forward. Echoing what the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, our starting point was simple: we ought to understand the role of prisons. We said that punishment for the prisoner is the loss of liberty and the role of prisons is to protect the public by reducing reoffending. We said that required purposeful activity, education and training, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke said, treatment for mental health, drug, alcohol and gambling problems, and preparation for life after release. It also requires relationships, as again the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, particularly family relationships. They are really important, yet distance from home, restrictive visiting arrangements and limited digital access can make contact unnecessarily difficult. Family contact cannot and must not be treated as an optional extra. Our report found that purposeful activity was woefully inadequate overall, with prisoners spending up to 23 hours a day in cramped cells with little help for them to lead constructive crime-free lives when they leave. The consequences are predictable: boredom, frustration, self-harm and violence. With a cost to the taxpayer of approximately £54,000 per prisoner per year, we get very little benefit from that expenditure. It is not merely a failure of prison management; it is a failure of public policy. Of course, overcrowding is a major cause, but it is not the whole explanation. We identified longer sentences, which have already been mentioned, excessive use of custody, bureaucracy restricting governors’ autonomy, inadequate recruitment and training of staff, poor assessment of prisoner needs, a backlog of repairs and, frankly, complacency within the MoJ and HMPPS. For each of those problems, the committee made recommendations to release capacity for work on reducing reoffending and public protection. Yet, little more than a year later, the picture remains deeply troubling. Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, in a newspaper article only this weekend described the system as awash with drugs, with organised criminals operating with impunity, serious violence going unpunished and prisons struggling to control, let alone rehabilitate, those in their care. A prison system which cannot maintain order cannot properly rehabilitate prisoners. One which fails to rehabilitate stores up more crime for the future. The impact of all this on staff is equally serious. In the last 12 months to July, prison officer numbers fell by the equivalent of seven officers per prison and sickness absence rose to 12.4 days per officer per year, compared with a national average of 4.4 days for all other workers. We cannot expect officers to deliver rehabilitation in an unsafe, understaffed and demoralising environment. Overcrowding will not disappear quickly. Recalls are adding substantially to the pressure. Ten years ago, one person was recalled for every three or four released. In the first quarter of this year, for the first time ever since records were kept, more people were recalled to prison than released. Recalled prisoners now account for approximately one-seventh of the prison population, at a cost according to Nacro of £750 million a year. These figures raise all sorts of questions about whether the system is operating intelligently or just recycling people through custody at enormous cost. I urge the Minister to revisit the committee’s recommendations with much greater urgency than there has been so far. I have just a few quick suggestions in the time that remains. We must reduce the number of people sent to prison unnecessarily. We know that well-run, probation-led community sentences cost less and can produce lower reoffending. I welcome the replacement of short prison sentences with community sentences, but I believe we can go much further, which means doing other things. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, referred to the issue of gambling disorder. It is a ridiculous situation that the courts can currently make changes to the sentence they give to people with drug and alcohol problems by linking treatment orders to a non-custodial sentence, but there are no similar treatment orders in relation to gambling disorder. I urge the Minister to look at that issue. I hope we will also look at the way in which we are funding and developing our Probation Service. We will hear all sorts of fine words from the Minister about the Government’s £700 million, but I point to the simple fact that, since the day our report was released to July of this year, the total increase in the number of probation staff has been 11. The Government are now using an ad agency to try to find additional people, at a cost of £150 million. I hope the Minister will tell us whether that is true and whether he believes it is good value for money—and, in particular, whether that is coming out of the £700 million, which would be a very expensive way of filling staffing gaps. We also know that the huge pressure on probation officers is one of the key causes of the recall of prisoners, because it is so much easier if there is a licence infringement to send people back to prison rather than taking up more time to deal with them. I hope the Government will also look at our recommendation about the importance of prison education. They accepted our recommendation and said that prison education was vitally important, yet since our report was produced the budget for education in prisons has been reduced by at least 25%, which has meant that some 300 people who deliver that service have now lost their jobs. We can do other things, too, by looking at the way we help prisoners when they leave prison. I urge the Minister as a final point to look at the work being done at HMP Doncaster, where Nacro is bringing together all sorts of different agencies to help prisoners from the day they walk out of prison. There is a lot that needs to be done. Only today, the unions have written to the Prime Minister about the piecemeal approach to dealing with the multiple problems in the justice system. They urge a more joined-up approach. I hope the Minister will look at that letter; it gives a lot of good advice as to how we could move forward, with the Government working more effectively together on these issues.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and his most interesting speech. This is an excellent debate on crucial issues, and I am so glad that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has managed to bring it forward. I also say how glad I am that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, has joined us. He will add a great deal to this House with his expertise on criminal law. I have been looking at another report: one by the Justice Select Committee of the other place called E nding the C ycle of R eoffending . It sets out, in stark terms, the present state of the prison estate: the lack of adequate education of prisoners or purposeful activity, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Foster; the failure to educate children and young people; the lack of sufficient health and welfare provision, particularly for those with mental health or behavioural problems; gross overcrowding; and, as has been said, prisoners being in cells for most of the 24 hours. There is a disrepair of prisons. Princetown was closed very shortly after the last Government renewed the lease, even though they knew that the prison would have to be closed. There are problems with recruitment and retention of prison officers, and I am not surprised. There is a lack of training of prison officers, not only initially but on promotion. It was suggested in the Justice Committee report that governors needed some training. It points out that there is a lack of involvement by governors and opportunity for them to make decisions on who should be employed in their prison. This background from the Justice Committee is a sad introduction to this much-needed debate. One might ask: who on earth would want to be a prison officer? We have heard not only from me but earlier from other noble Lords what happens to them. The need for rehabilitation of prisoners is obvious, for their sake and the sake of the public. If we just bang people up—mainly men, as we largely do—they are obviously more likely to offend and fill the prisons again. It seems a vicious circle. Many years ago, as a judge, I visited Exeter Prison. I saw an absolutely splendid workshop training prisoners how to make and repair furniture. I went back about three years later and asked about the workshop. It was closed. I asked why. The present officer said that they were so busy taking people to the courts that they did not have time to look after the workshop—oh dear. In the present circumstances, with overcrowded prisons and a lack of resources, it seems difficult to resolve rehabilitation, but the prevention of reoffending and some training of those inside is crucial for the benefit of prisoners and, much more importantly, the public. In the past, there have been some very successful drug and alcohol magistrates’ courts working on addict offenders. Surely, there should also be more residential units for drink and drug offenders under probation orders. If the offender did not finish the course, he would go to prison, but at least some might not reoffend. The female prison population is, as we all know, very much smaller. Many, if not most, women who offend have been victims of abuse. I am not suggesting that no woman should go to prison, but many would be better off out of prison with appropriate probation orders and, of course, support and help to live in the future. The 2007 Corston report gave very good advice on women offenders. I do not know how far her recommendations have been implemented, but she recommended, among other things, that there should be a woman-centred approach in the judicial system, early diversion and efforts to identify and address the root cause of offending. There are excellent initiatives dealing with women, and they should be encouraged and increased. Another problem, of course, is how to deal with prisoners upon release, which has already been referred to. I gather that the early releases are leaving prisoners without the help to prepare for time out of prison. There seems little point in release if there is insufficient help both inside and when they are outside. There are too many offenders who commit offences on release in order to go back to prison—because, where else can they go? Of course, we also have a serious lack of housing. What I do not know is where the overwhelming need to improve the prison estate should start, so I shall listen with great interest to the Minister as to how something, at least, can be done. Both the prisoners and the public require it. The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, raised the issue of the deletion of parental responsibility in a coming Bill. That, as I understand it, would require a judicial decision. I would hope that judges would not remove parental responsibility as a matter of course, but only if the person in prison is unsuited to exercising it. The noble Lord perhaps is worrying too much about that particular proposal.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I also express my appreciation for the outstanding speech of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and thank him for introducing this debate. I propose to address only one point, already raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath: the question of recalls to custody. Let us concentrate on that for a moment. In the past four years, recalls to custody of prisoners released under licence have more than doubled. As has already been pointed out, in the last year there were 51,000 recalls to prison; that exceeds the number of persons sentenced by the courts to prison, which was 47,000. For the first time, recalls now are greater than persons going to prison in the first place. A recall rate of 50,000 represents a rate of about one in five of those under supervision. As the charity Nacro points out, in 2017 the rate was about one in 13. Have we seen an increase in risk in the last 10 years? What is going on here? There is no evidence of increase in risk, but now, according to Nacro, for every 10 beds freed up by the release of a prisoner, nine are refilled by recalls to custody. This highly regrettable situation threatens seriously to undermine the Government’s early-release scheme. As has already been pointed out by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, what is the point of early release if it is followed by a recall? Clearly, the present situation also greatly complicates the management of prisoners within the prison system. As already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, it is costing the prison service around £750 million a year—surely money better spent on supporting prisoners on licence in the community. But the most devastating effect recall can have is on the prisoner concerned, including perhaps the loss of employment, loss of accommodation and, most importantly, destruction of any progress there may have been towards rehabilitation. This total interruption of the process of rehabilitation was rightly emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and by all noble Lords who have so far spoken. Those of us who have been around for a while will remember that 20 or 30 years ago, in admittedly very different circumstances, the culture of the Probation Service was that recall was a last resort. Indeed, it could be regarded as a sign of professional failure to have to recall someone who was under one’s own supervision. Today, for whatever reason, the culture seems to have swung 180 degrees in the other direction: recall has become the first resort, not the last. I fully accept that the problem is very difficult, but there are only three possibilities. The first is that the prisoner was not properly prepared for release, was not properly looked after once released, or that post-release support was inadequate. An important case in point is if the prisoner is recalled because of homelessness, a point already raised by noble Lords. That seems to be a major factor. According to Nacro, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, last year 15,000 released prisoners were homeless on the day of release. What hope have we got? What hope do they have of remaining out of the prison sphere? So, lack of preparation or lack of support for prisoners in the community is the first thing. The second possibility is that the licence conditions are too tough, inappropriate or not tailored to the needs of the prisoner concerned. Are we holding prisoners to licence conditions they are not capable of achieving—that are too heavy, that are not properly designed—given the lack of support, the mental health problems and the drug problems? These were emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. In all these circumstances, the Chief Inspector of Probation has criticised “excessive licence conditions”, imposing on people obligations they cannot meet. Both those points amount to setting prisoners up to fail. What chance have they got if they are not properly prepared and the licence conditions are too onerous? The third possibility, however, is risk aversion in the Probation Service. It is right to bear in mind that the service has, over the years, lost many experienced staff, is understaffed and is managing huge caseloads in very difficult conditions. Some 73% of recalls are for breach of licence conditions. There is widespread concern that those recalls are often triggered by minor or trivial breaches of licence conditions. Recalls should be primarily for reasons of public safety and not for minor breaches of licence conditions. There should be stronger rules and clearer guidance on this point. I ask the Minister: is the dramatic increase in recalls in recent years a matter of concern for the Government? What are the reasons for that increase, and what are the Government doing to tackle those underlying causes? Finally, I add my own welcome to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson of Liverpool, to whose maiden speech we are much looking forward.
Lord Leveson of Liverpool (CB) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is with real diffidence that I rise just three days after my introduction. But the way in which we treat those convicted of crime, and in particular what happens to them when both in custody and in the community, has been a real interest of mine for some 60 years. It stems from my time as an undergraduate visiting Oxford prison and being involved in organising camps for children from approved schools; and later on in relation to the mental health of those in custody—an interest encouraged in me by my late father, who was a consultant psychiatrist. This was in Liverpool, which for over 40 years I was proud to call my home. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for initiating this debate and thus allowing me the opportunity to express some views on this critical area. I must first, however, express my thanks to my two splendid supporters, the noble and learned Lords, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers and Lord Burnett of Maldon, who were both Chief Justices for whom I worked, along with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, the late and very much-lamented Lord Judge, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, to whom I also pay tribute. I would also like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and those in the convenor’s office for their kindness and encouragement and express my real appreciation to the Clerk of the Parliaments, Black Rod and all those who work in this House and who have been so generous with the time they have given to a new boy—that is not a phrase I would have used of myself very recently. It is an inestimable honour for me now to be part of this House, although I am concerned whether I can live up to the expectations which have been expressed by most of the speakers this afternoon. Let me start with the number of remand prisoners in custody. On 30 June 2026, of the 85,858 in custody, 10,242 were untried and 5,144 were convicted but not sentenced. For those awaiting trial, presumed innocent, their lives are on hold; for those awaiting sentence, they cannot start to engage with a sentence plan; many may wait months, if not years, for a co-defendant to be tried so that all convicted can be sentenced together. What of those who have been sentenced? Rehabilitation is identified as a requirement of Section 57(2) of the Sentencing Act 2020 for adults and is mandated by Section 37 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 as the principal aim of sentencing for those under 18. These are core requirements getting lost as prison and probation officers seek to contain and provide such support as they can to the unsustainable number of people with whom they have to deal in custody and in the community. There have been far too many reports into prison conditions. I still possess a copy of the Woolf report, which followed the prison disturbances in HMP Manchester in April 1990. I was then responsible for the prosecution of prisoners for conspiracy to riot and other offences. The average prison population that year was about 45,000, and on 1 June 1990 there were 20,785 prison officers and 994 auxiliaries. On 7 September 2026, the prison population was 86,868, of which 67,652 were in public sector prisons which, as of 30 June, now employ 22,001 full-time equivalent prison officers and 5,661 operational staff. For just under 1,300 extra prison officers, there are roughly 50% more prisoners. I quote from the overview by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf: “members of the Prison Service as a whole, against heavy odds, have managed over a number of years to contain an almost impossible situation by showing immense dedication, courage and professionalism”. With over twice as many in custody, that is even more so today. As for activity in prison, the recent annual report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons identifies that, in many prisons, services have been cut—his word was “brutally”—with many teachers, as we have heard, made redundant. With few exceptions, “Attendance in education, training and work is often appalling” and insufficiently prioritised, with short working days. Similarly, the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Probation speaks of “an organisation grappling with serious systemic challenges, an increasingly large and complex caseload … and an increasing proportion of the caseload … in the community”. In short, he says there are “too few staff, with too little experience, managing too many cases”. The report of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, Better Prisons: Less Crime identifies that reoffending represents around 80% of offending. It is therefore important to examine the challenges facing those who are serving sentences, the vast majority of whom will rejoin the community, whether sooner or later. Your Lordships may be familiar with the figures but, with thanks to the Howard League for Penal Reform, I shall summarise. In 2024-25, assessment in England identified 57% of adult prisoners as having a learning difficulty or disability. More than half of men and almost three-quarters of women identify with mental health problems and, as your Lordships have heard, in 2021, Dame Carol Black published an independent review which identified one-third of prisoners as having a serious drug addiction. In a survey undertaken by the chief inspector, 41% referred to the ease with which illicit drugs could be obtained in prison; in category B training prisons, it was 57%. In large part, that is the cohort which society has to address. Education, along with support and treatment for mental health and drug issues together with training to allow those released to be able to aspire to obtaining work are all critical if we are to prevent the revolving door of repeated offending. I agree with and fully endorse the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, in which he emphasised the importance of maintaining family relationships. As your Lordships have heard, the recent Nacro report revealed that more than 15,000 people were homeless on their first night out of prison. In short, it all requires a move away from simple containment in prison to active measures to assist those in custody to find a bed and work towards living a useful life in the community. A plan is essential. Of course, there will be some who are so dangerous that this is not an option, but they are not the bulk of those in custody. Support both while in prison and then in the community is critical, and the Prison and Probation Service must be equipped with the personnel and resources to do so. That will be expensive, but nothing like as expensive as receiving them back into prison or keeping them there. There are other great benefits of promoting rehabilitation. The prison population crisis is very real. If more can be supported in the community and reoffending minimised, there will be more room for those who should be remanded into custody and those who are dangerous. Remand prisoners will be kept nearer their court of trial. The police will be able to provide greater focus on offences that cause great public concern, including violence against women and girls, other serious sexual and violent offending, phone, petrol and shop theft and more. It will be clear that, although this debate is about prisons and probation, the crisis is much wider: every aspect of criminal justice requires urgent attention. Some courts are listing trials for 2030. Criminal justice reform could be my “Mastermind” specialist subject, but I would not dream of testing the patience of the House by going through my recent review. It is sufficient to say that there are solutions that I look forward to discussing with and urging upon your Lordships, working with all to address the challenges that it faces. I end by observing that we must not forget the human beings behind all these issues: the victims, the witnesses and the offenders. The state must facilitate the early identification and detection of crime. It must, within a reasonable time, ensure its prosecution, and it must do all it can to promote the rehabilitation of convicted offenders. If it does not, it is failing in one of its most important responsibilities.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)
My Lords, it is a very special privilege first to have listened to the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Leveson of Liverpool and now to have the chance to add a few remarks. I wish first to convey the apologies of my noble and learned friends Lord Burnett and Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers. Events elsewhere have detained them, and they are unable to be present, but I have that pleasure. It is now more than a quarter of a century ago that, as what I still think of as youngish judges—though, alas, no longer so, I think I can safely say—we started to work together with responsibility for the circuit system and, in particular, for the way in which criminal justice was administered by the courts under the leadership of that great Chief Justice, Lord Judge. Lord Judge would have been especially proud and delighted to have been here today because he would have seen this as an inevitability. Like Lord Judge, my noble and learned friend Lord Leveson had enormous experience of the common law across all its aspects, but particularly in criminal justice, and he brought that experience to bear both in trials and on appeals, and, as importantly, in the leadership he gave in the successive appointments he held to improving the criminal justice system, and in the many reports and reviews he has conducted to that end. But his experience is much wider. I have not the time to go through it all, but one particular example occupies the time of your Lordships’ House from time to time, and that is his work as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. He is a man of enormous talent and will bring huge benefits to this House. I need have said none of that, because the proof of what he will bring is in all your Lordships’ expectations, which were amply justified but which, modestly of course, he said he was a little worried he might not live up to. His mastery of the criminal law and the criminal justice system is enormous. Indeed, I found over that quarter of a century that I almost always agreed with everything he said. I can take the opportunity of saying so today because I do not wish to add to, and could not possibly improve upon, his analysis of the difficulties facing the criminal justice system. Like other noble Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for obtaining this debate and for the many speeches that have been made about what needs to be done. The list is almost endless. I want to address one overarching problem, and that is what we can best do with what money we get. I recall some years ago that this was exemplified by the first matter we have to address, and that is rigid discipline over money—no doubt noble Lords will fear that I have gone over to the Treasury’s side, or should I say the dark side? But it is important to have discipline. In the last Labour Government in the early 2000s, I remember that when reforms were thought of, you had to prove what effect it would have. This was then checked by the Home Office. There was something called the Home Office model, which showed that if you created an offence, it would need so many more prosecutors, so many more judges, and so many more prison places. I deeply regret that we do not do the same now on the most important aspect, which is at the heart of today’s debate: the massive increase in prison sentence lengths of which everyone has spoken. The first thing we must do is bring back a fiscal discipline so that we know what money we have, because only with knowing what money we have can we do things properly. The late Lord Judge and I were bitterly critical of the constant increase in sentence lengths without consideration of how this was to be paid for without either putting prisoners into squalid conditions or cutting the really good things that are done in prison—in particular, education. That is the first fundamental question. We need to work out what we can pay for with the money available. The second fundamental question is then to explain to the public what we are capable of doing. This is a shared endeavour of us all because we cannot go on as we are. It seems to me that we must return to, first, truth in sentencing. If the judge says, “You get five years and you spend half of that in prison and half in the community”, that is what we should deliver, but we have had to go away from that because we have not told the public the truth—that there is only a limited amount of money available and we can do only so much with it. I hope this fundamental question will be grappled with by us all. I warmly commend the Government on what they have said about IPPs. It has taken huge courage and a sense of justice to do it. The greater task ahead is to adopt the same attitude to explaining to the public that if this is the money available, this is all we can do, prison sentences must come down and we must use prison spaces more effectively, and they will be better for that. That is the next task facing this Government.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, not for the first time, I am feeling a bit outclassed and overawed by the legal and judicial expertise in this place that has produced so many excellent speeches. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for inviting us to talk about the state of prisons and probation services. However, I want to start by making some broader points about context. During the week, we have had the extraordinary sight of 92% of the citizens of an Oxford village, Piddington, population 358, voting in a symbolic referendum to become independent from the United Kingdom. In interviews with residents, there has been a common theme: the state is exposing them to danger. Housing 1,250 young male asylum seekers in nearby Bicester garrison means: “Our safety, our security and our freedoms will be under threat”. To paraphrase one woman: “If these men need government leaflets to explain that sexually abusing children or raping women is wrong, I’m frightened to go out alone. I will become a prisoner in my own house”. That is my theme, in a way. The sentiment of being a prisoner in your own house is not confined to leafy villages but is felt in towns and cities throughout the country. It is not confined to asylum policies. One key issue that has been a lightning rod for worries that state policies are indifferent to public safety is the early release scheme—for example, those women who now feel frightened in their own homes as victims of domestic abuse, worried that their early released tormentors may show up on the doorstep. Somehow the law-abiding are unfairly becoming the victims of failed state policies. I would normally want to use today’s debate to talk in detail about prison reform, because I am passionate especially about improving educational initiatives in prison and I hate the lack of purposeful activity available that has been so well described by other noble Lords—I thought the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, made a magnificent speech—but it is also true that it has become particularly difficult to convince the public that the MoJ should prioritise improving the treatment of prisoners in jail when so many are being released out of jail before they have served their time. Discussing rehabilitation feels meaningless when the very purposes of prisons—at least in the sense of punishment and deprivation of liberty, not cruelty, or of protecting the public, let alone rehabilitation to reduce reoffending—are made a mockery of by successive Governments’ failure to deliver prison expansion and now the makeshift solutions to deal with the fallout. Early release schemes outsource the problem into our communities, literally dumping it on our streets. The public are rightly furious that criminals will not now serve the sentences that the law, which we make here, thinks is appropriate for their crimes. Recent polling shows that 69% of those questioned are against the early release scheme. More troubling, 68% say they have lost faith in all Governments’ handling of criminal justice per se. At the forthcoming annual Battle of Ideas festival organised by the Academy of Ideas, which I run—I declare an interest—one of the panel debates is entitled: “Letting abusers out early: solving the prisons crisis”. It is proving to be an unexpected festival sell-out hit. When I talk to people, four recurring themes are raised. There is a perception that the early release scheme, alongside the Sentencing Act, has a presumption against prison in favour of community sentences. With the even further reductions in release dates to a third of sentences served, people just feel that sentencing has become a joke and that it is less a pragmatic response to a lack of prison space than an official ideological turn against incarceration as punishment. This is happening without public debate or consent. There is also a worry that the prison crisis is diminishing the diligence of policing in pursuing certain crimes. What is the point of arresting shoplifters or burglars if they cannot be threatened with the prospect of prison? A third concern is that early release is a lazy reaction to the crisis. Why are there no other emergency options—perhaps the prison equivalent of NHS Nightingales? Maybe the thousands of empty prison cells currently out of action could be renovated, or even the shocking facts about those kept on remand, which we heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, in his brilliant maiden speech, could be tackled. It is a disgrace that this is such a large percentage of the prison community. A final concern is in response to the Government’s reassurance that early release prisoners are not being released freely but will be under close supervision. Yet probation services admit that they are not equipped to cope. The whole paraphernalia of control and surveillance in the community—curfews, electronic tags, formal restriction zones, the wearing of high-vis vests—can only result in whole swathes of local areas feeling more like open-air prisons for all, rather than a free society. Possibly the only good thing to have come from the prison crisis is Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s commendable announcement that he will, at last, end the injustice of IPP prisoners. I confess that I got emotional hearing an ex-IPP prisoner, Marc Conway from UNGRIPP, declaring that it was, “a day that thousands of families have spent years fighting for”. He also stressed that implementing the decision needed to be swift and transparent, and that is where the euphoria is dampened. Last week, I received this message from Stacey Clough of the Injustice of IPP campaign. It is worth listening to her words. She said: “I think it’s great what Andy Burnham has said, but he has left IPP prisoners and their families with a different mental torture by not making it clear what it’s going to look like … and they still have no definite date to count down to. My partner said all the IPPs in Wayland have gone downhill, as the hopes were raised by the announcement, but as there’s no time-frame… they’re all worried it’s false hope. What if there’s an election and Labour are voted out—then back to square one. They have now been left with uncertainty. If the Government don’t end it, there is going to be more suicides”. I gulped at that. Stacey continued: “The thing is he could order probation to release the recalled prisoners without any new requirements—and no new legislation is needed because of executive powers created in 2012—powers they’ve never used. They should also be recommending that anyone going up for parole, with no new crimes or charges on a recall, should be granted release and have their licence terminated and give them a supervision order instead”. My advice to the Minister is to recommend to the MoJ that Stacey is given a job, because she has got it all completely right, as far as I am concerned. There are so many inequities in the way in which IPP prisoners continue to be treated. It is not just that we need to have these things happen more quickly. For example, we hear that, even when IPP prisoners are granted parole, they are often kept in prison for months and months, due to a lack of approved accommodation on the outside. There are things that need to be done fast. While the Minister defended the principle of recall at Questions this week, the fact that the number of IPP prisoners recalled without any criminal charge has gone up from 70% in 2023 to 77% in 2025 should worry him. I hope that noble Lords have a good recess, but I will be at No. 10 North on Monday, along with anti-IPP protestors—
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
Order. The time limit is eight minutes.
Lord Garnier (Con)
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Farmer on introducing this debate and thank him for doing so with his usual calmness and analysis. Every time he speaks on this subject—and he is a renowned expert—the House listens with great care, and we did so again today. I also welcome and congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, both on his arrival here and on his maiden speech. He should not feel in the least bit embarrassed about waiting only two or three days after his introduction before addressing the House. He should have done so on the first day, and on the second and on the third, and I hope that he will on many days after this because, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, so correctly pointed out, he was a judge and will be a Member of this House who will provide great wisdom and analysis and a great sense of justice on anything to which he brings his mind to bear. Whilst I have them sitting there, I want to thank both those noble and learned Lords for helping me, just over 16 years ago, with the introduction of the deferred prosecution agreement. They, as successor Presidents of the Queen’s Bench Division, assisted me in my political guise, with them in their judges’ role, to bring that criminal justice tool into fruition. It seems a little strange that, when I last appeared in front of the then Sir Brian Leveson, when he was sitting in court, he was about 20 feet above me; the layout of this Chamber allows me to be 10 feet above him. I shall savour that. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, mentioned a little while ago, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House has produced a report on the state of our prisons and, to some extent, it mirrored the report made by the House of Commons Justice Committee. It is fair to say that neither report was complimentary about what they had looked into and found. Equally, it is fair to say that nor did they say anything that we did not already know before. Until prisons become a politically important subject of real and regular interest to Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State for Justice, very little can be achieved, despite the hard work of junior Ministers in the other place and on the Front Bench here. Now, I am a cracked record in human form: for years, I have been complaining about the state of our prison estate, what we do to improve the lives and prospects of those in prison, and the provision of education and employment opportunities for those in and those about to leave prison. We recycle offenders on an alarming scale, into and out of prison and then back again. The reoffending rate varies marginally from time to time, but the general picture is deeply depressing. For a hard-pressed prison governor, a good day is when nothing happens. It is when no one—and by that I mean both prison staff and prisoners themselves—dies and no one gets stabbed or punched; the infrastructure of the prison functions; the movement of people from the accommodation wings to the places where out-of-cell activities are supposed to happen takes place without incident and on time; no one throws drugs over the walls or flies them in by drone; and the provision of food and medical supplies is efficiently administered and delivered without mishap. That is a good day, but they are very rare. Sadly, there are not many good days for prison governors, nor for their staff or for the prisoners and, as I say, this is not a new state of affairs; it will continue, as it has done for decades, under both Labour and Conservative Governments, and it will get even worse as we overcrowd the prisons and create or permit the continuance of squalid and uncivilised living and working conditions within them. They are hopeless places, in so many respects. When I was a Member of Parliament, I once said to a local journalist that obviously prisons should have walls, both to keep the prisoners in and to keep the public out. But those walls should have large windows in them, so the public could see into the prisons and know what is being done on their behalf, and the prisoners could also see out, so they could see there was a community out there that would welcome them back if they were rehabilitated, if they could learn to read and write, if they could get off drugs and if they could become social, employable beings. The local journalist looked at me and said, “You clearly haven’t thought of the public expenditure implications of building all those windows”. I think he was being serious, which is rather depressing. I suffer from analysis paralysis, and I accept that reciting what is wrong is easy; doing something about it seems to be impossible. This scandalous injustice must stop. The tiresome blame game played by successive Governments is unproductive and does us no credit, still less achieves anything. I have recently written to the new Prime Minister and I gave a copy to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos. I hope that he has read it and I am sure he has; he probably keeps it by his bed and is setting it to music. We do not need, as the justice unions have indicated today in their statement, a royal commission to investigate our prisons and to make robust recommendations. We know what is wrong: what we require is a Government to do something about it. We need determined action, led by a Prime Minister and a Secretary of State who are politically motivated and able to command the system that they oversee to do what is required. Everybody who has spoken has indicated what is required; it just requires leadership and action. I urge the Minister to run round to No. 10 this evening and say that he is ready for action.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, I too have very little experience in this area, but I felt I did have something worth saying from a professional point of view. My experience of prisons is not personal but, while I was on call at Hammersmith Hospital, I did go inside prisons to see sick patients when they were quite seriously ill. It was being ignored, but finally there was no doctor present. I was the obstetrician on call at the hospital and ordinarily I dealt with deliveries and surgeries. However, there was nobody else to see the male inmates at Wormwood Scrubs. I saw the absolute squalor, the appalling circumstances, the lack of hope and the complete negligence in people’s understanding of what was behind these people’s suffering. When one such patient was brought to Hammersmith Hospital still handcuffed, so I could not actually examine his abdomen, I realised how far we had sunk as a society. There was another patient who was in custody for several years. His wife was a patient of mine who had been desperate for children; she had been trying for a child for almost 10 years and she was getting older and older. Her husband had recently been sentenced and was in prison for, I think, four years. I had spent a year trying to persuade the authorities, who were completely indifferent, including many people in the Home Office, that we needed to get some sperm from this man. We did not need to do in vitro fertilisation; simple artificial insemination was all we needed. It was the most difficult tussle but, at the time, they broke a rule, finally, because of the persistence. It got into the newspapers, and nobody in the newspapers understood the suffering behind that. However, as has been said in this debate, it made a difference later on to the cohesion of that family when the child was born, and I am quite proud of that moment. Letters I have had from prisoners, sent to me by the Howard League for Penal Reform, show some of the terrible lacks we have been talking about. Overcrowding is massive. There is one prisoner who is clearly autistic—he points this out—and obviously has other mental health disorders. He says he is surrounded by constant noise and cannot sleep. He is unable to express his mental condition. As an autistic person, he is extremely sensitive to noise. This is not at all atypical; it is simply that nothing can be done about it in that environment. Another inmate talks about the lack of training and rehabilitation. He says that sometimes it might finally be available when you are ready to be released for the first time, and there is no chance of learning trade skills. What is interesting about all those letters is that they are not hysterical; they are very calm and limited in what they complain about, but they come to the point very well. We have a human brain, which is one of the most complicated objects in the known universe. It has about 100 billion neurons. Each of those neurons will be connected up to 2,000 times to other areas of the brain. What we know is that, as the neurons develop and as we learn, new connections are found as a result. You can see this now under a microscope; I have wonderful photographs of this happening. When there is a change in the environment, you can see how the synapses connect up other nerves. If the stimuli in that environment are constantly repeated, you end up learning more and more. You inherit the fixed learning that you need as you get old. What we have in prisons is exactly that; we have an environment which is constant, but constantly against the right kind of learning. Inevitably, we end up with people who are already damaged being damaged more. Their brains are damaged by us. This is something we should recognise. It is essential. The environment is absolutely critical and it is absolutely appalling. I cannot leave without saying briefly how much I valued the contribution from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, in his wonderful maiden speech. It is not the custom to keep on going on about new Members, but it was an exceptional speech. It is wonderful to see Cross-Benchers of his calibre coming into this House to improve the knowledge and experience that we desperately need in this Chamber. We should be so grateful that he is here. His speech today was a very good start. Finally, I want to say that this is not a private matter to be sent away. We discuss all the time in this Chamber schools, defence and healthcare. Again and again, we ask the same questions at Question Time. How often do we talk about the shame of prisons? We think that the prisoners are ashamed—but no, we should be ashamed. This is our shame as a society. We need to change this and we need to do a colossal amount about it. As these prisoners know, the prison system is collapsing at the moment; it is seriously threatened. Therefore, there is a threat to us—not to our safety, but to our well-being as people. Let us remember our humanity and try to do something about it.
Baroness Sater (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this important debate, and I pay tribute to all the work he does on this subject. I also welcome the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, and congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech. As the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, spoke about so articulately, the pressures on our Prison and Probation Service are stark. We have already heard that the Government have announced up to £500 million of additional funding for probation and community services, alongside at least 1,300 additional trainee probation officers in 2026-27. However, as we heard from many today, the strain on probation has been building for a long time, and many in the justice system have raised serious concerns about whether even this substantial investment will meet the scale of the challenge. Finding and retaining workforce is a major challenge, while case loads continue to rise. The latest workforce figures, published in August, show that the Probation Service is almost 2,000 full-time equivalent officers below its target level; that is a significant gap. The changes to early-release arrangements next month will mean that probation has even more on its plate, especially with the increased emphasis on intense supervision, electronic tagging and monitoring, alongside the increased casework. Where does that leave effective and meaningful rehabilitation, especially when reoffending rates remain high? If we are increasing the demands of probation, we must also ask whether we are giving it the capacity to deliver the rehabilitation that reduces reoffending. Perhaps there are more important lessons that we can learn from the youth justice system. Last Friday saw Second Reading of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (Restoration of Powers and Responsibilities) Bill, brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. Concerns were raised about the Government’s proposed changes to its functions and responsibilities, and the extra burden placed on the MoJ. I am not certain that the MoJ needs any more responsibilities or work. As a former youth magistrate and former member of the board, I have seen at first hand what the youth justice system has achieved. The marked fall in youth offending and youth custody is an extraordinary achievement. It is not always how you spend the money but where you spend it. Perhaps one of the most important lessons that can be learned is the holistic approach taken in youth justice. As His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, said of youth justice earlier this year, “we have all the building blocks of success, and we need to ensure that we carry that across into the adult system”. As the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, mentioned, those building blocks could also help us address the challenges faced by young adults as they transition into the adult system. As we know, those aged between 18 and 25 have some of the highest rates of reoffending. Crucially, that is a period in which effective intervention can change the trajectory of young people’s lives. If we get the right interventions, it will mean fewer victims, fewer people returning to prison and, ultimately, a better use of taxpayers’ money. We know that this age group is an important stage of development: education, employment, relationships and independence are still taking shape, while maturity is still developing. Therefore, we should think of the 18 to 25 age group as more of a coherent end-to-end cohort, with much greater continuity between the youth justice services and adult probation—an issue that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has also spoken about today. However, rehabilitation is not only about what happens after someone leaves prison; it also depends on what happens while they are in prison. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, highlighted, this is where purposeful activity matters. Education, skills, training and physical activity can all contribute to a purposeful prison regime and an effective rehabilitation. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, highlighted, for many people entering prison with existing health needs, access to the right support plays an important part in their rehabilitation, and yet purposeful activity remains a serious weakness in our prisons. As His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, has highlighted, of the 38 men’s and women’s prisons inspected in 2024-25, 28 were rated poor or not sufficiently good for purposeful activity. This matters not only in prison but through the gate too. Probation needs the resources and time to build partnerships with employers, charities, training providers, families and communities. This is fundamental to the success of rehabilitation. The noble Lord, Lord Timpson, said: “By tackling the root causes of offending and giving people the second chance they need, we can help them rebuild their lives and stay on the straight and narrow”. Therefore, how can we expect the Probation Service to have the capacity to tackle the root causes of offending when there are so many other pressures on the system? We know that the true test of probation is not simply whether it can monitor someone when they leave prison; it is whether it can help them turn their lives around and build a better future. Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this excellent debate.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for providing the opportunity for such a vital debate. I am delighted to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, sitting on the Cross Benches. I thank him for his excellent and wise but very sobering maiden speech. I speak as the honorary president of the Zahid Mubarek Trust—ZMT—which was founded some 25 years ago following the murder of Zahid while on remand in a young offender institution. He was placed in a cell with a known racist who had a history of extreme violence. The subsequent public inquiry uncovered 186 missed opportunities to protect Zahid and exposed institutional racism within the Prison Service. The ZMT exists to promote racial equality in prisons and runs innovative programmes to enable greater racial equality and programmes on leadership. In the 25 years since the murder of Zahid, there has been a series of initiatives and reviews to improve racial equality in the Prison Service and the criminal justice system. Despite this, there is worrying evidence of significant racial disparities in both prisons and more widely in criminal justice. Some 27% of the prison population in England and Wales comes from ethnic communities. However, if the prison population were to reflect the UK’s ethnic make-up, there would be 9,000 fewer men and boys in prison. Offenders from ethnic minorities have a disproportionately higher likelihood of receiving custodial sentences, even after taking higher not guilty plea rates into account. Defendants from minority-ethnic groups are far more likely to be remanded in custody, and Black prisoners serve a far greater proportion of determinate sentences. The use of force against Black prisoners is much higher. The most recent figures show 409 incidents per 1,000 Black prisoners, compared to 209 incidents for white prisoners. The prison inspectorate’s annual report for 2024-25 aggregated the data from sample surveys, broken down between white prisoners and all other ethnic groups. Those in the latter category consistently expressed more negative experiences than their white peers. On 69% of the topics covered, the “other ethnic group” category was significantly more likely to report negative experiences. These included access to jobs, the library, medical appointments, education and training opportunities, and help in preparing for release. So there is no denying that there continue to be racial disparities in prisons. The question is: what more can be done? A commitment by the Minister to work with voluntary organisations, including the Zahid Mubarek Trust, to monitor, for example, the implementation of the progression regime that will be introduced by the Sentencing Act 2026, would be very welcome, since there is genuine concern that ethnic-minority prisoners will not benefit to the same extent as white prisoners. Finally, it is disturbing that there is no national plan or strategy to promote racial equality in prisons. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service has nominated senior civil servant race champions and has a national team with a brief to advance racial inclusion. However, a letter to the co-director of the Zahid Mubarek Trust on 1 May from the briefing and correspondence team of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service stated that “there is no single, overarching strategy or action plan focused specifically on reducing racial disparity within prisons, nor is there a centrally held budget dedicated solely to race equality … at a local level, prisons are required to maintain their own Diversity and Inclusion plans, which are tailored to local needs and are not consolidated into a single national document. Budgetary responsibility for related activity sits locally, rather than being captured within a single, centrally held budget”. That is real Civil Service language. Of course, it makes sense for local initiatives to be tailored to the local situation in a particular prison, but it is difficult to see how continuing racial disparities can be tackled effectively without an overarching national strategy and action plan to promote racial equality in the prison system.
Lord Reay (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for introducing this debate and all noble Lords for their speeches today, with congratulations to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson of Liverpool, on his excellent maiden speech. The capacity of prisons across the country remains a concerning problem, with the prison population expected to reach between 92,400 and 100,000 by November 2032. Although the Government have pledged 14,000 new prison places by 2031, serious progress is needed to meet that target—progress that is not yet apparent. The Government have delivered 700 fewer prison cells than last year and no new prisons have been planned or approved since the Labour Government took office in 2024. These new prisons will be essential to increasing prison capacity, so I hope there will be evidence as to how they will reach that pledge. There is also a problem now. The problem of immediate availability is similarly severe. As was discussed only last week on the criminal justice reform Statement, there are “4,000 operational prison places not in use ”.—[ Official Report , 8/9/26; col. 568.] The Minister did not set out what steps the Government were taking to ensure that these existing places could be utilised, so I pose the same question: how will the Government address the issues of officer shortages to allow those places to be used? We have heard from the sector that retention is a huge problem among prison officers. What specific steps are Ministers taking to improve retention? I turn to the probation system, where serious concerns have been raised about the electronic tagging system. In July, the National Audit Office expressed concerns regarding public safety if the electronic tagging system was rapidly expanded to reduce the prison population. Its report noted that between 10% and 50% of alerts resulted in breach notifications being sent to the relevant officials. Further to that, serious and minor breaches were both treated the same. Will the Minister ensure that all tagging breaches are dealt with? Last week, my noble friend Lord Wolfson asked about the barriers posed by Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and targets for the number of foreign national prisoners being deported, to which the Minister said that he would come back. Will he do so now and share how they intend to address these barriers? I look forward to his response.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this debate and his excellent opening speech. The noble Lord has campaigned tirelessly on prison reform as he has on family life, so he unsurprisingly stressed, with others, the importance of prisoners’ contact with their families. We have heard a brilliant, sympathetic and far-reaching maiden speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson—our “new boy”, as he modestly described himself. We, for our part, are honoured to have such an extremely distinguished new boy and will continue to benefit greatly in this House from his wisdom, incisiveness and humanity. This Government inherited a crisis in our Prison and Probation Service. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, for the progress he made in tackling this as Prisons Minister. His presence in the Government will be missed. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said, until the Sentencing Act the threat of our criminal justice collapsing for want of prison space was all too real. The last Government recognised this problem far too late and introduced a haphazard series of crisis early-release schemes, but without offering any long-term solution. We have at last put the management of determinate sentences on a more organised footing, moving towards an earned progression model and restructuring such sentences in an orderly way, with the first third of sentences to be spent in custody and the second third, barring bad behaviour, to be served under intensive supervision by the Probation Service in the community. For this second stage, offenders would be subject to tagging and a series of tailored restrictions as necessary, designed to address concerns among victims and the public on security and safety grounds following prisoners’ release from custody. Stage 3, the last third, will then be spent on licence. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that we must be clear with the public about what we are doing and why. We must hope the new system will work, with the aid of extensive use of better technology. There is evidence from Texas and elsewhere that gives grounds for optimism, although I would have preferred to see earned release with more emphasis on rewarding good behaviour in custody rather than simply punishing misbehaviour. Moreover, many have pointed out that the length of prison sentences has doubled in recent decades. Our sentences are longer than almost everywhere else in Europe and there is no evidence that longer sentences reduce reoffending or aid rehabilitation. On the contrary, offenders serving long sentences in overcrowded prisons become institutionalised and lose hope, suffering increased mental damage over time, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, pointed out. Overcrowding is made worse because there are too many unconvicted people in prison on remand and for far too long, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, said, and too many are unnecessarily recalled for inadequate reasons, as my noble friend Lord Foster and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, argued. Far too many people receive prison sentences rather than community sentences, which would genuinely address their difficulties. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, spoke of treatment of addiction within the community, which prison cannot realistically replicate, and she was right. I invite the Government to continue along the path of the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, of according a greater priority to developing a more humane and effective penal system, prioritising reducing reoffending and rehabilitation and moving away from the wasteful and ineffective use of ever-longer sentences of imprisonment in response to ill-advised press and public demand. End the media drama, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, put it. We must improve conditions in many of our unhealthy prisons. We must continue to increase staffing levels and help dedicated staff in assisting prisoners to turn their lives around. Instead of aggravating drug addiction, mental health issues, appalling violence and criminality in our prisons, and a lack of education and training and consequently unemployability, our prisons and probation services must be dedicated to addressing and overcoming these issues. That was the essence of the argument made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, with which I agreed fully. These issues are often worse for Black prisoners, as the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, said. My noble friend Lord Foster and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, spoke of gambling addiction, also needing urgent action which cannot be provided in prisons. Furthermore, release from prison is not the end of the story. The Probation Service has a huge challenge to be effective in continuing the rehabilitation of prisoners on release. While tagging and the enforcement of restrictions on released prisoners’ movements, exclusion orders and the like are very important as safeguards for victims and for the public, the Probation Service is about much more than tough offender management. Our probation officers do a fantastic job. However, to reduce reoffending, the Probation Service must have the numbers, the space, the resources and the training to be able to assist clients with accessing mental health and addiction services, education, training, employment, and of course housing, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, stressed. To train a new probation officer takes at least 15 months, and the application process adds a further six months. Therefore, we worry that the extra £700 million for probation services, welcome as it is, may not cover both the extra work needed for rehabilitating offenders and coping with the increased demands of intense supervision of many more prisoners released into the community, a point well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. So, I repeat the question I asked the Minster last Tuesday, to which I had no answer: what contingency plans are in place to provide further funds should this allocation of £700 million prove inadequate? Even with the implementation of the Sentencing Act and increased work by the Probation Service, the shortage of prison space will not go away. Even the most optimistic predictions suggest that the prison population will rise again. Add to that the need to replace many of our older and unsuitable prisons in crying need of replacement, and we will inevitably need more space. The Government are optimistic on prison building, but we cannot build ourselves out of this crisis, so clearly more—and more suitable—space is necessary. I am concerned that the proposal to build more cells into existing prisons may increase pressure on other facilities within those prisons. Furthermore, building more new prisons involves long delays. The Minister says the Government have acquired suitable land and that they can mitigate the delays inherent in designing and building new prisons. I hope he will forgive me for being sceptical about that. Recent experience of planning applications for prisons and local objections to such applications gives no reason for optimism. It is therefore very important that we consider a realistic assessment of the demand for new prison places and test it against a realistic programme of acquisition and building of new prisons. Furthermore, any prison building programme must allow for sufficient headroom to allow prisoners to be housed in prisons located with their needs and rehabilitation in mind, including, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, the need for prisoners to be close to their families and communities. Shuffling prisoners around an overcrowded prison estate throughout the UK is a recipe for failure of rehabilitation and for failure in the drive to cut reoffending, and for increased public expense—a point which follows from the analysis of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. That means more crime and the public continuing to be let down by a penal system that is not only inhumane but continues down a road that has failed in the past and threatens to fail us again unless we genuinely concentrate on developing and funding an approach which works, which will ultimately bring benefits in falling crime and in reduced public expense.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Lemos) (Lab)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this important debate and all noble Lords who have contributed this afternoon to what has been a sober but very humane debate. Noble Lords will know that not every debate about prisons has those characteristics, so I very much appreciate that. For many years, the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has brought sustained attention to the purpose of imprisonment and to the vital role that families and strong, stable relationships can play in rehabilitation. We are very grateful to him. I declare my own interest: I was the lead non-executive director of HMPPS until 2025. I chaired its agency board and had the pleasure and the privilege of meeting the noble Lord and talking with him, particularly about the work my then colleagues at HMPPS were doing on the relational model, which he was a champion of and is at the heart of what we are all discussing. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, on a magnificent maiden speech. I am proud to say that I have read both parts of the noble and learned Lord’s court review, twice. He looks shocked, but I have, and I look forward to working with him very closely, as does everyone at the Ministry of Justice. I will start with the most immediate pressure on prison capacity. I take the challenge from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, not to indulge in the blame game very seriously, and I will try not to. I will also try not to recite lots of things other people have said before and that your Lordships already know. I am all too conscious that I alone stand between noble Lords and Recess, so I shall be concise but thorough. On all these comments about prison capacity, I am not, as I say, going to indulge in the blame game. In two regards, the comments many noble Lords have made highlight the heart of this problem and the theme we will return to again and again. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, mentioned the great increase in sentence length. This is at the heart of the long-running difficulty with prison capacity. Noble Lords do not need me to tell them that, in the context of a prison capacity crisis, many if not all the things noble Lords have said they value in prisons—such as education, regime, healthcare and rehabilitation—are the first to suffer in overcrowded prisons with overstretched staff. So, we have to get the capacity crisis under control. I am not going to bandy figures around, but we are providing 14,000 additional prison places and we will continue to make a commitment to prison building. On that, I just say to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that we are not suggesting that the prison numbers will come down or that the prison building programme may, in the end, not prove adequate. We recognise that this is an ongoing thing and will go on for a very long time, perhaps even for a decade. I entirely agree with the comment by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that we cannot build our way out of this capacity challenge, though build we must. On sentencing, measures already in force include the presumption to suspend prison sentences of 12 months or less. The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, talked about short sentences, and those are subject to important exceptions. Our view is that short spells in custody disrupt housing arrangements, employment and drug treatment. They are not good for mental health and, crucially, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, the family ties that are at the heart of preventing further offending. Where offenders can be punished and managed safely in the community—I do not apologise for the use of the word “punishment”—we should use that opportunity to both supervise them effectively and tackle the underlying causes of their offending, reserving prisons for those who most need to be there and from whom the public need to be protected. Over the coming months, we will implement the progression model that was at the heart of David Gauke's recommendations and at the heart of the Sentencing Act. I have had the opportunity to discuss that with many noble Lords before today. This is almost the most important building block to a changed landscape for prisons. I make this offer to noble Lords in the spirit of my noble friend Lord Timpson; noble Lords can consider me a sort of polyester version of my noble friend. We need to make sure that the whole approach of the Sentencing Act—a third in custody, a third under intensive supervision—is understood much better by the public, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and others have said. I would be very happy to arrange a presentation from our officials on exactly how this is going to work and how we are preparing for it. It means a tougher probation service. I was very mindful of the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, who I am working with on youth custody, as well. We are asking the Probation Service to do something really quite difficult, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, made clear. We are asking it to improve itself after a long history of troubles that started with the failed privatisation, and to take on many new responsibilities under the intensive supervision model. We know that is challenging. I have talked about the money. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, has asked me again about contingency planning. The question of government funding and the need for more funding is something we talk about all the time in the Ministry of Justice, as noble Lords can imagine. We will approach the spending review in the usual optimistic spirit. I want to recognise, finally, on this question of the progression model, that we listened to some of the concerns of victims and their families about the changes. As noble Lords know, we changed some of the exemptions, but we recognise that changing release arrangements can cause victims and their families a great deal of uncertainty and distress. That is why stronger supervision and support for victims are so important in the Government’s approach. I now turn to prison safety and security, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned. Prisons must be places of safety, security and order, where staff can do their jobs, prisoners can engage in a constructive regime—particularly in education and training for employment—and genuine rehabilitation can take place. As I have said, all this is made much more difficult by serious overcrowding, overstretched staff and inadequate facilities. Drugs, illicit mobile phones and drones fuel violence, criminal activity, debt and intimidation; they undermine staff authority and make turning lives around substantially harder. At the heart of what we need to do is ensuring effective security. It is essential. That is why we are investing in both the fabric and the security of our prisons, including an additional £35 million this financial year—we get some money out of the Treasury—to strengthen counter-drone security in prisons where there is the greatest threat. We are also working closely with law enforcement partners to disrupt those bringing drugs, weapons and other contraband into prisons. Our prison officers perform a demanding public service and I take my hat off to them. They need the confidence, training and support to maintain order and build the constructive relationships that help offenders turn their backs on crime for good. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Reay, as of June this year, prison officer staffing stood at 92% of our target level and prison officer resignation rates are at their lowest in five years. It is obviously a difficult labour market, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, highlighted. Many pressures remain, particularly in hard-to-staff prisons, but we have made an enormous effort—going back to my days in HMPPS—on recruitment, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Foster, would recognise. Many noble Lords have highlighted that a safe prison must also be a purposeful one. Most people who enter prison, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, highlighted, will eventually return to the community. This is a simple statement of fact that is too readily ignored. Nearly 80% of offenders are reoffenders and therefore we have a responsibility to use the time spent in custody as effectively as we can, as many noble Lords have emphasised. Our approach is to help individuals develop skills and secure employment and stable accommodation, and to provide access to treatment for substance misuse and mental health needs. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, we meet regularly with Dame Carol Black and are working with her on the findings of her report. My colleagues and I would be very happy to meet the noble Lord and his colleagues to discuss the AI tool he was describing. All these efforts in health care and accommodation go to the heart of the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, that through all these things we are trying to maintain positive relationships. That is a good and humane thing to do, regardless of anything else: it is a good in itself. Effective rehabilitation nevertheless sits alongside punishment and robust supervision as an essential part of protecting the public. Every offence prevented means one fewer victim. I recognise the comments made by my noble friend Lord Winston, which were utterly compelling, about the effect on the brain. I have seen research along those lines, and this is a very important area for us to develop. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, will know that we have discussed previously the whole question of gambling and gambling addiction. My noble friend Lord Timpson made some progress on that, and I hope we can continue that. I have no doubt that I will have many opportunities to discuss that with the noble Lord, Lord Foster. Purposeful activity can have a transformative effect. We are expanding vocational training and apprenticeships and improving links with employers and access to education. Our track record on getting prisoners into jobs when they leave has improved. My noble friend Lord Timpson put a great deal of emphasis on that. We are seeing progress. The proportion of prison leavers in employment six months after release increased to 36.5% in the year to March 2026. We know we have a long way to go, but we are making some progress. I turn to the question of family and other relationships, which the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, described as the golden thread. The evidence bears this out. Research shows that prisoners who received visits were three percentage points less likely to reoffend within one year of release. But as I have said, I regard that as a good thing in itself, whatever the statistics are telling us. I am delighted that they confirm my view. The prison gates should not be a cliff edge, for all the reasons I have set out. Prisons, probation, local authorities, health services and employment support must work as one system. Of course, there are many difficulties and that is why, alongside MHCLG, we have committed to halve the proportion of prison leavers released to no fixed abode and to increase the proportion in settled accommodation by the end of this Parliament. I want to say a few words about probation. I thank probation staff for the vital work they do every day to protect the public and support rehabilitation. It is easy to be critical, but we also need to recognise their efforts and their achievements. They have been asked to carry too much for too long. We are responding with the investment that a number of noble Lords have referred to. We have already recruited 2,300 new probation officers over the past year and are recruiting at least 1,300 more in 2026-27. We are rebuilding the service and asking it to take on new responsibilities. Probation officers will have more on their plate, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, said. There is much to be learned from the experience in youth custody—I entirely agree with her about that. Moving part of a sentence from custody into the community, as we are, does not mean the end of punishment. We are giving probation the toughest range of tools ever to manage offenders, including tough licence conditions, electronic tagging on a scale never seen before, curfews, restriction zones, and recall to prison where those conditions are breached. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, spoke about recalls, and I answered a question yesterday from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, on IPPs and recalls. I am very happy to take that away and get back to the noble and learned Lord and everyone who has spoken in this debate about exactly what we are doing to address that trend. One of the things we are already aware of is that, once someone has been recalled, the time taken to get to a parole decision before they can be released is something we need to address. But I do not at all demur from the general challenge, and I will return to it. Again, as I have said about this progression model, my officials will be very happy to arrange a session on the changes to probation so that noble Lords can feel more confident, at least, of the steps we are taking to build a Probation Service for the future. I will say something about women offenders and female offenders, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Female offenders often have distinct and complex needs. Many are victims themselves, with histories of trauma, abuse, mental health and addiction, and many are mothers. That is why our long-term aim is to reduce the number of women in prison and, in particular, pregnant women and mothers of young children. That is a particular commitment of ours, to which we shall be addressing ourselves with energy. We have announced—this refers to what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, was talking about—the expansion of intensive supervision courts for women, which will use a multi-agency approach to address the root causes of offending. This is an important development, which we shall watch very carefully to see if it may help in other areas too. We are also investing in voluntary and community sector provision to help prevent offending and divert women away from the criminal justice system in the first place. The Sentencing Act’s presumption to suspend sentences is expected to reduce the number of women entering prison by about a third. However, custody will, of course, remain necessary when the seriousness of the offence or the protection of the public requires it. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and one or two other noble Lords mentioned the Government’s decision on IPPs. I am very proud of that. We are continuing the regular meetings with interested Peers. Indeed, the Lord Chancellor himself is attending the next one—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, looks very impressed. The independent review of the prison system, chaired by Amber Rudd, will examine the long-term reforms needed to build a prison system fit for the future, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has challenged us to do. She will report later this year, and I and my ministerial colleagues will be working closely with her on that. We must protect the public, and we must stand with victims. Serious offenders must be punished appropriately. Those released into the community must be robustly supervised, and we must reduce the likelihood of further offending. If we succeed in this, that will mean fewer crimes and fewer victims. I note the comments noble Lords have made on foreign national offenders and on remand. This is all part of the approach we need for getting prison numbers to a more sustainable future. I hope I have addressed the principal points raised, but I will read Hansard with my officials carefully and write on points I have failed to address. I will say this: in my short time in this job, and indeed before, I have worked with many noble Lords in this House on these issues. I regard this as a collaborative, cross-party venture—I was going to say adventure; it is certainly a venture. I know noble Lords from across the House are working with us on IPPs, but I hope we can continue to work together more widely. In closing, I reiterate my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for tabling this Motion and giving us the opportunity to have this debate. None of the problems that noble Lords have highlighted should prevent us paying tribute to those who work tirelessly across our Prison and Probation Service. They undertake, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, noted, difficult and demanding work on behalf of us all. I wish noble Lords a very good Recess. I hope you do not go to too many conferences, but before that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, will respond.
Lord Farmer (Con)
I am the barrier between everyone and Recess. This has been a good, valuable and collaborative debate. We have worked together. There has not been partisanship. That is important because this is an important and, to be quite frank, depressing subject. The reasons for depression have become apparent from many of the speeches today. I compliment every Member who has contributed today. There have been excellent contributions. I hope that the Hansard of this debate will get some publicity because it needs it. People need to see clearly the problems that are going on in the prison estate, but they also need to see how we can work together and co-operate. I very much liked the emphasis on the prisoner as a human being, which was mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, and the noble Lord, Lord Winston, but also came over in many speeches. I concur with everybody that it was an honour to have the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, make his maiden speech in this debate. It was a hugely valuable contribution. I am not going to go on and on because we need to get to Recess and it has been a long day. I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions. I hope the debate gets widespread impact across Parliament, into the departments of government and out there to the wider public so that they understand the problems in the prison estate at the moment. Motion agreed.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My Lords, we are about to go into Recess, so I take this opportunity to thank all the staff of the House for their hard work and support and wish them and, indeed, all noble Lords a restful Recess. I hope noble Lords enjoy their party conference, if they are attending.
House adjourned at 6.08 pm.
Source: UK Parliament Hansard API. Debate ID: 5409265.