Imprisonment for Public Protection: Sentencing

17. What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the third report of the Justice Committee of Session 2022-23 on IPP sentences, HC 266, published on 22 September 2022.

We continue to support IPP offenders through our updated action plan, which contributed to a 9% decrease in IPP offenders in prison in the last year, but we will not put public protection at risk. The Prisons Minister in the other place and I continue to meet regularly with MPs, peers and other stakeholders to work together on supporting this cohort.

It is 12 and a half years since IPP sentences were described as “not defensible” and were abolished for offenders, but 2,852 people remain incarcerated under these sentences—just 74 fewer than in June 2022. When the Justice Committee reported in 2022, its key recommendation was that the Government legislate to enable a resentencing exercise for these individuals. Will the Minister please set up an expert committee to at least advise on how to bring forward a resentencing exercise urgently?

It is right and proper that IPP sentences were abolished. Various organisations have considered resentencing. None of them has identified an approach that would not involve releasing offenders whom the Parole Board has determined pose too great a risk to the public. We do not wish to give false hope to those serving the sentence by establishing an expert panel, but we will continue to work robustly with this group and do everything in our power to address the problem that we recognise.