Sentencing Bill

Report (Continued)

Amendment 75 not moved.

Amendment 76

76: After Clause 23, insert the following new Clause— “Provision for the Parole Board to direct release on licence of an IPP prisoner at a specified future date(1) Section 28 (duty to release certain life prisoners) of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 is amended as follows.(2) In subsection (5)(b), at the end insert “or, in the case of a prisoner in respect of whom the Parole Board has made an order under subsection (6B), the prisoner has served the period ending on the future specified date,”.(3) In subsection (6)(b), at the end insert “or the Parole Board has made an order under subsection (6B)”.(4) In subsection (6A), at the end insert “but do not apply to a prisoner in respect of whom the Parole Board has made an order under subsection (6B)”.(5) After subsection (6A) insert—“(6B) In the case of a prisoner serving one or more preventive sentences as defined by section 31A(5), and not serving any other life sentence, where the Board does not direct his or her immediate release under subsection (5), the Board must fix a date for the person’s release on licence (“a specified future date”) and may issue such directions to facilitate the prisoner’s release on licence at the specified future date as it considers necessary having regard to its duty to protect the public.(6C) Any date fixed under subsection (6B) must not be later than—(a) the second anniversary of the date on which the decision is taken in the case of a prisoner serving a sentence of imprisonment or detention in a young offender institution for public protection under section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (including one passed as a result of section 219 of the Armed Forces Act 2006);(b) the first anniversary of the date on which the decision is taken in the case of a prisoner serving a sentence of detention for public protection under section 226 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (including one passed as a result of section 221 of the Armed Forces Act 2006).(6D) A prisoner in respect of whom a direction has been made under subsection (6B) may apply for the specified future date to be varied once six months have passed from the determination of the release date.(6E) At any time before the expiration of an order for release on licence or direction made under subsection (6B) or an order for release on licence or direction made under this subsection, the Parole Board shall on the application of the Secretary of State, or as the Parole Board may otherwise determine, reconsider any order for release on licence at a specified future date or direction then in force and may direct that the order for release on licence or direction made be set aside and in its place extend the specified future date or order a new specified future date or make any further directions as to the licence conditions it considers necessary.”.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment requires the Parole Board to release on licence at a fixed future release date post tariff IPPs (who has not been released on licence immediately), after the successful completion of directions designed to ensure the public will be adequately protected upon release, with residual powers for the Secretary of State to apply to the Parole Board to vary its Orders.

My Lords, the last Government and this Government have done a great deal to help those who were sentenced to imprisonment for public protection and released on licence. I welcome the amendments tabled by the Government and other noble Lords in relation to the position of those on licence. But we have done nothing to deal with the problem of those who have never been released. In moving the amendment, I seek to provide a measure of real justice in the Bill for what is otherwise largely a Bill to deal with the prison crisis and to ensure that the prisons can run in an orderly manner. The amendment deals simply with justice.

I need not tell your Lordships the current position; it is well known. There are more than 940 prisoners who have never been released and some 200 more in secure mental accommodation, again who have never been released, even though this sentence was abolished in 2012.

Nor is there any need for me to set out the human stories of what these people who have never been released have been subjected to: short tariffs, yet many, many years beyond their tariffs. No one has really tried to address this. Suggestions have been put forward, including resentencing, but each Government have said no, so the Howard League decided it would set up a small group of experts to try to come up with a solution and bring justice at long last.

The key element of that solution, which is embodied in Amendment 76, is that the Parole Board ought to be asked to modify its position and to determine what steps would be necessary to ensure the release of those who have never been released within a two-year window. At the time this amendment was put forward in Committee, it did not contain what I would call a fail-safe clause, but, with the very great help of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, it now contains a clause that modifies the original proposal and enables the Government—or HMPPS—to go back to the Parole Board and say that this two-year window cannot be met. So there is therefore a complete fail-safe.

How can we continue with an action plan that has been running for years but is not achieving justice in time? It is difficult to understand how that can be the case. Possibly it is because, as I explained in Committee, the officials in the department simply do not understand that IPP is not dealing with offenders who committed very serious offences that needed life imprisonment. This was a mistaken sentence: a flawed view that you could cure someone of not being good. When you think of what the ambition was, it is no wonder that it was bound to fail. But they do not seem to understand that. They also do not understand the concept of justice: that if you make a mistake and damage people, you owe a duty to remedy that.

The Government then said, “Well, there’s a risk”. But what is proposed reduces the risk to the minimum. It leaves the decision in the hands of the Parole Board, but it also sets a date and a mechanism by which the public can see what is to be done, with a fail-safe if things do not work out right.

Finally, how can there really be any objection in principle? When the Act abolishing IPPs was passed, a statutory power was added to enable the release test to be changed. It was a far-sighted decision of the then Lord Chancellor, the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, but no one has sought to use that, and we are stuck with where we are.

It is interesting to go back 11 years to 2014, when the mistake had been made but the Lord Chancellor was not prepared to deal with the position of those who had been punished prior to the sentence being abolished, to see what was said. If you read the debates in 2014, you can see what Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Lloyd thought, and what Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood said. In October 2014, he said:

“I think I can fairly say that I have never come across an injustice as plain and persistent as this on an institutionalised basis, because that is what this is, and it grows worse with every passing year”.—[Official Report, 20/10/14; col. 456.]

That was said 11 years ago and nothing has been done to try to address the problem: and one can see that, 11 years later, the problem has grown worse.

I need not read out the statistics that have been published by UNGRIPP on the suicide and self-harm rates. We cannot ignore that, but that is the harm that we are doing by not acting, and why Lord Brown was so right when he coined the phrase that this was a stain on British justice. Surely, we cannot delay any longer changing the arrangements for release. The amendment put forward seeks to do that in a way that is as safe as can be devised, while bringing to an end this misconceived sentence and at last doing justice. I very much hope that the Government will realise that action cannot any longer be avoided.

This amendment seeks to put forward a just and safe solution. I very much hope at this 11th hour that the Government will think again; otherwise, I will seek to test the opinion of the House, because we cannot go on not doing justice and depriving those whom we unjustly sentenced to this terrible form of punishment, without making proper amends. I beg to move.

My Lords, I express my support for the new clause which has been so ably advocated for by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and to which I and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, have added our names. The purpose behind the new clause achieved very considerable support at Second Reading and in Committee. I will focus primarily on the provisions of proposed new subsection (6E), which I hope meet the primary concerns that have been expressed by the Minister.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, rightly said, it is now widely recognised that the IPP regime is a very serious stain on this country’s reputation for justice. We need to address that. It has been addressed prospectively by legislation but not retrospectively. This new clause gives your Lordships’ House—and thus Parliament—the opportunity to do it in a statutory form. Hitherto, this Government, like the previous Government, have relied on administrative measures. That is not sufficient.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, has set out the essential facts. They can also be read and studied in the report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Justice that was published in 2022 and more recently in the report published in June 2025 by the Howard League for Penal Reform. My noble and learned friend Lord Garnier and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, were very distinguished contributors to that report. I will not repeat what has already been said and published. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, I will concentrate on the solution.

The proposed new clause reflects the principal recommendation of the Howard League; namely, a two-year conditional release scheme for IPP prisoners. The league’s recommendation, which is incorporated in the new clause, is that in IPP cases the Parole Board should be required to set a date within a two-year window when a prisoner should be released, together—this is important—with what has been done by way of conditions to ensure public safety. The Government’s reaction is not one that I am blind to. It has been to oppose the recommendation on the grounds that it runs the risk of releasing individuals who, in the opinion of the Parole Board, may pose a continuing risk to the public. That is indeed a risk which needs to be addressed. I suggest that it is properly and fully addressed by proposed new subsection (6E).