Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Linklater of Butterstone (Liberal Democrat). It was answered on Wednesday, 19 November 2008.

Prisoners: Indeterminate Sentences

Question: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply and for his recognition of the trenchant criticisms made by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons of IPPs. Given that the legislation introduced earlier this year to raise the minimum tariff for people on IPPs to two years is not retrospective, are the Government prepared to review the sentences of those thousands of prisoners who were already on IPPs, in particular the 800 or so who had already gone beyond their tariff? Many of those prisoners have been unable to complete the required courses designed to prove that they are safe to be released because those courses are simply not available, creating a situation that the Court of Appeal has found to be unlawful.

Answer: My Lords, some outstanding cases are to be heard very shortly and I do not want to comment on them. We do not intend retrospectively to change the sentence, because that would be wrong, but we accept that there are problems in exactly the field that the noble Baroness suggested. Among the changes that we have made, including that to the law, we have undertaken the complete redesign of the processes and procedures for assessing and managing such prisoners. The noble Baroness will understand that the resultant changes run concurrently with the rollout of phase III of offender management. That means that it will be easier for these prisoners to gain access to courses and other work to address their offending. We also need to do something about the parole position.

Secondary information

Type: Oral question
Reference: 705 c1132
Session: 2007-08
Oral question type: 1st Supplementary
Chamber / Committee: House of Lords chamber
Subjects: Parole Prisoners Prisoners' release Prison sentences Rehabilitation
Link: View this Oral question on www.publications.parliament.uk