Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, like my noble and learned friend, I support the spirit and principle of what the Government and my noble and learned friend Lord Lloyd have said. The key word in all this is surely ““risk””. There is no doubt that there are some people who go to prison who are such a risk to the public that their release must always be a matter for conjecture. If you talk to prison governors about the people who give them most concern, they invariably refer to paedophiles and sex offenders, for whom there is always going to be a doubt about whether they will be fit for return to society, not least because, tragically, many of them have an ambivalent view about what they have done, having themselves been victims. But that is not the subject of this amendment. We are clearing up yet another example of a knee-jerk introduction in the 2003 Act which was not subject to proper regulatory impact assessment. Although the introduction was right, the impact on the Prison Service has been disastrous, with vast numbers of people awaiting courses in order to be released. The impact has been disastrous, too, on the Parole Board, and it is only going to get worse. Therefore, while I entirely support the principle, it seems to me that what needs to be done is for us to look at what the impact of the proposed increase to four or seven years is assessed to be, but also at the impact on the Prison Service and Parole Board to see whether they can deliver what needs to be delivered to make the thing work. The whole system becomes discredited if it cannot do what it imposes in its Bills.