My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his comments and endorse everything that he said, particularly about the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who we all wish was here today. I will address one or two of the pragmatic issues. The amendments in this group all relate to IPP licences, and I support them all. They are intended to affect the applications of licences to be fairer and speedier, so that we can release or re-release IPPs as fast and as safely as possible into the community.
Clause 48 currently removes the element of annual review in favour of one-off review every three years. However, if the Parole Board decides not to terminate the licence of this point, Amendments 149 and 150 restore the right—removed by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act—to an annual review by the Parole Board. The Prison Reform Trust comments that having a sunset clause of a further two years might just constitute a high bar for some prisoners, and that the Parole Board should be able to terminate the licence after one year, otherwise licences could drag on for years, as before.
The circumstances described in Amendment 152 are probably quite rare, but it is worth ensuring that a person would not have to suffer if they had been recalled but the Secretary of State had revoked the recall, presumably because there had been an error of some kind and they should not have been recalled. The prisoner should not be penalised because of an error not of their making.
Amendment 153 continues in a similar vein, but this time gives the Parole Board the ability to maintain the sunset clause. However, in this case, it is slightly more complicated. Firstly, the Secretary of State can recall if they conclude on reasonable grounds that the prisoner has deliberately revoked the terms of their licence and the safety of the public would be at risk. The Parole Board can overturn the Secretary of State’s decision to recall a prisoner if on subsequent review, and if it is privy to more information than the Secretary of State, it subsequently concludes that the prisoner is not putting the public at risk.
Amendment 157 ensures that the Government use their wide-ranging powers to change the qualifying period using only secondary legislation and that they can revise it only downwards. If they want to revise it upwards, it will have to be done with primary legislation. This is within the spirit of the Bill today. This amendment ensures that a future Government would not be tempted to use this power to make the situation worse for IPP prisoners, not better.
All in all, this suite of amendments is sensible and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, pragmatic. It is offered in a spirit of helpfulness.
I sincerely hope that the Minister will see this and maybe feel that it is appropriate to introduce government amendments to this effect.