Parole System: Public Protection — House of Lords, 2022-04-05
Topic: Law and Crime
David Wolfson (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, my Lords, I do not know whether my career has even begun, but I will respond to the points that were made, dealing first with the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. I should say first that I am grateful for his broad support for the thrust of what we are seeking to do. As to consultation, the department has consulted extensively throughout the review. We had a public consultation on opening some parole hearings to the public, including discussions with a wide range of practitioners and experts. Round tables and individual discussions with stakeholders with in-depth knowledge and understanding of the parole process were held, and these informed some of the outcomes of the review. Some of the consultation regarding the victims Bill was also relevant here because it went to the issue of victim participation. Regarding the number of officials who would be working on this, the cost thereof, and the resource points that the noble Lord made, I say that modelling and costs are to be worked through in detail as the legislation is developed. A full impact assessment will be published when the legislation is introduced So far as potential unfairness is concerned, a point which I will come back to when I respond to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, one of the issues here is that whichever of the two models to which he referred we end up putting in place, there is always court review. That is built in, to ensure that there is no substantive unfairness and that the system is compliant with our convention obligations, particularly Article 5.4 Remote hearings were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and in particular the involvement of victims. During the pandemic, the Parole Board made extensive use of virtual hearings and has indicated that it will continue the practice. It has also resumed traditional oral hearings and it will be for the Parole Board to ensure that all representations can properly be made. For example, if there were representations, or the victim wanted to say something either with or without the offender there, it would be up to the Parole Board to ensure that the proceedings were substantively fair to all parties I respectfully agree with the noble Lord that being moved to an open prison is indeed a privilege and not a right. They are a valuable resource supporting successful and safe resettlement into the community of prisoners who have been suitably risk-assessed, but only those prisoners identified as being appropriate to hold in lower security conditions should be moved to an open prison. Although in this context the Parole Board makes a recommendation, the final decision is for Ministers. In December, the Lord Chancellor took the decision to require greater scrutiny of Parole Board recommendations on open prison moves and will now oversee the decisions in the most high-risk cases personally, those being offenders who have committed murder, other homicide, rape, and serious sexual offences or cruelty against a child, and in cases where officials do not reject a recommendation from the Parole Board, Ministers will consider the recommendation of the Parole Board The final point that the noble Lord made was of the Secretary of State being the final arbiter and whether that meant that there was a reputational risk for the Secretary of State. There are two points. First, as to the ultimate arbiter, this brings into play the fact that there is a court oversight to ensure that the system is procedurally fair, so to that extent the Secretary of State is not the ultimate arbiter as there is court involvement as well. However, I respectfully take the noble Lord’s point about reputational risk. The flipside is that ultimately, it is Ministers’ responsibility to ensure that dangerous offenders are not released on to the streets and so, if I may put it this way, it is quite right that the buck stops with elected Ministers I turn now to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. I accept, as the Lord Chancellor made clear in the other place, that the Parole Board has a great deal of experience and generally does a good job. The majority of parole decisions are unproblematic. That is why these reforms apply only to offenders who have committed the most serious offences. However, there have been cases involving the release of the most serious offenders which have given rise to significant public concern and undermined confidence in the system: Pitchfork, Worboys and others. Therefore, this is not a case of politicians interfering, which I think was the verb used by the noble Lord. As I said a moment ago, politicians have a duty to protect the public and it is quite right that they step up, so to speak, and ultimately take responsibility for the system and those very risky or higher-risk decisions So far as a test is concerned, the test in legislation was set out in the substantive Statement but is worth bearing in mind. It says: "The Parole Board must not give a direction" for release "unless the Board is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the person should be confined." However, the courts have interpreted that and, to be fair, one can see why. In particular, in the case of Bradley in 1991, a court judgment stated that the role of the board is to "carry out a balancing exercise between the legitimate conflicting interests of both prisoner and public" Therefore, the statutory test has changed to become a balancing exercise between the rights of the prisoner to be considered for release and the responsibility of the state to protect the public. I suggest that that was not the original intention of Parliament. We propose to set out release test criteria. The noble Lord asked what they were. I could read them out, but, if he will forgive me, I will drop him a note setting them out, which will then be available, rather than read them all into Hansard, so to speak. I hope that is satisfactory Some Justice Secretaries may have political ambitions —I am responding as somebody with no political ambition and very little of a political career—but, as I said, the ultimate decision does not rest only with the Justice Secretary; there is court involvement. There are two models being looked at. The first would be for Ministers personally to take the decisions. In that case, there would be a route of appeal to the Upper Tribunal. The second would be to create a new review panel to take the decision, which would comprise the Secretary of State and two independent panel members. Decisions by this panel could be challenged through judicial review. Either option introduces ministerial oversight into the release decisions of the highest-risk offenders to keep people safe and to give public confidence in the system. Also, either alternative would be lawful under the convention, in particular Article 5(4), which says: "Everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful." We are confident that either model would be consistent with those obligations I hope that I have responded to all the substantive points made, but I will check the Official Report and when I write with the criteria, if there is anything I have not picked up, I will add it to that letter.