The Government’s approach to criminal justice

Introduction

Madam Deputy Speaker, with your permission I would like to make a statement on the criminal justice system in England and Wales.

The first duty of any government is to keep its people safe.

That’s why those who pose a danger to society must be locked up. And this government is categorical that the worst offenders should be locked away for as long as it takes to protect the public.

So we have increased the sentences for offences including knife crime, causing death by dangerous driving (now a maximum of life imprisonment), and causing or allowing the death of a child.

We have ended automatic halfway release for serious sexual and violent offenders so they will serve two-thirds of their sentence behind bars – and in the most dangerous cases all of their sentence behind bars.

And we are changing the law to make whole life sentences the default for the most heinous types of murder, so that for society’s most depraved killers, life means life and murderers end their days in prison.

And today I can announce we will be going further.

We will legislate so that rapists as well as those convicted of equivalent sexual offences will serve the entirety of the custodial term handed down to them by the courts.

A fifteen-year custodial term will mean fifteen years behind bars.

Now, there have been inaccurate reports in the media claiming that judges are being told not to send rapists to prison. Let me be categorical: this is untrue. Sentencing is a matter for the judiciary acting impartially and in accordance with the law. And it is a fact that under this Government the most serious and dangerous offenders are being locked away for longer. In the case of rapists, average sentences are nearly a third longer than in 2010.

This is the right thing to do to keep the public safe.

But to continue to put the worst offenders away for longer, we must use prison better, so that there are always sufficient spaces to lock up the most dangerous criminals.

We must reform the justice system so it keeps the worst of society behind bars, rehabilitates offenders who will be let out, and gives the least serious, lowest risk offenders a path away from a life of crime. And that matters because intelligent reform means less crime.

Current pressure

I have been candid from the moment I took on this role that our custodial estate is under pressure.

Today, Madam Deputy Speaker, the prison population in England & Wales is greater than it has ever been – nearly double the level it was three decades ago.

That is not, principally, because of the growth in the sentenced population. Instead, it’s the remand population, principally made up of un-convicted prisoners awaiting trial that has surged in recent years – from 9,000 in 2019, to over 15,000 in 2023. That is over 6,000 more people in our prisons out of a total of around 88,000.

So, why is that? It’s because, in the white heat of the pandemic, we took the right and principled decision not to jettison hundreds of years of British history and abandon the jury trial system and we didn’t do it because it is the bedrock of our freedoms.

But because of Covid restrictions, that inevitably meant the flow of trials slowed, and in turn the remand population grew. This growth was exacerbated by industrial action last year.

In addition, the recall population is also significantly higher than in 2018, partly because we are rightly ensuring offenders that do not comply with their licence conditions are returned to prison.

This Government has taken unprecedented steps to meet this demand. We are building 20,000 modern, rehabilitative prison places – the largest prison building programme since the Victorian era.

And by doubling up cells where it is safe to do so, speeding up the deportation of foreign national offenders, and delaying non-essential maintenance projects to bring cells back into use, we have freed up an extra 2,600 places since September last year alone. On top of this, we’ve continued to roll out hundreds of rapid deployment cells at prison sites.

All together, we have been bringing on capacity at rate of more than 100 places a week, the fastest rate in living memory – and possibly in a hundred years. We are going further. Today I can announce up to £400m for more prison places – enough for over 800 new cells.

And when we legislate to keep rapists behind bars for the whole of their custodial term, I will ensure that commencement is dependent on there being sufficient prison capacity.

There is already an obligation to lay before both Houses of Parliament a report as to the way I have discharged my general duty in relation to the courts. To ensure public confidence a new annual statement of prison capacity will be laid before both Houses. This will include a clear statement of current prison capacity, future demand, the range of system costs that would be incurred under different scenarios and our and our forward pipeline of prison build. That will bring transparency to our plans and will set out the progress that is being made.

I have also already commissioned urgent work  to conclude before the end of the year to identify new sites for us to purchase. This is backed by a down payment of up to £30m in funding to acquire land in 2024 and launch the planning process.

ECSL

We must do whatever it takes to make sure there are always enough prison places to lock up the most dangerous offenders to keep the British people safe, ensure criminals can be brought to justice and maintain safety and decency in the prison estate.

So we have decided to use the power in s248 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to allow the prison service to move some lower level offenders out of prison on to licence up to 18 days before their automatic release date.

Let me clear, this will not apply to:
– Anyone serving an extended determinate sentence
– Anyone serving a sentence for an offence of particular concern
– Anyone convicted of a serious violence offence
– Anyone convicted of terrorism
– Anyone convicted of a sex offence

This power will only be used for a limited period and only in targeted areas.

Every offender will be placed under strict licence conditions which provide a step-down from custody to living in the community. This may include:

First, being made to wear an electronic tag where needed to manage them safely.

Second, a condition not to contact a named individual directly or indirectly.

Third, having to live at an address approved by their probation officer.

Fourth, attending appointments.

Fifth, a condition not to enter certain areas such as postcodes.

Breach of these conditions could lead to the offender being recalled to custody – for the entire second half of their sentence.

This will be overseen by the Probation Service, a Probation Service that we have injected £155m a year into, to recruit staff, to bring down caseloads and deliver better supervision of offenders in the community.

And in addition, the HMPPS leadership will retain discretion to decide on further exemptions from release on advice of Governors, where concerns remain.

And let me clear that this is a temporary operational measure to relieve and immediate pressure contributed to by remand.

Longer term reform

But if we are to protect the public and reduce crime, we need to go further to use our prisons better.

And at the heart of our long-term plan for prison reform that I am announcing today is a simple mission: cut crime. And to deliver that there are three things we need to do:

First, ensure that the most dangerous offenders are locked up for longer – away from the public and unable to commit crime

Second, ensure that prisons are geared to help offenders turn away from crime, to change their ways, and become contributing members of society

And third, ensure more lower-level offenders get the tough community sentences which the evidence shows cuts re-offending, and therefore cuts crime.

Short sentencing reform 

Putting that last point another way, prisons shouldn’t ruin the redeemable.

It is clear that all too often the circumstances which lead to an initial offence are exacerbated by a short stint in prison, with offenders losing their homes, breaking contact with key support networks, and crucially meeting others inside prison who steer them in the wrong direction.

When they are released, just a short time later, they all too often reoffend – fuelled by addiction or mental health issues which cannot possibly be addressed effectively in such a short space of time.

And the fact is over 50% of people who leave prison after serving less than twelve months go on to commit further crimes. The figure is 58% for those who serve sentences of six months or less.

And yet those who are on suspended sentence orders with conditions, for them the figure is 22%. Meanwhile the cost of this is £47,000 per year, per prisoner. The taxpayer should not be forking out for a system which risks further criminalising offenders, and trapping them in a merry-go-round of short sentences.

So this government is determined to grasp the nettle and deliver a better approach.

We will legislate for a presumption that custodial sentences of less than twelve months in prison will be suspended, and offenders will be punished in the community instead, repaying their debt within communities – cleaning up our neighbourhoods and scrubbing graffiti off walls.

And we can do this more intelligently, with modern solutions for a digital age. I can announce today that we are doubling the number of GPS tags available to the court, to ensure that offenders can be monitored to track that they are going to work and also to ensure their freedom is curtailed in the evenings and at weekends with robust curfews of up to 20 hours a day. And we are making maximum use of new technologies, such as alcohol monitoring tags.

This will enable us to strengthen and expand successful step down programmes like Home Detention Curfews – something we’ll keep under active review.

If an offender breaches the terms of their curfew or other requirement of their suspended custodial sentence, or commits another offence, they can be hauled back before the court and forced to serve that sentence in prison.

What we aren’t doing, Mr Speaker, is getting rid of short sentences altogether. I know from my time as a prosecutor that sometimes that is the right and just option. For prolific offenders unable or unwilling to comply with community orders or other orders of the court, they must know that their actions have consequences – and they will continue to feel the full force of our justice system. And, building on our anti-social behaviour action plan, the Home Secretary and I are looking at what more we can do to punish those so called lower level offenders who are a blight on our communities. For some offenders, the proper sanction is I’m afraid the clang of the prison gate.

FNOs and Foreign Prisons

We will also remove foreign offenders who should not be in the UK – taking up space in our prisons, at vast expense to the taxpayer.

There are over 10,000 foreign nationals in our prisons. It cannot be right that some of them are sat in prison when they could otherwise be removed from the country.

That is why, we will extend the Early Removal Scheme, so that we have the power to remove foreign criminals up to eighteen months before they are due to be released, up from twelve months now – getting them out of the country early and no longer costing taxpayers a small fortune.

To support this, more caseworkers will be deployed to speed up removals; and the Home Office will also look at measures to do more to remove foreign nationals accused of less serious crimes more quickly.

And we will continue to strike new prisoner transfer deals like the one agreed with Albania, ensuring criminals from overseas serve their time at home rather than in Britain.

And we will bring forward legislation to enable prisoners to be held in prisons overseas – an approach taken by Belgium, Norway, and Denmark in recent years.

Early Guilty Pleas / Recall

And more must be done to stop people spending long periods of time waiting in prison for their trials.

As I have set out, there are now over 15,000 defendants on remand in our prisons.

Remand decision are properly for independent judges but we will consider whether to extend the discount to encourage people to plead guilty at the first opportunity.

When more offenders plead guilty, that saves time in the courts, cuts the number of people in our prisons on remand, but most importantly saves victims the ordeal of giving evidence in court.

We will also be reviewing the use of recall for offenders on release who infringe the terms of their licence. It is right that ex-prisoners who commit new crimes or serious breaches while on licence should be returned to prison. We want to ensure the system is working effectively to mitigate any risk posed by offenders while not having people in prison on recall longer than necessary.

Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP)

I want to turn to IPPs. We will take decisive action to address sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP). We put a stop to these discredited sentences a decade ago. But there remain around 3,000 IPP prisoners in custody despite their original tariff expiring years ago.

IPPs are a stain on our justice system, so I am looking at options to curtail the licence period to restore greater proportionality to IPP sentences, in line with recommendation 8 of the Justice Select Committee’s report, and I will come back to the House in due course.

This will not compromise public safety. Those found by the Parole Board to pose a risk to the public will not be released.

Conclusion

And as I have set out, we are taking decisive action to make our prisons work better in the long term.

We are building more prison places than at any time since Disraeli was speaking from this despatch box.

We are rolling out hundreds of rapid deployment cells across the country to increase immediate capacity.

And we are going further and faster than ever before to remove foreign criminals from our prisons.

Mr Speaker, to govern is to choose. We choose to lock up the most dangerous criminals for longer, to protect victims and their families.

We choose to reform the justice system so criminals who can otherwise be forced into taking the right path, are not trapped in a cycle of criminality.

This is the right long-term plan for our justice system.  And I commend this statement to the House.