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Mr. Michael: I welcome this amendment, which will go some way towards ensuring that there is more
15 Jan 1997 : Column 402
recognition of the award of release days for good behaviour for those serving short sentences. I welcome the fact that the Minister has modestly moved forward, and the amendment is an improvement to the Bill that I welcome. Amendment agreed to.Clause 12
Amendments made: No. 12, in page 7, line 31, leave out 'three months or more' and insert 'more than two months'.
No. 13, in page 7, line 36, leave out 'three months or more' and insert 'more than two months'.
No. 14, in page 8, line 1, leave out 'three months or more' and insert 'more than two months'.--[Mr. McLoughlin.]
Clause 13
Mr. Michael: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 9, line 9, leave out '15' and insert '25'.
In Committee we highlighted the importance of supervising offenders after release and stated that the time for supervision should be adequate to ensure that rehabilitation can take place to make sure that offenders are more likely to live settled and constructive lives, rather than being tempted into reoffending. During the debate, I moved an amendment that would have increased the supervision period after release from 15 per cent. of the sentence to 25 per cent., in the belief that this would provide an adequate period of supervision.
At the conclusion of that constructive debate, the Minister gave a positive response and said that if we would withdraw the amendment to allow him to reflect and listen to our views on another amendment that was debated on Monday in relation to violent crime, he was willing to come back on Report, where he hoped to be able to say that he was happy with the 25 per cent. that we recommended. Offenders who have a relatively short prison sentence may suffer considerable disruption of their lives, and may need, perhaps, to settle elsewhere, to re-establish family links and to be more positive in their attitude to life.
It is in society's interests that good supervision takes place, and we had a discussion--in which the Minister and I were in complete agreement--about how to make sure that the supervision of those who come out of prison is effective. I keep my remarks brief in the hope that the Minister will be able to say that he has continued his reflections after our discussions and will accept the amendment. I believe that that would be wise, and would reflect the positive nature of at least some of the discussions that we had in Committee.
Mr. Maclean:
The Government accept the amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
15 Jan 1997 : Column 403
Mr. Michael:
I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 16, line 19, leave out from 'to' to the end of line 21 and insert--
Madam Deputy Speaker:
With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 38, in schedule 2, page 49, line 11, at end insert--
Mr. Michael:
On Second Reading, the Home Secretary suggested that prisoners should, in practice, serve no more or no less after the implementation of the Bill than they would serve at present under the law as it now stands. During the Committee, it was clear that Ministers accepted our argument that, in some cases, prisoners would serve shorter sentences as a result of the Bill as drafted. They then introduced amendments that, in some cases, will lead to higher sentences being served. That not only breaches the principle that the Home Secretary established--that there should not be a practical change in terms of the length of sentences--but has implications in terms of resources.
Given the Home Secretary's question to me on Monday about resources--following which, I am afraid, I had to correct his assumptions--we must ask whether he has the authority of the current Chancellor of the Exchequer for the amendment that he tabled in Committee which, it is calculated, would add some £40 million a year to the prisons budget and would involve the building of three additional prisons of the size of Dartmoor. As far as I am aware, there has been no amendment to the financial resolution or to the assessment of the costs of the legislation that was given on Second Reading.
The policy that the Home Secretary has called honesty in sentencing means that offenders sentenced to imprisonment will serve the full period of their sentence in prison, other than a small amount of remission--up to six days a month--that could be earned by good behaviour and positive co-operation. The Government have said that this is not intended either to increase or decrease the time that offenders spend in custody, but is simply to introduce honesty in sentencing.
Clause 22 of the Bill therefore requires courts to shorten their sentences by fixing them at two thirds of the current level. In the case of prisoners serving four years
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That is not true of offenders serving under four years, as clause 22 would have the effect of increasing the time spent in prison compared with now. For example, a prisoner now sentenced to three years would instead be sentenced to two years. Under the new early release rules, even if he earned the maximum possible amount of remission, he would still have to serve 20 months in prison compared with 18 months now. That was acknowledged by the Minister of State in Committee on 3 December.
I will not rehearse what the Minister said at that time, but it was clear from the figures that he gave that prisoners sentenced to terms of under four years would serve 11 per cent. longer in custody than at present. That would increase the daily prison population by more than 1,800 and would cost more than £40 million a year--the estimate that I gave a few moments ago. It would also require three additional prisons the size of Dartmoor. In fact, the increase is likely to be higher than that, because those figures assume that all prisoners will earn the maximum possible remission, which is of course highly unlikely.
The increase would result not from a decision that all offenders sentenced to less than four years deserved to spend at least 11 per cent. longer in prison but from a clause that states that its aim is to ensure that an offender
The amendment, by requiring courts to fix their sentences for a particular group of offenders at 60 per cent. of the current level, would achieve the aim set out in subsection (1) of ensuring that prisoners serve approximately the same length of time in prison as at present. In the amendments that the Minister tabled in Committee, he corrected one anomaly and created a fresh one, and the amendment is designed to bring us back towards the target that the Home Secretary espoused on Second Reading.
Sir Ivan Lawrence:
In Committee on 5 December 1996, at column 256, I raised my concern about the repatriation proposals in clause 35. I tabled new clause 11, which has not been selected, and amendment No. 38, to give a full airing to a problem caused by the Bill and tentatively to suggest a way of dealing with it.
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The problem, I believe, will be acknowledged by the Government and by hon. Members of all parties, so the question will be how best to address it. Under existing law--I refer particularly to the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 1984--British criminals serving prison sentences abroad can be transferred back to serve their sentences in the United Kingdom, where they can more easily be visited by their families and where they may be more likely to be rehabilitated.
When that happens, the sentence imposed by a foreign court is adopted unchanged, unless it exceeds the British maximum sentence for a like offence, in which case the United Kingdom maximum is substituted. Otherwise, as in most cases, no adjustment is made to the sentence.
However--this is the rub--prisoners are subject to the systems of parole, remission and early release operating in the receiving country, so under our existing law those transferring to the United Kingdom from sentences abroad are eligible for release on parole after serving at least half their sentences in custody. Prisoners sentenced to less than 12 months in prison are automatically released altogether after serving half their sentence; prisoners serving 12 months to four years are automatically released on licence, and therefore under supervision by the probation service, until the licence period ends, which is usually three quarters of the way through the sentence; and prisoners sentenced to four years or more are eligible--it is not automatic--for release on licence after serving half their sentence and automatically released on licence after serving two thirds of their sentence.
At present, sentences imposed by foreign courts are sometimes considerably longer than sentences imposed for similar offences in the United Kingdom, and Parliament and the courts have always accepted that the Home Secretary would use his powers to grant early release on parole to remedy any injustice arising from the imposition of a disproportionately long sentence.
The problem in the Bill is that, as it substantially abolishes remission and parole, the sentence served will be the sentence passed, and that could be very much longer than a British prisoner would have to serve for the same offence in similar circumstances. The problem of unfairness would appear to be exacerbated by the provisions of the Bill, because when the sentences passed here are more closely related to the sentences served, the differences between the sentences for the same offence in similar circumstances will be even more glaring.
If British prisoners abroad are to serve far longer sentences, few will want to be transferred to this country to serve them, and the humanitarian aims of the 1984 Act will have been unintentionally negated.
The reciprocal position of a foreign national convicted in our courts who returns to his home country to serve his sentence makes the injustice yet more glaring: under the Bill he will get what is nominally a lesser sentence--one closer to the sentence that he is expected to serve--and in his country he will be subject to the local parole and remission conditions, which will of course be unaffected by our new legislation.
If it is accepted that there is not only an apparent injustice, of differences in sentences served by similar offenders in similar circumstances in different countries,
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The organisation Prisoners Abroad, which has many eminent and distinguished supporters, not all by any means on the left of the law and order spectrum, proposed two amendments to the Bill, both of which I tabled. Amendment No. 38 was the one selected.
Sections 1 and 3 of the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 1984 empower the Secretary of State to issue a warrant authorising the detention of a prisoner transferred into the United Kingdom. Section 3(1)(c) gives the Secretary of State a wide discretion to incorporate in the warrant provisions appearing to him
If the Secretary of State were required to undertake the same exercise when issuing a warrant that the UK courts will undertake when sentencing, the inequities arising from the proposed changes would be remedied. Amendment No. 38 would take us some way toward the achievement of that aim.
It may be argued that the powers of the Secretary of State as expressed in the 1984 Act are already wide enough to enable him to achieve that end, but the decision of the House of Lords and the arguments of the Executive in the leading case of Reed make it clear that only a statutory change of the kind suggested could effect the remedy that is sought.
It may also be argued that clause 9 provides a remedy in that
(a) two-thirds of any term of four years or more which, at that time, it would have held to be appropriate if the offence had been so committed;
(b) 60 per cent. of any term of less than four years which, at that time, it would have held to be appropriate if the offence had been so committed.'.
'(2A) In section 3 of the 1984 Act (transfer of prisoners into the United Kingdom), in subsection (3), after subsection (b) add--
"or
(c) would result in a prisoner serving longer than two thirds of the term which the Secretary of State would have considered appropriate if the transfer had taken place before the commencement of Chapter 1 of Part II of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997.".'.
8.45 pm
"serves approximately the same time in prison as he would have served if the offence had been committed immediately before commencement."
The Minister may profess to be relaxed about that completely unnecessary increase in the prison population, but an overstretched Prison Service, already desperately trying to cope with rising numbers, with expedients ranging from floating prisons to converted Royal Air Force camps, will be unlikely to take the same relaxed view. It would be interesting to know the views of prison governors about the increased pressure in their establishments.
"to be appropriate for giving effect to the international arrangements in accordance with which the prisoner is transferred."
In exercising that power, section 3(3) requires the Secretary of State to
"have regard (inter alia) to the inappropriateness of the warrant's containing provisions which--
for a similar offence in the United Kingdom. When such a sentence is encountered, it is reduced to the maximum sentence under UK law for the equivalent offence.
(a) are equivalent to more than the maximum penalties (if any) that may be imposed"
"The Secretary of State may at any time release a prisoner if he is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist which justify the prisoner's release on compassionate grounds."
But such a provision is surely inappropriate for dealing with a class of offenders rather than with an individual. It would surely be wrong to seek to remedy a fundamental injustice by relying on such a limited Executive discretion. In my respectful submission, it requires a statutory change, and I ask my right hon. Friend to give that serious consideration.
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