Clause 72 - Custody plus orders and intermittent custody orders
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishmentof Offenders bill
11:00 am

Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland, Labour)

The Minister has sensibly just told us that he wants to increase the length of time to which magistrates can sentence people from six to 12 months. That, as he has already said, relates to the custody plus regime, which was legislated for in 2003. Clause 72 would remove it. As he has bitten the bullet on clause 71, I want the Minister to think more carefully about clause 72. We are opposed to it, because even though the provisions were not implemented, they are sensible. It would be a good idea to keep them on the statute book. I will set out why.

All hon. Members know that there is a problem with the effectiveness of policy on short-term prison sentences. There is a group of persistent offenders committing crimes, and they generally receive custodial sentences of less than six months. They can be some of the most troubling offenders for communities. The problem with the current regime is that if a person is in prison for six months, they rarely get the kind of courses and programmes that are designed to address their behaviour. When they are released for the second half of their sentence in the community, they are not supervised by the probation service. Once again, the problems and the underlying reasons for their offending behaviour are not being addressed. The custody plus regime was designed specifically to address that.

The problem is not new. In 2001, the previous Government set up the Halliday review whose report stated:

“One of the most serious deficiencies in the present framework is the lack of utility in prison sentences of less than 12 months. Only half of such sentences are served…and the second half is subject to no conditions whatsoever. The Prison Service has little opportunity to work on the factors which underlie the criminality because the time served in custody is so limited–and yet these sentences are used for large numbers of persistent offenders who are very likely to reoffend.”

I will give some of the reoffending statistics in a moment. The report continues:

“There is a need to provide a structured framework for work with the large number of offenders who persist in criminality at a level of seriousness that does not require longer prison sentences.

This need could be met by requiring those who serve short prison sentences to undertake programmes under supervision after release, under conditions, which–if breached–could result in swift return to custody. Under such a sentence, the initial period in custody could be any period between 2 weeks and 3 months, and the period of supervision could be any period between (a minimum of) six months and whatever would take the sentence as a whole to less than 12 months. Such a sentence would be potentially more punitive in its effect on offenders who breached their conditions than any existing prison sentence of under 12 months.”

The White Paper then took on board those points and stated:

“Although short prison sentences will continue to be appropriate for some offenders, we want to ensure they support our overall aim of reducing reoffending. The best way of achieving this is to have proper support, supervision and follow through education programmes, drug treatment and anger management schemes in the community.”

The consultation undertaken prior to the implementation of measures under the 2003 Act received widespread recognition of the need to make sure that sentences were more effective. I wish that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington would listen to what is being said rather than fiddling with his Blackberry. I remind him that at the time his colleague supported the provisions in the 2003 Act without qualification. Since then the situation has not improved significantly. I am not happy about it. In 2007, 59.9% of offenders sentenced to 12 months or less in custody reoffended within 12 months. In 2008, the figure was 61.1%. In 2009, it was 59.4%. We can see that it is just trolling along at the same level without significant change.

Ben Gummer (Ipswich, Conservative)

I am delighted that the hon. Lady is giving the Committee such a damning indictment of the previous Government’s policy on rehabilitation.

Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland, Labour)

We need an honest assessment of what is going on, which is what I am trying to give the Committee. I am not giving it a partisan, rose-tinted spectacled view of what is going on. I am trying to address the real problems and pressing on the Committee the fact that custody plus, which rests on the balance between time in prison and supervision outside, is the way to go. I understand completely that it is expensive and that the Government are looking to make reductions, so it may be an area where they do not want at this juncture to be making new spending commitments. None the less, some pilot schemes and experiments would be sensible. In the long run, taking such action might save the community more.

Last year, the National Audit Office suggested that failure to tackle the criminality of the 60,000 prisoners who serve sentences shorter than 12 months is costing the country between £7 billion and £10 billion annually in reoffending. I urge the Minister to drop clause 72 and to keep open the possibility of a more effective approach for this group of offenders.

Crispin Blunt (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation), Justice; Reigate, Conservative)

I agree with a lot of what the hon. Lady has just said. Obviously, I agree with the indictment of the failure to put in place what was intended behind custody plus and the shocking failure to rehabilitate successfully short sentence prisoners better than they are rehabilitated at present, if one can describe a 59.4% reconviction rate within one year as any form of success whatever. It is a shocking sign of failure.

There is, of course, agreement throughout the Committee about what needs to be done, but there is a basic philosophical distinction between us about how to do it, which we saw at its most glaring in the custody plus  provisions. It was decided that Parliament would put provisions on the statute book to instruct the people charged with and interested in the rehabilitation of offenders to set down the regime under which offenders would be rehabilitated, but of course the resources to deliver it were not provided. We made a complete nonsense of it by passing laws for which the resources were never delivered.

We know that all the people who work around offender management share the objectives that the hon. Lady laid out in her speech. We are doing precisely what she recommended—piloting ways to see how we can make rehabilitation work. She will be familiar with the pilot at Peterborough prison. We have begun a pilot at Doncaster prison to deal with this cohort of offenders. We are in the process of selecting two probation trust areas to deal with prisoners supervised by probation trusts, to have them focus on community sentence offenders to improve their rehabilitation rates.

We are inviting two innovation pilots from any private, voluntary or public sector provider, which we will then fund to use their ideas about how to pilot schemes to help to effectively rehabilitate offenders. We have six different memorandums of understanding with either local authorities or police chiefs to deliver a justice reinvestment framework to look at more effectively rehabilitating offenders and to deliver exactly the objectives that the hon. Lady set out. Guess what—they are likely to be performing precisely the kinds of intervention that she mentioned in her speech.

We recognise that there is no state funding left to start programmes and certainly no state funding left to underwrite custody plus, so we will try to free up our professionals and volunteers and the private sector to come forward with innovative approaches to try to deliver the objective that we all share, which is to improve rehabilitation and the appalling rate of reoffending once offenders get into our justice system. We need to find ways of creating resources to deliver interventions. Hence the whole social finance investment in Peterborough, which is so welcome. Hence the fact that Serco is putting in resources to deal with offenders in Doncaster. That pattern will be repeated in pilots across the system to find a different way of delivering the objectives that the hon. Lady set out.

Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East, Labour)

The Government and the Opposition do not differ much on custody plus. Will the Minister justify and rationalise the removal of the provisions in the legislation? I am utterly confused.

Crispin Blunt (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation), Justice; Reigate, Conservative)

Let me set out the detail of the custody plus provisions. I am trying to lay out the basic difference of approach between this Administration and our predecessor, and how we are going to use the creativity and talent of the people involved in offender management more effectively to deliver the outcome that we all seek. That is why we are piloting different schemes to identify the best way to draw on those resources.

Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston, Labour)

Will the Minister give way?

Crispin Blunt (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation), Justice; Reigate, Conservative)

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will deal with the points raised by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East and then I will take her intervention.

The clause repeals the uncommenced provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which would have introduced custody plus and its variant, intermittent custody. The custody plus provisions introduced a new scheme for adult custodial sentences of less than 12 months. It was designed to ensure that all such sentences consisted of a short period of custody followed by at least six months on licence. The provisions were not commenced under the previous Government, who accepted that they were unaffordable and, in the case of intermittent custody, unworkable. That remains the case, and it is therefore right that we should take the opportunity to repeal those uncommenced provisions. By remaining on the statute book, they have added considerably to the complexity of subsequent legislation and have complicated an already wretchedly complex sentencing framework.

The Bill will bring adult custodial sentences of less than 12 months within the scope of the 2003 Act, so that such sentences will be governed by one statute rather than, as currently happens, having release arrangements that are still dealt with under the Criminal Justice Act 1991. That was another legacy of the failure to commence custody plus. Clause 72 will give effect to schedule 9, which will make amendments consequential to the repeal of sections 181 to 188 of the 2003 Act.

Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston, Labour)

Has the Minister considered any evidence of the likely efficacy, in the form of reconviction rates, of the models that he will experiment with in place of custody plus?

Crispin Blunt (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation), Justice; Reigate, Conservative)

We simply could not deliver custody plus, and intermittent custody was unworkable. If that has resulted in a legislative regime that brings the whole system into disrepute, it is about time that something was done about clearing it up. There is a difference of approach between the Opposition and us: we agree about the objectives of driving down rehabilitation, but we differ about whether mandating our professionals on precisely what to do under statute is appropriate. Such an approach was followed by unbelievable amounts of performance management, target-setting and central direction to the Prison Service and the probation service about precisely how they should deal with the people in their charge, as though those services did not actually share the policy objectives of the Administration and had to be told precisely how to undertake their responsibilities. That took away from them the flexibility and, frankly, the professional responsibility to deliver the objectives that we all share.

I have reduced 60 pages of direction to the probation service to three, which is entirely consistent with taking off statutory prescriptions that we cannot afford and that cannot be made to work. That will enable the entire framework to be simpler, more consistent and easier to apply, and it will show people on the ground that—strangely enough—we respect the fact that they share the objectives that we are all trying to achieve.

Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland, Labour)

The Justice Committee’s report on “The Role of the Probation Service” demonstrated that probation officers did not spend enough face-to-face  time with clients, and that the amount of time they spent in what might loosely be called bureaucratic tasks was too high. It would be perfectly sensible for the Minister to address that, and I would have no quarrel with him about it.

Similarly, as the Minister knows, it was the previous Administration who set up the Peterborough pilot, and having a pilot is a good idea, although the possibility of scaling it up is limited. However, he is not addressing the scope, which may be lost, for the probation service to supervise someone when they are released after a sentence of less than 12 months. He seems to want to involve the whole world except the probation service, which cannot be sensible.

Crispin Blunt (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation), Justice; Reigate, Conservative)

We do not have to mandate the probation service by statute. We will find ways, and it will come forward with others, particularly through the two probation trust pilots that we are running, to help deal with such offenders. The probation service is already doing so under integrated offender management and through the management of persistent and prolific offenders, with the police, the local authorities and the Prison Service. That is already happening. As we do not have the resources to underpin a statutory mandate from Parliament, it is sensible to get shot of the statute provision, and in doing so, enable our professionals to deliver the outcome that we all seek, help enfranchise them as far as possible to best use the resources that we put at their disposal, and find new resources for the criminal justice system, not least as part of our wider social justice agenda.

Ben Gummer (Ipswich, Conservative)

I fully agree with my hon. Friend’s reasoning about removing the provision from the statute book. I believe passionately in the principle behind intermittent sentences, which I hope we can introduce in future. However, the present system will not have the capacity, finances or management ability to provide for such sentences in the next Parliament or the one after that. It will take substantial reform to introduce such a system; it took the Norwegians a long time to get there. When the prison system is able to look at the matter afresh, it will be appropriate for another Parliament to do so, and on a far wider basis than in the current statute provision, which would serve no purpose in this Parliament or the next.

Crispin Blunt (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation), Justice; Reigate, Conservative)

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; there speaks the future. On that note, I conclude my remarks.

Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston, Labour)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

I endorse the thrust of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Ipswich. I, too, have been a long-standing supporter of the concept of custody plus, intermittent sentences and a proper combination, where appropriate, of short periods of custodial sentencing followed by intensive and effective supervision in the community. When the Labour party was in government, we sought to create such a system using custody plus as a framework.

I am surprised by the Minister’s degree of anger, because there is broad agreement on that model across the House. The argument seems to be about resourcing  the model and about freedom for professionals in the system—although we are not clear from the Minister’s exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland whether that freedom would extend to the probation service—to determine, without statutory guidance, whether to engage in intensive supervisory activity with offenders in the community.

The provision relates to sentencers as well as to those who deliver sentences, and we need a framework that encourages them to make appropriate use of the community element of sentencing options. If we devise sentences that draw sentencers in that direction when appropriate, we will reduce, to a degree, the amount of money that we have to spend on the custodial system. The Minister seemed to imply that custody plus and intensive community activity would pile on cost, and we accept that the system is not cost free; but he does not acknowledge that if we designed more effective sentences that resulted in people spending less time in custody, there would be at least some measurable impact on the costs borne in the Prison Service.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland said, there would be other wider cost implications for society, too, such as lower reconviction rates, which would result from good quality community interventions for offenders who would otherwise receive short sentences. In addition, there would be a wider impact on offenders’ domestic and social circumstances. In particular, if people spend less time in custody and are engaged in community programmes instead, it is more likely that their family will hold together and that they will keep their home. They might also be able to keep a job, which is one reason why I am keen on considering intermittent custody, which enables people who hold a job to be at work during the working week and, if appropriate, to serve a short period of time in custody when they are not at work.

The Minister should be more willing to accept the thrust of the Opposition’s argument. He should not be so angry about the fact that he is not keen on the way the provisions would pan out. Instead, he should look for constructive ways to achieve the objectives that it seems we all share. If the Government are doing that, can the Minister guarantee that there will be resources to make it effective? To expect lower reconviction rates without putting the means in place to achieve them is to box himself into a corner. It cannot work.

Ben Gummer (Ipswich, Conservative)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I am particularly pleased about her promotion, which was a pleasure to many of us on the Government Benches.

Crispin Blunt (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation), Justice; Reigate, Conservative)

It was not a surprise.

Ben Gummer (Ipswich, Conservative)

No.

The Minister is a man slow to anger, and I share that anger now. When custody plus was introduced in legislation by the previous Government, many of us interested in penal reform were pleased with the thrust of the measure and the idea behind it. The hon. Lady will remember the significant amount of press coverage when custody plus was launched. Yet it was never implemented. It was  another fraud on the public by the previous Government; something was announced, but never actually carried out. Now we must tidy up the statute book to make sure that we have a proper rehabilitation regime without the clutter, which will never be used.

Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston, Labour)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It may be naive of me to hope that the Government will introduce an effective rehabilitation regime without statutory provision when the resources are not being made available to guarantee that it will take place. I want the provision retained on the statute book. I want to see the Government working towards making it operational, rather than decrying it and the difficulties. I welcome the commitments given by Government Members about the value of good quality, rehabilitative community sentences and, as we debate later clauses, we shall probe further the degree to which they will put their money where their mouth is. In the meantime, I find it difficult to support the withdrawal of custody plus.