Prisoners: Imprisonment for Public Protection - Question

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:18 pm on 1 March 2023.

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Photo of Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Justice) 3:18, 1 March 2023

My Lords, in concert with all who have spoken, I suggest that the continued detention of so many IPP prisoners beyond their tariffs shames the criminal justice system. We have been around this course so many times, but do not the Government now appreciate that their lack of progress on this betrays a complete inconsistency? On the one hand, they agree that the abolition of IPP sentences under LASPO should have happened because continued preventive detention for prisoners who had served their time could not be justified, yet on the other they maintain and defend such a system in failing to release almost 3,000 of those prisoners—including those who have been released once—who were sentenced before LASPO but 10 years after those sentences were abolished.