Martin Jones gave evidence.

Q Could you introduce yourself for the record, please?

Martin Jones:

I am Martin Jones, chief executive of the Parole Board. I have been undertaking that role since 2015.

We have until 3 pm for these questions.

Part 3 of the Bill had no pre-legislative scrutiny; do you think it would have benefited from that? How much engagement has the Parole Board had with the Government on that part of the BillQ ?

Martin Jones:

I certainly think there would have been a benefit. I always think there is benefit in pre-legislative scrutiny. I have taken legislation through in the past as an official and there would certainly be benefit in Parliament understanding what the impact would be.

On consultation with the Parole Board, it would be fair to say that it was very limited ahead of the provisions being introduced to Parliament. The root-and-branch review was published in the spring of last year, setting out what the proposals would be. Ahead of the Bill’s publication, the details of what it contained were shared with us, but I would not say that we were asked for our views on what was contained in the legislation.

Q The proposed new release test introduces a public protection threshold. How does the Parole Board currently approach risk? Is the new test likely to result in a change in how the Parole Board makes decisions?

Martin Jones:

The current release test is set by Parliament. It is a very clear, simple test as to whether the prisoner’s continued detention remains necessary for the protection of the public. That means that public protection is always paramount in our decision making. Of course, when we make those decisions, we have to have regard to all the different factors involved in a prisoner’s case: the progress they have made in custody, the nature of their index offences, whether they have been well behaved in custody, whether they might have taken drugs in custody, and whether they might have done positive work, such as education and training. We take account of all those factors when we reach a Parole Board decision.

I would say that what is on the face of the Bill, in reality, gives effect to what the Parole Board already says in its guidance that we should take into account. We think that the legislation should make no significant changes to our practice.

Q In the Bill, there is a checklist of things that it is proposed the Parole Board should take into account when making those decisions. I heard what you said about it not making a difference to how the Parole Board operates now, but something that is missing from the checklist but that I understand the Parole Board currently takes into account is unproven allegations against the prisoner. What do you think the implications of that being left off the list are?

Martin Jones:

The slight danger is that the Parole Board practitioners start to view the matters that are on the face of the Bill as more important than other factors. The Bill is clear that it is not an exhaustive list, and the Parole Board can, of course, take account of whatever factors it believes to be relevant in the individual case, but the fact that Parliament puts a certain set of factors on the face of the Bill means that you will always have to have regard to that.

Allegations is a particularly important area when you are assessing the risk of a prisoner. It most commonly comes to the Parole Board when, for example, you are talking about an allegation of domestic violence. It often comes up, and particularly with somebody being recalled to custody. It may not be a proven allegation, but what the Parole Board may see is a pattern of behaviour with a person being arrested on a number of different occasions, alleging perhaps an assault against a partner. Those charges may not end up being brought to court and may not be proven, but when we are deciding whether someone is to be released, we want to ensure that we understand the pattern of behaviour. It was certainly something that was important to us as part of the DSD case—that is the Worboys case—in relation to how we take account and what weight we add in making those decisions. So previous allegations is a really important point for us.

Q The Bill gives the Secretary of State powers to veto the Parole Board’s decisions in certain cases. Do you think the reforms could impact on the Parole Board’s decision making and/or independence?

Martin Jones:

It is important to be clear that the Parole Board has always taken the view that it is important that you are able to challenge a Parole Board decision if either the victim, the Secretary of State or a prisoner thinks we have got our decision wrong. Ultimately, our decisions are judicial decisions made independent of Government and based on evidence and the law.

In 2019, the Government introduced a reconsideration mechanism that enables parties to come to the Parole Board and say, “We think you’ve got it wrong.” It is very closely based on the grounds for judicial review, and that provides a way for us to then review that case, normally via a judicial member of the Parole Board looking at all the evidence that the panel took account of and deciding, via a decision that is now published and available for the public to see, whether that decision was rational and fair. We have no problem with people challenging that.

The problem with a block on the decision and the veto amounts to two issues, one of which is: will it subsequently stand up to legal scrutiny? Parliament and the courts have been very clear that the final decision on whether somebody is safe to be released or not has to rest with a court. Until this Bill came along, that court has always been the Parole Board, subject only to judicial review. If you have the Justice Secretary intervening and blocking that release, it will have to go up, according to the Bill, to the upper tribunal to decide whether that decision should stand, and they will apply very similar principles of judicial review to look at the rationality of our decision.

In almost all cases, in my experience, when the Parole Board makes a decision, the reason we release somebody is because the professionals—the offender manager, the prison officers, the probation officer and the psychologists —say that the person is safe to be released. It is really important that we do not make decisions out of the air: they are based on the evidence presented to the panel. In my experience it would be highly unusual for us to go against that. But, of course, we are a court and we have to look at the evidence independently.

It is very difficult to see how, if the decision gets blocked and it goes up to the tribunal, and you look at all the evidence and the evidence is pointing towards release, and it gets blocked, that will withstand a subsequent challenge. The Parole Board has suggested that an alternative way would be to have a substantive appeal—which could indeed be wider than judicial review, if that was what Parliament decided—and that would provide an effective mechanism to stop and have a review of Parole Board decisions if you genuinely think we have got it wrong. That would add additional balance into the system.

My concern would be building up unrealistic hopes in the eyes of victims. I meet loads of victims: they are getting terribly upset and you can understand it. If you have been the victim of a serious crime—20 or 30 years ago you have lost a member of your family—and that person is up for parole, that is always going to be a difficult experience. But I am not sure that simply delaying release by two to three months is good for victims if a significant number of the decisions do not subsequently stand up to scrutiny by the courts.

Q Thanks for that. On a related point, parole hearings feature a great deal of information about the offender. There can be lots of reports and an in-depth hearing before a decision is made. In your view, will the Secretary of State be able to consider all the evidence before making a decision?

Martin Jones:

You are absolutely right: generally speaking, particularly in what we describe as the tier 1 cases—cases of murder, rape, terrorism, or causing or allowing the death of a child—the average size of the dossier of information provided to the Parole Board will be somewhere between 500 and 1,000 pages. Our members will in most cases ordinarily consist of a judge—a retired judge, sometimes a retired High Court judge; an independent member, who might be a retired police officer, a retired probation officer or prison officer; and maybe a psychologist or a psychiatrist if somebody has a mental health condition. They will consider that in detail and spend anywhere between half a day to a day hearing evidence from all the people at the hearing to determine whether that person is safe to be released or not.

If the Secretary of State then usurps that, how will he get sight of the evidence that the panel has carefully weighed in the balance to make the final decision? Decision letters are normally 15 to 20 pages long, explaining the legal basis of why we think that person is safe to be released or not. You certainly need an equivalent process if that is going to withstand a challenge subsequently in the tribunal.

Q Thanks for that. The upper tribunal will have the power to confirm a decision or direct the release of a prisoner, but as they do not have experience of assessing risk in the way the Parole Board does, how will they be able to make those sorts of assessments?

Martin Jones:

That would be an additional challenge. At the moment, I guess the closest approximation you have is the mental health review tribunal, which makes decisions about the release of people from hospital or prison. If you have mental health conditions, that goes up to the tribunal. But this would be new work for the tribunal.

It certainly seems to me that the tribunal would need training in relation to risk assessment. The lifeblood of the Parole Board is understanding the progress that somebody has made and ensuring the processes work. Clearly, if you are going to have, under one part almost, a reconsideration of the case as a whole, that will be quite a complex decision if you are potentially dealing with a significant volume of cases being challenged.

Q Clause 36 enables the Secretary of State to take a decision that is referred to them by the Parole Board. Can you think of any circumstances in which a Parole Board might refer a decision to the Secretary of State in place of making a decision itself?

Martin Jones:

In my seven years of experience running the Parole Board, I cannot think of a single case where we would say that we cannot make that decision. We would say that is our job—take the evidence presented to us, do a risk assessment and decide whether that person is safe to be released—on some incredibly difficult, complex and sometimes controversial cases. I cannot imagine a circumstance in which a Parole Board would not deal with that.

The only circumstance I could possibly imagine is where we did not believe we had the full information to enable us to make the decision—perhaps on a terrorist case where there is sensitive information. But over the last three years, particularly following London Bridge, we have worked very closely with the Department and other agencies to ensure that the Parole Board always sees the most sensitive information in those cases, to make the right decision. That includes ways of seeing very sensitive information without disclosing the full information to the prisoner. That is really important to ensure that the public are kept safe.

Q Clause 46 enables the Secretary of State to prescribe what description of member should handle a particular case. It relates to this idea that there ought to be more members with a law enforcement background and that that would give a different perspective. Do you think it would affect the independence of the Parole Board and its practical capacity to get panels together to deal with the cases if there was a prescription about who had to be on each panel?

Martin Jones:

First of all, it is important to be clear that we already have police officers on the Parole Board. They are an incredibly important part of our decision making, alongside all the other experience—the judges, the psychologists, the psychiatrists and others. We have had a look at the release rates by different types, and in reality our members are trained and we bring in people who are driven by the evidence, not by their vocation.

I think there is a problem in saying that a particular person must be on the panel for a particular group of cases. Certainly, it adds an additional layer of operational complexity to us to ensure that we have enough police officers. If you look at the numbers in the explanatory memorandum, it is about 2,000 cases a year; we would need quite a lot of police officers on the Parole Board to ensure that those cases are appropriately panelled.

Ultimately, it goes back to the fact that the Parole Board is a court in law. In reality, it is best for the court to decide who are the appropriate people on cases, depending on the complexity. Sometimes, we might have a case in which somebody was convicted as a child and has severe learning difficulties. It might be more important to have someone with that experience on a panel, rather than a police officer.

Q Finally, Clause 47 provides a statutory power for the Secretary of State to dismiss the chair of the Parole Board. Does that present an issue with the independence of the board, as far as you are concerned?

Martin Jones:

My concern would be about the nature of the decisions we are asked to make. Parliament has decided that we should decide upon the release of people convicted of the most serious offences. Ordinarily, the classic would be someone serving a life sentence for murder or other very serious offences of rape, terrorism and other things. None of those decisions are easy; none are decisions that will not have caused potential public anxiety and huge damage to the victim.

If you look at the numbers, we make around 16,000 decisions a year about whether people are safe to be released. We release about one in four, so 4,000 people each year. We probably get a controversy and lots of media attention in around five of those decisions, so it is a tiny number of cases. I have been working in public service for 30 years, and I understand why you get that attention on particular decisions if they are high profile, but I think there is a danger in trying to take aim at the chair of the Parole Board, who has had nothing at all to do with the decision in that case. Indeed, under the Bill they would not even decide who should sit on that case, but they could be told that they should be removed.

I would say that, of course, it must be right that if someone is not up to the job, there should be a way of removing them from that job. I think we would all expect that, living in public life. There is already a protocol in place that would allow a Secretary of State to follow a process in a fair way to remove the chair of the Parole Board if they believe they are not fulfilling their functions. My concern is that if it is used simply because the Parole Board has made a controversial decision, that potentially impacts on the independence of the Parole Board.

That brings to a close the questions for this session. Thank you for coming this afternoon and answering questions.