It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend Bambos Charalambous on calling this important debate at the start of this Parliament. I also endorse the comments made about the Justice Committee, and its incredible work scrutinising this issue and coming up with workable recommendations. work scrutinising this issue and coming up with workable recommendations.

My constituent, who lived in York before being taken into custody in 2005—19 years ago—was given an imprisonment for public protection sentence on 22 January 2007. His original tariff meant that the Parole Board could have released him on 26 May 2009, but he is still there. It must be one of the most egregious cases in the system.

IPP sentences were introduced through the Criminal Justice Act 2003, despite warnings that they would be an affront to justice. They were reformed in 2008 and abolished in 2012, and a total of 8,711 sentences were imposed.

My constituent’s family have been superb and have met me, to keep me informed of the progress for my constituent—apart from that there is no progress, because we do not know what happens next. There have been incidents and consequences, but he is seriously unwell, because he never knows the date of his release or how the injustices he has now served will ever be undone. To incarcerate someone indefinitely comes at significant cost—it is beyond comprehension. My constituent’s mental health has significantly spiralled, as he cannot see an end to this nightmare.

As we have heard, reports have shown that 90 people have taken their own lives while on an IPP sentence. There have been 1,866 incidents of self-harm; the figure is around 2,000 incidents of self-harm every year, across many years, among those on IPP sentences.

The nature of an indeterminate sentence is profound and we understand that denying somebody release has a huge impact. It is often denied as they are not engaging, as my constituent did not for some time, with psychiatric services. He just could not—yet that delayed his progress towards release. After getting a sentence of two years, four months and nine days, he has now served a sentence of 19 years, and his hope is diminishing as he continues to wait for the Parole Board to do justice. He was just 24 years old when a single incident occurred; now 43, having completed course after course after course, he is yet to be released.

The Justice Committee report highlighted the inconsistencies in the way IPP prisoners are treated, the failure of the Parole Board to properly stratify risk, and the conditions that prisoners have to satisfy in order to be released. As a result, we see people languishing in their cells without hope of ever getting out.

The Parole Board needs to be given the scope to properly look at this measure. That is why I support the recommendations in the Justice Committee’s report on resentencing. It is not just people who are incarcerated who are on an IPP sentence; on their release, people continue on that sentence in the community, and for the smallest misdemeanour can easily be recalled. There is no consistency. People may miss appointments and therefore be recalled. We heard in evidence to the Select Committee how small some of the misdemeanours were that meant people were recalled back into prison.

We need to find a way out of this situation. The report calls for resentencing and the reduction of the recall period to five years from the current 10 years. Will the Minister support that change? If not, I ask him to give us a full explanation as to why.

This all comes in the context of significant current pressure on the courts. Perhaps a specialist court is needed to review all these cases, to ensure that the decisions are expedited in the resentencing and ensuing release process. We need to ensure that people have the right support to go back into the community, given that the Probation Service is at absolute breaking point, not least as it is having to deal with early releases at the moment. Again, a specialist focus is required. For example, my constituent has been in prison for 19 years, so a lot of steps need to be taken to ensure that when he is released, he is safe to himself, that he gets the mental health support he requires, and that the family also get support over that period. We must recognise the huge vulnerability of these individuals at that time.

We also need to ensure that the process is robust and consistent—we have seen inconsistencies in the judgments of parole boards, causing further frustration for many people on the inside—and that there are allocated safe places, where people can start to rebuild their lives. My constituent is fortunate to have family who are prepared and a place to go, but many people do not have those associations because it has been so long since they were on the outside. We need to make sure that real expertise in this area is brought in.

When we hear places like the European Court of Human Rights deeming such sentences to be in breach of article 5, on the basis of protection of unlawful deprivation of liberty, the Government cannot sit on their hands. They must act swiftly; and being new in government brings the opportunity to ensure that they do.

How is the Minister is going to review the programmes that people on IPP sentences and others are placed on in prison? The Select Committee heard evidence that many are not fit for purpose nor evidence-based. How do we ensure that the focus of those programmes is on rehabilitating people ready for their future life, and that they are not just a process that prisoners have to go through, serving no benefit?

The Lord Chancellor and the Minister have to rebuild the criminal justice system—we recognise that. The most important thing is reducing the offending rate and ensuring that we do not continue to see the current levels of reoffending. There are some good models out there, including my local prison, Askham Grange, which has the lowest reoffending rate in the country. With that, there is a proper process in place so that the residents —as they are given the dignity of being called—are given support when coming out and going back into employment and civil society. That invest-to-save model needs funding and support. As we transition services, we need to ensure—particularly for those serving IPP sentences, but also across the wider criminal justice system—that the right support is put in the right place.

Ultimately, I turn to the matter of our psychiatric services, because my observation is that many prisons have now become a place where people with significant and severe mental health challenges have to be; it is a failure of our mental health services that they are there at all. Many on IPP sentences fall within that category. If there is a resentencing process, which I hope there is, can we ensure that we also look at mental health support? For many people, perhaps hospital is a more appropriate place than prison. I look forward to the Minister’s response.