My Lords, I support the amendments because of the change that took place when the challenge to the right of the Home Secretary went through the judicial system and the safeguard that existed was therefore withdrawn. I do not share the view that the Parole Board is full of naive people. It has an incredibly difficult job and needs all the support and guidance it can get. I have my own disagreements with it, including on the case of David McCauliffe, who has been in prison for 32 years and did not commit murder or rape, although he did commit some totally heinous crimes.
I speak to this amendment because, like other Home Secretaries, I had to deal with Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. When Keith Bennett’s aunt, on behalf of the family, made her appeals to me to see if we could get an identification of where the little boy, Keith, was buried, my heart went out to the family. It was one of those distressing moments that Home Secretaries and now Justice Secretaries have to deal with in cases of murder, particularly where the body has not been identified and there is not therefore the opportunity to grieve properly or to lay the remains to rest. Winnie Johnson, Keith’s mother, died in 2012 without ever knowing where he was. No parent should have to put up with that.
As I have spoken about already, like my predecessors I was able to block the release of the Moors murderers because the power then existed with the Home Secretary. For reasons relating to human rights—it was not to do with the incorporation of the ECHR into the Human Rights Act but with the appeal that went through the judicial system—that power was taken away and, as described, now rests with the Parole Board.
In the circumstances, we are asking the impossible of the Parole Board: to make a judgment on a situation in which somebody has knowingly refused to identify the place in which they put the body of the individual they murdered. For the parents of a child, that is so horrendous as to require a much more rigid approach than we would normally take in giving judges and the Parole Board, quite rightly, the discretion they need to deal with cases. That is why I am in support.