My Lords, I shall speak briefly to my Amendment 208C. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer eloquently introduced it. He took all my best lines—in fact, all my lines—so I will be very brief. This is a very modest amendment. It simply requires a review of the resources and support available for the resettlement and supervision of prisoners serving IPP sentences who are released on licence.
I very much hope the Government will listen to this afternoon’s debate. There is such a powerful force behind these amendments all around the House; it should provide enough cover to the Government to do the right thing. One comes back, time after time, to the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, when he described this situation as the greatest single stain on our criminal justice system. Surely the Government must respond sympathetically to what noble Lords are saying this afternoon.
All I want to do is emphasise what the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, said about the Catch-22 situation that applies particularly to those who have been put out on release. First, if those people are honest about the fears and problems they have faced in prison, they can often risk being considered unsafe to be released in the first place. Secondly, if they ask for help with a mental health problem in the community, they could be assessed as being high risk and be recalled to prison. It is an extraordinary situation. If they enter into a new intimate relationship, they do so in the knowledge that an upset partner could make false accusations which would result in recall. How are people meant to live in that situation? As the authors of the Prison Reform Trust report say—it is an extraordinary and moving piece of work—it is hard to imagine how any of us could hold on to our sanity and self-belief in this situation. I plead with the Government to take note and be sympathetic to the plight of these people.