My Lords, with the agreement of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, I rise to thank my noble friend the Minister. I know from conversations with him that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who cannot be in his place today would join me in expressing our appreciation to my noble friend the Minister for the integrity, openness and engagement—and consequently the trust—he has engendered since Report. This is an example of government and the House working constructively to improve the operation of the criminal justice system and those affected by it.
The amendment moved by my noble friend addresses one limb of the amendment in my name in Committee and again on Report. It puts into effect the Government’s own previously announced policy of making the termination of licences automatic. I welcome that, but I still hope that soon the Government will also adopt
the second limb of that amendment to reduce the qualifying period from 10 years to five. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, said, the Justice Select Committee in the other place is considering this whole case.
I hope that when my noble friend replies he will be able to say that, if that committee recommends a reduction in the qualifying period from 10 years to five, the Government will be quick to adopt that amendment and put it into effect. Both measures—the automaticity of the referral and the potential reduction of the qualifying period from 10 years to five—are primarily aimed at IPP prisoners out on licence, not those in prison, though I appreciate that my noble friend has pointed out that those on recall may gain some benefit from this.
This is the first crack in the wall of this regime made in the last 10 years. It would be very easy for noble Lords to think that now is a moment when we could perhaps relax; the Government, having made a concession and implicitly recognised an injustice, will move, quietly perhaps, to resolve the whole matter quickly. But that is not what the Ministry of Justice is expecting to see happen.
In a Written Answer given in the other place by my right honourable friend Kit Malthouse on 3 December last year, the Ministry of Justice set out in round numbers how many IPP prisoners it expected to see released on licence in each of the next five years. It came to 800. But when asked how many of those out on licence it expected to see recalled to prison over the same period, the total came to a staggering 3,400. The Ministry of Justice expects 2,600 more IPP prisoners, net, to be in jail over the next five years than there are today. That is nearly a doubling of the number of IPP prisoners in prison today. This problem is not resolved; we have not even begun to resolve it. This problem is going to get worse and the Government are obliged to take it seriously.
My noble friend referred on Report to the existence of an action plan. He said that the ministry had an action plan for dealing with the problem. Requests to see the action plan have been met with a response from my noble friend to the effect that it will be available shortly, or it is not currently available, but we may look forward to it. I do look forward to it; we might all look forward to it, but we would like to see it soon. We would like to see it address this problem and put this scandal properly behind us as soon as possible.