Last year I tried to lay to rest a ghost that has haunted four successive governments: the fate of those still in prison under imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences. The sentences, now widely acknowledged as both wrong in principle and unworkable in practice, were described by the former supreme court justice Lord Brown as the “greatest single stain on our criminal justice system” and by David Blunkett as the “biggest regret” of his time in government. Yet, as I quickly found out, there is still a lack of political will to end this injustice – and neither the government nor the opposition supported my amendment to the victims and prisoners bill.
IPP sentences were introduced in 2003 as a new form of custodial sentence. Designed to appear tough on crime, they were indeterminate sentences that could be given to offenders who had committed violent or sexual offences and were deemed to pose a significant risk of causing harm to the public. Unlike a normal sentence, those given an IPP sentence would have to serve a minimum tariff in prison before being detained for an indefinite period until they could prove to the Parole Board that they were no longer a risk.
Due to the nature of the legislation, the sentences caused both confusion and discrepancies, with many more individuals being given IPP sentences than originally anticipated. This led to reform in 2008, and abolition of the sentence in 2012. Yet abolition was not applied retrospectively, meaning that there are still more than 2,800 IPP prisoners, 99% of whom have now served their tariff. More than 700 prisoners have been detained at least 10 years over their tariff. About 200 received a tariff of less than two years.
These particular individuals have been in prison five times longer than the judge who sentenced them thought appropriate for the offence, and for which others who committed the same crime at the same time might have been sentenced. That is not justice.
In principle, it was unjust to sentence someone to an indeterminate period in prison based on concerns about how they might behave in the future. As the justice select committee found in our 2022 report, it is also impractical: many prisoners had little or no access to the rehabilitative courses they were required to complete before they could leave prison.
My amendment to the victims and prisoners bill proposed to put into effect the primary recommendation of the justice committee’s report – which is that the government enable a resentencing exercise for all those still serving IPP sentences. Such an exercise would be complex. Accordingly, the amendment required the government to set up a small, time-limited expert committee to advise on the practical implementation of the exercise in conjunction with the senior judiciary.
The justice committee is not alone in calling for this process to begin. Lord Blunkett, who introduced the IPP sentence as home secretary, said in debate in the House of Lords: “We have to do something for the sake of the individuals and their families, and for the safety of the community, because the longer they are in prison on a suspended animation sentence or on licence, the more likely they are to find themselves unable to rehabilitate and have a normal life. When that happens, they are more likely to commit a crime. I got it wrong. The government now have the chance to get it right.”
A series of justice secretaries in the last decade has acknowledged flaws with the original IPP sentence. Kenneth Clarke in his typically frank manner told the Today programme: “It is quite absurd that there are people who might be [in prison] for the rest of their lives, in theory, who are serving a sentence which parliament agreed to get rid of because it hadn’t worked as anybody intended.”
More recently, the current justice secretary, Alex Chalk, pledged “decisive action to address sentences of imprisonment for public protection”, describing them as a “stain on our justice system”.
However, the government reforms to IPP licensing – reducing the period a prisoner spends on licence, once released, from 10 years to three – are not decisive enough. They only impact those who have managed to get out and stay out. For those still in prison, nothing will change, which is why resentencing is needed. In 2023, the prison and probation ombudsman reported that there had been 78 self-inflicted deaths of IPP prisoners since the sentence was introduced in April 2005. The United Group for Reform of IPP puts the total at 90. The government must use the final stages of the victims and prisoners bill in the Lords to give IPP prisoners and their families some hope. Without that hope, it is sadly likely that more IPP prisoners will take their own lives.
A clear cross-party consensus holds that IPP sentences are unjust but to date there has been a lack of government will to act. A decade ago, parliament acknowledged this by voting to abolish them. Parliament must now finish the task and address the fate of those individuals still serving IPP sentences. It is not for parliament to determine the outcome of the resentencing exercise, which is a matter for the judiciary, but the Post Office (Horizon system) offences bill shows that, when the government decides to tackle an injustice, it can be done.
Sir Bob Neill KC (Hon) is the member of parliament for Bromley and Chislehurst and a former local government minister. He is currently chair of the justice select committee
