A Turning Point?

Isn't it extremely worrying that in this interview with David Gauke for Inside Time, the only mention of probation is in the context of bloody tagging:-

David Gauke Interview: ‘This is a turning point’

David Gauke’s review was the blueprint for last month’s Sentencing Bill. In an interview with Inside Time he gives his verdict on the Government’s plans

David Gauke thinks he has started something big. His ideas for changing the way sentences in England and Wales are served have been adopted by the Government and brought before Parliament last month. They ought to stem the month-by-month increase in prisoner numbers which has brought the prison system to the brink of crisis. But he wants to go further.

“I don’t see why the UK –England and Wales alongside Scotland – should have a prison population that is so much bigger than the rest of Western Europe, and so much bigger than was the case 30 years ago,” he tells me.

“I would like to think, maybe, that the review I chaired is a turning point, but it’s certainly not the completion of the process. I would like to see the prison population smaller than it is today, not larger. That’s never going to be something that can be achieved very quickly, but I think there’s an argument there to be won.”

The Sentencing Bill brings major changes. Most prisoners will serve only one-third of their term behind bars; most prison-leavers will wear tags whilst on licence; and most sentences of less than 12 months will be served in the community. It has been a long time in the making.

Capacity crisis

Since the Covid pandemic, the prison population has risen by 10,000, and it is still rising. Causes include more people held on remand, more recalled while on licence, but chiefly ‘sentence inflation’ – the trend for politicians and judges to make jail terms longer and longer.

At times in the past couple of years, there have been only a few hundred free places left in men’s jails. Successive governments have been forced to introduce unpopular early release schemes to ensure there are still places free for new arrivals.

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto promised a review of sentencing. In office, the party followed through on its pledge. Conscious that making punishments more lenient is never popular with voters, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer appointed a Conservative to lead the review. Giving the reforms a gloss of cross-party unity could only limit political fall-out.

The man selected was Mr Gauke. As justice secretary in Theresa May’s Tory government from 2018 to 2019, he had tried to stop people from being sent to prison for just a few months – but failed. Now he would have greater leeway to find radical solutions to the capacity crisis.

A numbers game

Mr Gauke was asked for a set of proposals which could reduce the prison population by 9,500. His report, published in May, went a bit further. It contained recommendations which he said would, if made law, lower the number of prisoners by 9,800.

But there’s a big ‘if’ in that sentence. The Sentencing Bill presented to Parliament last month includes many of Mr Gauke’s ideas, but some have been dropped and others watered down, leaving a package which the Government claims will reduce prisoner numbers by just 7,500. This, by ministers’ own admission, would not be enough to halt the rise in the prison population. But it would slow it down.

What does Mr Gauke think? “I am pleased that the Government is proceeding with the vast bulk of our recommendations,” he says. “Of course, there are some areas where they’re taking a slightly different approach to the one we outlined, but that’s only to be expected.

“I’m pleased to see a Government that is facing up to the realities of our present population and the need to address that in a strategic way, rather than trying to muddle through.”

Points of contention

One area where the Govern-ment has gone against Mr Gauke’s recommendations is prisoners serving Extended Determinate Sentences (EDS). Mr Gauke said they should benefit from an earlier release point, like those on fixed-term sentences. The Government rejected this.

Mr Gauke sees why, but believes ministers are wrong. “I do think there is a strong case for providing that incentivization for EDS offenders,” he says. “I can see that that is perhaps more politically sensitive than some of the other recommendations, given the nature of the offences that we are talking about. We live in a political world, but on the merits, I think our recommendation was fully justified.”

Another point of disagreement was on how the ‘earned release’ model will work. Mr Gauke recommended that well-behaved prisoners should serve one-third of their time, while those who behave badly should serve a maximum of two-thirds. The Government rejected this and says the badly-behaved should be eligible to have days added, via adjudications, until they end up serving their full term.

Mr Gauke sees a difficulty: “If, in practice, what we see is lots of offenders serving 100 per cent of their sentence, then you will have real problems in terms of the prison population. I just hope that those powers are used sparingly and proportionately.”

One particular concern, raised by Inside Time readers, is that prisoners might find their ‘earned release’ delayed if their prison does not offer enough courses or jobs for them to demonstrate progression. Mr Gauke is clear this should not happen: “As long as offenders do what they can, then they should be on track to be released a third of the way through.”

Fewer prisoners?

Among many Government announcements last month, the most eye-catching was that most prison-leavers will in future have to wear electronic tags. Mr Gauke is supportive. “The more that the general public can be reassured that those who are not in prison are being properly monitored in the community,” he says, “then, I think, the greater the public appetite will be for moving people out of prison.”

But he says probation must improve to cope with the extra demand: “Over the course of the review, I met people who were inside apparently because the monitoring wasn’t working, and not through their own fault – batteries running out, and matters such as this. I’d be very concerned if we were seeing a lot of evidence of that.”

Mr Gauke has worked closely with Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary until last month, even visiting Texas with her to see how earned release works there. He says: “I was impressed by her. She’s prepared to face up to some difficult decisions, and deal with longer-term problems rather than just what’s immediately in front of her.”

Regarding David Lammy, appointed last month as her successor, Mr Gauke sounds less certain: “I know David Lammy reasonably well and I’m confident that he’ll take forward this agenda and will want to be remembered as a reforming Lord Chancellor.”

I’m struck by Mr Gauke’s claim that his proposals can be a “turning point”, leading to a falling prison population, so I ask how confident he is. He hedges his bets, saying: “If we can get the probation service working, then I think there are grounds for optimism. But that is dependent upon getting the reoffending rate down – and, of course, resisting the temptation to extend sentences.”

More big ‘ifs’. When politicians stop demanding longer sentences and judges stop imposing them, then we really will be at a turning point.

Ben Leapman