Is there any hope that IPP prisoners will be released by this government?

As the topic of indefinite sentences is debated in the Lords, Sean O’Grady assesses the likelihood that those still held under this disgraceful and uncivilised system will ever be granted freedom

Judging by the latest developments in parliament, there is still no sign that one of the most egregious abuses of human rights in Britain is going to be resolved. Following a passionate debate in the House of Lords – for so long a doughty, if unlikely, bastion against the abuse of power – it appears that the plight of the 2,700 or so prisoners still held in prisons long after their sentences have been served will continue to go unanswered, or at least in anything like the timely fashion demanded.

They are the last of those once placed in custody under the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) regime, which was abolished in 2012. By any normal standard of justice, what has happened to these people is a disgrace in a civilised society...

What’s the issue?

These men and women are the forgotten vestiges of an extraordinary system introduced by the last Labour government in 2005. It was meant to deal with those who had committed sometimes minor crimes but were determined by the court to present a danger to the public – so they’d be off the streets until things changed.

Apart from the insult to natural justice, the process was unworkable in practice, and was ended in 2012. David Blunkett, the minister responsible, has since renounced his own policy. But because the law that abolished IPP couldn’t be made retrospective under constitutional convention, that left a significant number of cases in which prisoners were left languishing, unable to be released. Some have taken their own lives.

What kinds of cases?

In the Lords debate, Liberal Democrat peer Sarah Ludford cited three of the more distressing ones. That of James Lawrence, for example, who is still in prison 18 years after he was handed an eight-month jail term for threatening someone with a fake gun. Ludford also highlighted the case of Thomas White, who set himself alight in prison after serving 12 years for stealing a mobile phone; and prisoner Yusuf Ali, who spent 61 days on hunger strike as he lost hope of ever being freed under his IPP jail term.

More than 700 IPP prisoners have served over 10 years longer than their minimum term. Ludford asked: “So what is this government going to do, keep these people locked up arbitrarily and indefinitely, just like in Guantanamo?”

So what is this government going to do?

Not much. Despite his exemplary reputation in the field, where he has much experience in rehabilitation through his family business, the minister concerned, James Timpson, rejected the most obvious way to secure justice without risking public safety: he declined to agree to any form of resentencing, on the curious and over-legalistic grounds that taking release decisions out of the hands of the Parole Board is not a risk he wishes to take. Instead, he suggested that the prisoners work towards release through a refreshed IPP action plan. The IPP families have dismissed this.

Is it a good idea to release these prisoners?

Yes, if there’s plainly no or minimal risk. It would also free up more space in our overcrowded prisons. However, the IPP cases fall outside the review on sentencing and overcrowded prisons currently being undertaken by David Gauke.

What are the political risks?

The possibility, emphasised by former trade union leader Tony Woodley, that the IPP issue could become as costly, embarrassing and shameful as the Post Office debacle or the infected blood scandal. Of course, it may also be the case that ministers are seeking to damp down the uproar over IPP in an effort to minimise what could be a hefty bill for the denial of basic human rights.

But the issue simply will not go away. As Woodley told the House of Lords during the second reading of a bill to resentence IPP prisoners – 90 of whom have already taken their own lives – “History is being written right now, and my plea to government is this: don’t be on the wrong side of history. Do not wait for the ITV docudrama to cast you unfairly as uncaring, cold-hearted timewasters who left damaged people, many of them broken by the state, to rot away in prison while those in power stood by wringing their hands.”

Ministers will, of course, also be aware that if a single IPP ex-prisoner does commit some heinous offence, the press will blame them, irrespective of the facts.