The government’s proposals to give ministers greater oversight over Parole Board decisions to release certain “top-tier” prisoners are examined by the cross-party Justice Committee, as part of its scrutiny of the Victims and Prisoners Bill which is currently going through Parliament.
The government has said the Bill will help protect the public by tightening up the processes and criteria used to decide whether to release certain categories of prisoner. If it were to become law, the Bill would give the Secretary of State for Justice the power to ‘call in’ certain decisions of the Parole Board to release “top-tier” prisoners and potentially to overturn the decisions.
Meeting details
The Justice Committee questions lawyers, academics and members of the Parole Board about the implications of this and other changes to how the parole system would be administered if the Bill becomes law. MPs debate the main principles of the Bill for the first time, in the House of Commons, on 15 May, 2023. The Justice Committee evidence session allows the experts and Parole Board members to air their views in order to inform the subsequent debate in the Commons.
The Parole Board comprises over 300 people, including lawyers, psychologists and psychiatrists. Small panels of the membership decide whether certain prisoners can be released after serving time in prison, or have their terms of incarceration relaxed, based on whether there is a risk of re-offending which could cause serious harm.
Moves to reform the parole system quickened in 2017 when the case of John Worboys hit the headlines. Worboys was convicted in 2009 of 19 offences, including rape and sexual assault against multiple victims. The Parole Board granted him parole in 2017. But there was an immediate negative public reaction, and a subsequent legal review quashed the Parole Board’s decision. This was the first time a decision of the Parole Board had been challenged in the courts – and more reforms to the parole system were subsequently brought in.
The current proposed changes giving more powers to the government could have constitutional as well as practical implications because the Parole Board has until now been seen as a quasi-judicial and constitutionally independent body.
The witnesses are expected to be asked how the proposed changes will affect the way the Parole Board operates and the extent to which the changes will help protect the public. The Committee also examines the “release test” – the criteria used by the Parole Board to recommend release or continued imprisonment. There are also likely to be questions about how decisions would be “called in” by the Secretary of State, on how their decisions would be determined, and how they might differ from those of the Parole Board.
The Victims and Prisoners Bill is a wide-ranging piece of legislation that has evolved over several years. This Committee session will focus on the parts of Bill that propose changes to the parole system. Earlier Committee evidence sessions, in 2022, focused on victims’ experiences, when the Bill was known as the Victims Bill, and had a narrower scope. Another session, in mid-May 2023, will take evidence on other aspects of the Bill.