Clause 24.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS AS TO PERSISTENT OFFENDERS.) (Hansard, 27 April 1967)

§ Dr. Winstanley
I beg to move Amendment No. 74, in page 17, line 45, at the end to insert: Provided nevertheless that, unless otherwise recommended by the Prison Licensing Board, the Secretary of State shall release on licence or without conditions any such person when he has served two-thirds of his sentence. I do not need to detain the House for long on this Amendment. It is limited both in scope and in time. It is limited in scope since it applies to those who were previously serving sentences of preventive detention and limited in time, because for only a relatively short time will any of these persons exist. The Bill provides that anyone serving a sentence of preventive detention shall be treated for the purposes of release as if he was serving an equivalent sentence of imprisonment.
I am not altogether happy about this. Preventive detention is described in the Home Office publication, Prisons and Borstals, as follows: it is of the essence of the system that the offender is not being punished for the last offence on which he was convicted, but is confined for the protection of society, and for a period which will in all probability far exceed any period for which he would have been imprisoned as a punishment. 1952 Now that preventive detention is to disappear a prison sentence of equivalent length needs to be reviewed.
My attention has been drawn to a statement by Lord Stonham in a letter when he was in opposition, before he took office. He said: Once preventive detention is abolished 1 shall do everything in my power to see that men serving these sentences will have them reviewed. It may be that they will be reviewed. The Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders, in a report on preventive detention, recommends that as an interim measure all detainees in custody should be released on licence after serving two-thirds of their sentence. This Amendment is designed to ensure that this happens. I have had a brief discussion with the right hon. Lady and it is her view that this situation is provided for, but I have been advised that it is not provided for in all circumstances. As the Bill is not entirely satisfactory in this way, the matter needs looking into further. I would not go so far as to push the Amendment if it turns out that her advice confirms her view, but I shall at least wait to hear what she says.
The Amendment provides that unless otherwise recommended by the Prison Licensing Board, the Secretary of State shall release on licence or without conditions any such person when he has served two-thirds of his sentence.

§ Miss Bacon
The hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) referred to preventive detention prisoners and corrective trainees having their sentences reviewed, although his Amendment does not in fact ask for this. It asks that they shall be released on licence or without conditions after they have served two-thirds of their sentences.

§ Dr. Winstanley
"Unless".

§ Miss Bacon
Unless otherwise recommended by the Prison Licensing Board.
I take it that the hon. Member wants to ensure that a preventive detention or corrective training prisoner in prison when Clause 24 comes into force will not have his position worsened by subsection (6) of the Clause. I assure him that this is so under the Bill as it stands. At present, both preventive detention and 1953 corrective training prisoners are in law liable to be kept in prison for the term of their sentence, but they may be, and in practice are, released on licence after two-thirds of their sentence.
9.45 p.m.
Under subsection (6) a corrective training prisoner will be converted into an ordinary prisoner and will, in law, still be liable to be kept in prison for the term of his sentence, but may be, and in practice will be, granted up to one-third remission so that he is released outright on his two-thirds date, subject to any loss of remission for misconduct in prison.
The preventive detention prisoner will be converted to an extended sentence prisoner—that is, he will be an ordinary prisoner but, instead of being granted release on his two-thirds date, he may be, and in practice will be, released on licence under Clause 41(2), to which the Prison Licensing Board provisions do not apply.
One small matter about the Amendment is that it would provide for the automatic release of these two classes of prisoners after they had served two-thirds of their sentence but there would be no power to order loss of remission for misconduct, which applies to ordinary prisoners.

§ Dr. Winstanley
I am sure that the right hon. Lady will prove to be right. I am also sure that she will realise that I am not entirely able to verify this at such short notice. I will assume that, as she is in sympathy with the intentions of the Amendment, if it should prove at a subsequent stage that there are any defects in this remedy they will be rectified later. I am sure that I am right in this understanding. If I am right, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

	'unless—
	(a) the act or any of the acts constituting that offence consisted of an assault on or threat of violence to another person, or of having or possessing a firearm, an imitation firearm, an explosive or an offensive weapon or of indecent conduct with or towards a person under the age of sixteen years;
5	(b) that offence is one in respect of which a probation order or order for conditional discharge was originally made or the offender was subject to such an order at the time of committing that offence;
10	(c) on the occasion on which sentence is passed for that offence, the court passes or proposes to pass a sentence of immediate imprisonment on the offender for 10 another offence which the court is not required to suspend;
	(d) the offender is serving, or has since the commission of the offence served, a sentence of imprisonment or borstal training previously passed for another offence; or
15	(e) the offender had at any time before the commission of the offence been 15 sentenced to, or served any part of a sentence of, imprisonment or borstal training previously passed for another offence or been subject to a suspended sentence.
20	(4) The Secretary of State may by order provide that paragraph (e) of the last foregoing subsection shall have effect in any case prescribed by the order as if the reference to any time were a reference to any time during a period so prescribed (being a period 20 of not less than three years); and an order under this subsection may make different provision for different cases.