HL Deb 12 May 1964 vol 258 cc120-2

2.42 p.m.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the anomaly that prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment prior to 1957 are imprisoned with capital offenders who since 1957 have been sentenced on the grounds of diminished responsibility to fixed and relatively short terms of imprisonment, and whether they will review the cases of prisoners who have served seven or more years and whose crimes were committed under conditions of diminished responsibility.]

THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD DERWENT)

My Lords, I am not aware of any anomaly. All life sentences are reviewed regularly on the merits of the individual cases.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that in Wakefield Prison alone there are some 150 capital offenders, most of whom were sentenced after the 1957 Act; and that it is very difficult for a man who, in 1956, shot his wife's lover to understand why he must stay in prison when a man who committed a precisely similar crime in 1960 is about to he released? That is the kind of anomaly to which I refer.

LORD DERWENT

My Lords, I am still not quite clear what the noble Lord means. I take it he means it is anomalous that prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment should he in the same prison as those serving shorter fixed sentences. I take it that is the anomaly to which he is referring.

LORD STONHAM

The anomaly to which I refer is the fact that men sentenced prior to the Homicide Act, 1957, who were, even when their crime was committed under diminished responsibility, given life sentences, are still in prison, whereas men sentenced after the Act was passed for precisely similar crimes were given fixed sentences of medium-term duration, and are now being released after a much shorter period of imprisonment.

LORD DERWENT

My Lords, I think the noble Lord is getting a bit muddled. It is true that some prisoners sentenced to fixed terms after successfully pleading diminished responsibility will serve shorter periods than are normally served under life sentences, but this is no ground for separating the two types of prisoner; and some diminished responsibility prisoners have been sentenced to very long terms of imprisonment indeed.

LORD STONHAM

While accepting that, I am not in the least bit muddled on this point. It is the —and I will indeed send the noble Lord particulars—that there is this very considerable difference in treatment simply because some men were sentenced prior to the Homicide Act, 1957, and others after it.

LORD DERWENT

I do not quite know what information the noble Lord wants out of me. I can only repeat that I do not see any anomaly in the two types of prisoner serving together in the same prison.

LORD STONHAM

The information I want from the noble Lord is that he will review the sentences of these men who have been in prison since prior to the passing of the 1957 Act.

LORD DERWENT

My Lords, all life sentences are regularly reviewed.