Whatton

I appreciate the Board’s continued concerns about prisoners serving Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences. On 5 September 2024, the Lord Chancellor announced that the Government would implement reforms we supported in opposition to the IPP licence period in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024. These commenced on 1 November 2024, when the licences for 1,742 IPP offenders in the community were terminated. The remaining reforms were implemented on 1 February 2025, which reduced the qualifying period for consideration of licence termination and saw around 600 additional referrals made to the Parole Board. The Secretary of State also has two new powers, the power to use ‘Risk Assessed Recall Review’ (RARR) for recalled IPP prisoners and the power to disapply a recall. The first enables her to re-release people who have been recalled at any point without referring the case to the Parole Board, where safe to do so. The second enables her to not reset the two-year period after someone is re-released from a recall.
The Government is determined to support the rehabilitation of IPP offenders through a refreshed Action Plan, this was published on 15 November 2024 in our IPP Annual Report and can be accessed online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmpps-annual-report-on-the-ipp-sentence-2023-to-24. The refreshed Plan puts an important emphasis on ensuring that those serving IPP sentences have robust and effective sentence plans, which they are actively engaging with, and that they are in the correct prison to access the right interventions and rehabilitative services. This is the most effective way to help them to reduce their risk so that they can progress towards safe release from custody. I am very mindful of the specific and substantial challenges faced by those serving IPP sentences and this is an issue I feel passionately about. The Government is committed to working with organisations and campaign groups to ensure the appropriate course of action is taken to support IPP prisoners.

In terms of the IPP policy and the wellbeing and morale of this cohort, the HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) prison safety programme and the safety focused actions in the IPP Action Plan are designed to continue to improve the way that HMPPS identifies, manages and supports those at risk of self-harm and suicide. Based on the learning from IPP self-inflicted deaths and incidents of self-harm, HMPPS has provided guidance to all prison staff and partner agencies and developed an IPP Safety Toolkit. A series of live events has also been delivered to further raise staff awareness on the risks of IPP prisoners, and HMPPS will continue to consider further ways to raise awareness on the risks with staff. At HMP Whatton, a keyworker group has been allocated to the IPP and lifer cohort of prisoners who have been given additional training and will keep prisoners informed of any new national updates.