My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and in particular to follow him in expressing a very large degree of gratitude to the Government. Although one is going to end up disagreeing with them on certain narrow points in the course of this short debate, the Government have introduced amendments in the Commons which are extremely helpful to IPP prisoners who are out on licence, and today amendments have been introduced which deal with the very good points made by the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Carter of Haslemere, allowing them to withdraw their amendments.

I do not think it is at all an exaggeration to say that more has been achieved, both operationally and legally, for IPP prisoners in the past few months than in the preceding 12 years. I am sure that a great deal of that is due to the personal efforts of the Lord Chancellor and my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy on the Front Bench. I wish to express my gratitude and a degree of congratulation.

I also want to say—here I find myself again echoing the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—that I am very impressed with the effort and determination of the officials charged with taking responsibility for clearing up this scandal; they really wish to do something. I wish them well, and I hope that that continues for as long as it needs to, whatever the character of the Government in power.

Before I turn to Amendment 145 in my name, I wish to say that there are some amendments in this group tabled by Back-Bench Peers which have not found favour with the Government. My Amendment 145 is one of them, and so is Amendment 140, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, and Amendment 147, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. It is not for me to make their speeches advocating their amendments; I simply wish to say in advance of their doing so that I am very supportive of what they are trying to do in those amendments and of their aims.

Amendment 145 in my name was not actually drafted by me. As noble Lords who were present in Committee will remember, it was in fact drafted by the late Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who felt passionately about this and, coincidentally, whose memorial service is happening later this week. On social media, it has been dubbed the “Simon Brown Memorial Amendment”, as testament to the passion that he brought to this topic and the efforts that he made.

I am not going to divide the House on this for two reasons. The first is that, despite indications otherwise, perhaps, in Committee, I understand that the Labour Party would abstain on this amendment if it were pressed to a Division. However, I wish to make a few remarks about it. First, I remind noble Lords what it seeks to do. There are two things, really. It would reverse —here I am going to use the words in a non-technical sense, not being a lawyer—the burden of proof in front of the Parole Board so that, instead of the prisoner having to demonstrate that he or she is safe, it would be for the Parole Board to demonstrate that they are dangerous. There is nothing radical about this proposal because the power to make that change was given to the Secretary of State in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. All that this part of the amendment seeks to do is, so to speak, trigger that and oblige the Secretary of State to make a change that he is already empowered to make. The second thing that the amendment would do is introduce a test of proportionality which the Parole Board can apply. I will turn to that in just a moment.

I am not going to repeat the arguments I made in Committee in favour of the amendment, but, while the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, could not anticipate what the Minister was going to say at the end of the debate, I can refer to what he did say in Committee specifically on this question of proportionality, because it is in Hansard for 12 March, at col. 1965.

My noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy on the Front Bench said:

“The Government’s position, frankly, is that the word ‘proportionate’ causes more difficulties than it solves”.

The crucial words are:

“It suggests that the test should be some sort of balance between the risk that this prisoner may present to the public and some sort of fairness or other consideration of the particular interests of that prisoner”.

My noble and learned friend has put it exactly as I would put it, but there is a huge difference between prisoners who have been given a determinate sentence and who, if they are refused parole, will nonetheless be released at the end of their sentence, whatever the risk, and IPP prisoners who, if they are refused parole, are returned to an indefinite sentence. Fairness is a consideration and justice is a consideration, and I think many noble Lords understand that completely. It may be the case, as my noble and learned friend went on to say, that

“the public protection test is a public protection test: that is the only criterion as far as this Bill is concerned. While it might be appropriate for prisoners with determinate sentences to have that as the only criterion, it is not appropriate for IPP prisoners, and some sense of fairness and justice needs to be brought in to play.

The second reason that I will not be dividing the House is that, as he has already explained, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, has tabled Amendment 149A, which drops the issue of burden of proof, as I had, and focuses solely on this point about proportionality. I am persuaded by his arguments that that is the key point. It also might be easier for noble Lords to vote for a trimmed-down amendment that focuses on that very narrow point. So, if the noble and learned Lord does, as he has indicated, divide the House on Amendment 149A, while I will not be pressing Amendment 145 to a vote, I will join him in the Lobbies on Amendment 149A.