Inside The Lords: prisons, Ofcom and unexpected elections

Claire Fox reports - twice - from a week in parliament after a surprise announcement about the General Election.

Inside The Lords this week took a somewhat unexpected turn. Just hours after I recorded this week’s video, mentioning the rumours coming out of Westminster about an election, Rishi Sunak did indeed call the next General Election. And it’s soon - Thursday 4 July. So let me just explain a few things - what ‘wash-up’ means and what’s going to happen to bills in currently in process, both the stupid ones and the important ones.

Before the madness of Wednesday’s announcement, Inside The Lords was a week full of outrage about the Infected Blood Scandal. It does sometimes feel like there are endless scandals - from the coverup at the Post Office to the maternity scandals.

I have been talking about another scandal - what’s happening in prisons. You’ll have heard me over the past few weeks and months talking about Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) prisoners. This week, the government is responding to overcrowding by orchestrating an early release scheme and withholding jail sentences for many prisoners. The problem is, this isn’t to do with a principled view of rehabilitation or the justice system, it’s simply an expression of how the system doesn’t work. Prisons are cauldrons - riots, deaths, horrendous conditions are becoming the norm. There are thousands of people on IPP sentences. 

My more radical suggestion for re-sentencing was dumped at committee stage and we’re back at the stage where we can vote. The Labour Party had promised at the dispatch box that they would look at Lord Moylan’s amendment to reverse the parole test - at the moment, prisoners have to prove they are safe rather than the parole board proving you are dangerous.

But this week, the mood music changed. Keir Starmer banged the hardline law -and-order drum at PMQs, and so the Labour front bench in the Lords cancelled all meetings and avoided those of us who wanted the IPP sentences sorted. We even suggested a compromise amendment - did they take it? No, they abstained. You can see a small thread of some of my questions from this week - including on IPP - at the bottom of this Substack. But after we found out about the General Election, I gave a quick thanks to ministers on Thursday - as much a sigh of relief for IPP prisoners - that the Victims and Prisoners Bill survived the wash up. Nowhere near good enough, it’s simply better than nothing.

Sadly, other campaigns and campaigners have been dumped - for example, the renters. On Wednesday evening, and most of Thursday, leaseholders were so depressed that a Bill with even modest reforms was part of the cull. But it’s now back, after a magnificent grassroots campaign in 24 hours.

There is a common stereotype in the Lords that the public can’t handle complex issues - much like the IPP sentences scenario. They think that the public are all lock-em-up types, uninterested in fairness or proper justice. Of course, that’s not the case - and I was delighted that on GB News with Michelle Dewberry, I and someone who was serving an IPP sentence got to explain the suggested changes and point out the injustices being carried out on people who are being kept behind bars unjustly.

While I’m talking about GB News - you might have been following the row between the channel and Ofcom, which ruled that its show with Rishi Sunak and the public broke impartiality guidelines. The head of Ofcom is in the Lords, and so there has been discussion about it. I can’t understand why Ofcom has made such a big deal - threatening the channel with sanctions that could even include revocation of its broadcasting licence - over a programme in which the prime minister was invited to do an unvetted question-and-answer session with a group of voters picked by an independent organisation.

Ofcom seems to be saying you can’t have the prime minister speaking to the public unmediated, because god knows what they’ll say. In other words, the public can never be trusted. On Thursday, Hacked Off-supporting Lords tried to derail the Media Bill at wash-up by pushing against removing the censorious Section 40 (a draconian threat to press freedom). I felt moved to speak after a very ill-tempered row broke out, with all sorts of wild conspiratorial accusations about press barons, etc.

I have often criticised behind-the-scenes meetings in the Lords. This week, I was involved in a few - including with the government and Sex Matters about collecting proper data in relation to sex and single-sex provision for women. Before the Election announcement, I also met the minister about housing in relation to leaseholds. These issues are starting to cut through - whether it’s leasehold campaigners, gender-critical campaigners, IPP prisoners and others.

The real credit for all of this goes to grassroots campaigners, many of whom who have emailed me saying ‘you have to look at this’. It can sometimes feel like change is impossible - particularly in parliamentary politics. With the General Election on its way, we should remember this more than anything else - change doesn’t happen to us from the heart of Westminster, but we make the change outside of its gates. In fact, we at the Academy of Ideas will be doing just that at the Battle of Ideas festival on 19 and 20 October at Church House, Westminster. Join me there.

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Here are some more speeches and questions from this week inside the Lords:

After a very good question on hidden costs of wind power by Lord Frost, I chipped in pointing out any wind turbine needs huge amounts of steel/plastic/iron - all of which need to be extracted by much demonised fossil fuels. I got a snide reply from the minister. There seems to be endless gaslighting whenever green energy is posited as a cheap, efficient solution.

Taking back control of our leasehold homes: I couldn’t resist a quick dig about the problem of managing agents. For all the talk of empowering leaseholders and giving them more of a say, why don't the government at least use a sunset clause in the new bill to promise future flats will be sold as commonhold?

Finally, I made my Last Chance Saloon plea for justice and proportionality for IPP prisoners and their families. I ran out of time - so much to say - but there’d been a lot of very fine speeches. I hope the message resonates. It was disappointing that Labour cowed away from supporting even a compromise amendment to make parole hearings fairer.