Call for free vote to end the 'torture' of IPP sentences

Peer’s private member’s bill says almost 3,000 prisoners serving indefinite jail terms should have their cases reviewed

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

A peer has called for a free vote on a new bill to end the “living nightmare” of indefinite jail terms by resentencing all IPP prisoners.

Lord Woodley has introduced a private member’s bill to help prisoners trapped under an abolished imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence with no hope of release.

The Labour peer branded the jail terms “torture sentences” and said keeping almost 3,000 prisoners locked up under an abolished jail term in the midst of a prison overcrowding crisis “makes no sense at all”.

The bill comes after The Independent has repeatedly called for all IPP prisoners to have their sentences reviewed. It has already been backed by the architect of the flawed sentence, Lord Blunkett, the chair of the Prison Officers Association and campaigners.

There is growing pressure on the government to resentence IPP prisoners after at least 90 inmates have taken their own lives under the jail term, which has been branded “psychological torture” by the UN. In 2022, the cross-party justice select committee urged the then-Tory government to resentence all IPP prisoners, but this was rejected.

Lord Woodley told The Independent: “There’s wide support for my bill from across parliament and, deep down, everyone knows that resentencing is the only way ultimately to resolve this terrible miscarriage of justice, as parliament’s own justice select committee made clear.