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Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston): I intend to follow very closely the theme of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe).

For a number of years, I have had the honour of being a patron of the charity RoadPeace, which is active in giving support to families and victims of road tragedies. I am careful not to use the term "road accidents" because it implies that circumstances could not have been helped. Tragedies such as the one to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield referred would never have happened if the right legislative process had been in place.

One of my concerns, for which I do not blame the Government--I blame us all in this House and society as a whole--is that we view road traffic issues with an attitude of, "There but for the grace of God go I." The simple fact is that 3,000 people die needlessly in this country each year as a result of road tragedies--many of them in the circumstances described by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield. If one of us walked down Oxford street carrying a loaded shotgun that accidentally discharged, we would be prosecuted not for illegally or improperly carrying a gun but rightly for a charge relating to the resulting death. Yet we accept as a society that we can kill while handling a tonne of steel and face a charge that seldom relates to the consequent death of an individual. Had the Government pursued the arguments set out in the Law Commission's report No. 237, the family of the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield may have been given some hope.

There is no easy solution. Having read very carefully the Law Commission's arguments and those presented by the Government on proving intent, I recognise that we are

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not dealing with an area of the law that can be satisfactorily changed at the stroke of a pen; there is no quick fix to this very complicated issue. There is however a powerful argument that this place ought to give some leadership to ensure that, when cases as blatant as the one described by my hon. Friend come before the courts, something is done.

The principle of new clause 5 could provide the Attorney-General with some means of addressing the problem. I appreciate the difficulties facing him. To be totally fair to him--although the matter does not relate directly to the Bill--I should say that he courteously sent me a very gracious letter today apologising for a mistake in his Department. Although I appreciate that the Department is stretched, we cannot allow circumstances such as those we have just heard described to go unquestioned. We have a responsibility to people outside the House to get things right.

It has been said to me that, in the context of death on the road,

"we have to bear in mind that if unduly severe penalties are related to specific traffic infringements, one of the dangers is that the courts will not press those charges for fear that there might be acquittal."--[Official Report, 22 April 1996; Vol. 276, c. 8.]

Does the Home Secretary agree with that line of thought?

Mr. Howard indicated dissent.

Mr. Miller: I am pleased to see the right hon. and learned Gentleman shaking his head in disagreement. That statement was made by the then Minister for Transport in London in response to my asking him whether he would join me in congratulating the Law Commission on its report. Although the then Minister acknowledged my interest in the matter, he went on to use the words that I have just quoted.

We need to take a lead. We cannot allow the confused and unsatisfactory system of charges and subsequent penalties associated with the 3,000 deaths to which I have referred to continue. Many victims' families have written to me as a result of my involvement with RoadPeace, setting out tragic concerns arising from matters that have occurred in coroners courts, magistrates courts and higher courts. The one theme that runs through all the letters is a general concern that the system does not seem to care because the deaths were a result of a road traffic "accident". Such incidents were not road traffic accidents; people were killed. We view death as a result of somebody accidentally discharging a shotgun differently. Why do we not take the same view when a death occurs on the road?

We have a general duty to look very carefully at the way in which lenient sentences are meted out and why there is a great tendency for the prosecution to press for a lesser charge due to the difficulties associated with proof of intent. There is a massive problem in the existing framework of law. I do not deny that we would have difficulties in trying to frame precise legislation around the Law Commission's report, but I think that we have a general duty to bring about such change.

I read at a service that was held by RoadPeace in November and met many families who are looking to the House to bring about the necessary changes so that they can at least feel that justice can be done. I appreciate entirely the efforts that have been undertaken by the

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Department of Transport to achieve the most important thing--a reduction in the number of deaths in the first place--but given that many of the deaths occur in circumstances such as those described by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield, we must not allow them to go unquestioned and simply be written off as yet another road traffic "accident".

8.30 pm

Mr. Walter Sweeney (Vale of Glamorgan): I intend to speak only briefly. First, I wish to commend the determination and perseverance of my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) in his attempts to change the mind set of the Home Office and persuade it that it was appropriate to introduce a right of appeal against soft sentencing in certain specified circumstances. His success and the fact that the Government have legislated on that point have provided great reassurance to the public and improved the reputation of Parliament and of our judicial system. I hope that I will not embarrass my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham by mentioning the fact that the Boundary Commission has not smiled on him in his constituency. I hope that he will soon return to the House, because he has been an adornment to it.

New clause 5 is inappropriate and would impose an intolerable burden on the Attorney-General. I am not averse in principle to the extension of the right of appeal against soft sentences, but some other mechanism should be found. On new clauses 3 and 4, I fully endorse the remarks made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence). Even without any statutory duty, the Court of Appeal could have provided obiter dicta to help the lower courts in their task in the manner suggested by my hon. and learned Friend, but it did not do so. That is why Parliament is considering the Bill and that is why the Government thought it appropriate to introduce tough minimum sentences for persistent burglars, traffickers in hard drugs and violent offenders. If the Court of Appeal had addressed those problems, perhaps the legislation would not be necessary. It is patently obvious that it is necessary, but new clauses 3 and 4 are not necessary or appropriate.

Mr. Howard: We have had an interesting debate that has been marked by some moving contributions from the hon. Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding), for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller). I shall return to their points in a moment. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston may be counting his chickens prematurely.

The debate has been noticeable for the fact that it has evoked cross-party support from all quarters of the House, although not always explicitly expressed, for the proposition that prison works. I especially welcome the belated conversion of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) to that banner. He was robust in his acceptance of the relationship between the firmness with which the court at Hereford deals with offenders who appear before it and the excellent record on law and order in the city of Hereford. I was, however, alarmed by the emphasis that he placed on the seriousness with which the offence of sheep stealing had to be dealt with in Montgomeryshire. I hope that he was not making any distinction between sheep stealing in Montgomeryshire

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and sheep stealing on Romney marsh. Had he made any such distinction, he would give great offence to many of my esteemed constituents.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Of course not.

Mr. Howard: I am glad that he does not pursue any such distinction.

I agree with hon. Members on both sides of the House that lenient and inconsistent sentencing can undermine public confidence in the criminal justice system. It is important--I have devoted much of my time at the Home Office to the issue--to achieve a situation in which criminals receive the punishments that are appropriate for their crimes and that, as far as possible, achieve consistency. That is exactly what the Bill is about.

We believe that the public need greater protection from certain carefully targeted categories of serious, dangerous and persistent offenders and that is why we proposed the introduction of mandatory sentences. The Labour party has refused to support mandatory sentences. We have been told this evening that we shall learn the Labour party's final position on minimum mandatory sentences in due course. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said that he does not know what will happen, but the Government have made their proposals clear for long enough and it would be nice to know what his position is on those proposals. However, we know that the hon. Gentleman has many audiences to please and is engaging in the Labour party's usual tactic of pretending to those various and inconsistent audiences that he will give them what they want.

Outside the categories set out in the Bill of serious violent and sexual crimes, house burglary and dealing in hard drugs, judges will continue to be free to exercise their discretion, but it is right that in exercising that discretion they should be guided by the higher courts. The lower courts already obtain assistance. I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery that the lower courts are, to some extent, assisted in sentencing by guidance given by the Court of Appeal through its judgments on the appropriate penalty range for particular offences. Indeed, that practice has been developed in recent years to a greater extent than previously. Court of Appeal guidelines have been particularly useful in ensuring that the courts take a more consistent view of certain offences and reflect levels of public concern in their sentencing practice.

I do not disagree with the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) and my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) that the Court of Appeal may not have gone far enough, but it is right to give it credit for the extent to which it has given guidance. I shall give a couple of examples. The 1986 guideline judgment in the case of Billam suggested starting points for sentences for rape and that case has had the effect of increasing significantly sentence lengths for rape. The case of Aramah, the judgment on which showed the appropriate penalties for offences involving the importation, supply and possession of class B drugs according to the scale of distribution and quantity of drugs involved, has also had an effect.

Currently, any Court of Appeal judgment in an appeal against sentence, whether it allows or dismisses the appeal, gives a clear sign of the opinion of the court on

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the sentence passed in the lower court and explains the reasoning behind the decision. In that sense and to a significant extent, the judgments of the Court of Appeal are regarded as precedents for cases in which the circumstances are similar and the court can and does give opinions on appropriate sentence lengths for different categories of offence. There is also the Judicial Studies Board, and we should not overlook its role in disseminating Court of Appeal guidance to the courts and in training the judiciary.

I conclude that new clauses 3 and 4 are unnecessary. The Court of Appeal has the power to issue guidance and frequently does so. There may be scope for increasing the guidance that it issues, but it is not necessary to introduce the statutory duties contained in new clauses 3 and 4. They are cosmetic and would add little, if anything, to the existing powers of the court.

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