House of Commons Hansard Debates for 15 Jan 1997 (pt 36)

Sir Peter Lloyd (Fareham): Concatenation.

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Mr. Llwyd: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman; he remembers his speech better than I can read it out. To continue:

"a concatenation of ordinary factors makes the mandatory sentence the wrong one. The court will be left with no option but to pass it."--[Official Report, 28 October 1996; Vol.284, c. 365-6.]

7 pm

Mr. Michael: English being the hon. Gentleman's second language does not help.

Mr. Llwyd: It certainly makes matters more difficult, but one tries.

Mandatory sentences also often prevent courts from passing the sentence most likely to prevent reoffending. An increasing number of burglaries are driven by the need to feed a drug habit. A survey done in March 1996 by the Cleveland probation service of a wide sample of offenders convicted of three or more burglaries found that 36 per cent. of them had serious drug problems. Often this underlying factor does not become evident until after an offender has been convicted on a number of occasions. When such an offender is willing to co-operate with a probation order, combined with participation in a drug rehabilitation programme, that is much more likely than imprisonment to prevent further offending. But if a mandatory prison sentence is in operation, the court is forbidden to use the alternative option.

Although courts would have the power not to impose the minimum sentence in exceptional circumstances, these situations, I submit, are far from exceptional.

It has been argued that minimum sentences for repeat burglars are necessary because there is not enough progression in the sentences currently passed on those with previous convictions. But the figures cited in the White Paper showed considerable progression in sentencing. A sample of domestic burglars sentenced in 1993-94 showed that 59 per cent. of those sentenced at Crown courts received custodial sentences on a first conviction, 71 per cent. on a second conviction, and 75 per cent. on a third or subsequent conviction. The percentages at magistrates courts were roughly similar: 15 per cent., 27 per cent. and 36 per cent., respectively.

The conclusion that I inevitably draw is that, by giving the courts a wider discretion to depart from the mandatory or minimum sentence when the interests of justice require that, the amendments would greatly reduce the injustice that would result from clauses 1 to 3--as well as reducing the extent to which those clauses would deter offenders from pleading guilty or co-operating with the police. I therefore commend the amendments to the House and ask hon. Members to support them in the Lobby later.

I do not often pray in aid the other place, but many people there are highly qualified lifelong practitioners in the judicial system. I am sure that they will bring the necessary pressure to bear to enable common sense ultimately to prevail with respect to these clauses.

Sir Peter Lloyd: The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) has made a compelling argument this evening. I congratulate him on that and on tabling amendments Nos. 7 and 8. I had the same intention myself, but he beat me to it. I am therefore happy to add my name to his and to that of the hon. and learned

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Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile). I believe it essential that the Bill eventually be changed along these lines.

Before I say why, I should also like to pay tribute to the Home Secretary and the Minister of State, although that is probably the last thing they are expecting at this moment. It is significant to note that these important and necessary amendments were tabled not by Labour Front Benchers but by a Back Bencher. That shows with revealing clarity how far my right hon. Friends have rendered the Opposition leadership terrified of appearing soft on crime. From opposing everything that the Government did to deal more effectively with crime, the Opposition have moved to accepting almost everything--even when the Government's zeal plainly carries them beyond wisdom or justice.

Mr. Michael rose--

Sir Peter Lloyd: I thought the hon. Gentleman might want to intervene.

Mr. Michael: The right hon. Gentleman should not cloud his attack on the Minister by attacking the Opposition too. He knows full well that we have dealt seriously with this and every other issue in the Bill pertaining to law and order, to try to produce what is effective and not just to oppose for the sake of opposition. We have sought to amend and to improve so as to achieve consistency and progression in sentencing.

Sir Peter Lloyd: I understand why the hon. Gentleman says that, but it was instructive to read the Committee proceedings, where the hon. Gentleman led for the Opposition. He probed and questioned and--as he would put it himself--teased; but what he said was not really very constructive. I realise that he was deploying his considerable skills in following instructions from his party superiors, to the effect that he must on no account be quotably out-toughed by the Tories.

Perhaps I do the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) and his fellow spokesmen an injustice, however. Perhaps in Committee he was merely biding his time. Maybe he passed amendments Nos. 7 and 8 to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy out of the kindness of his heart. Perhaps in a moment he will give those amendments such a ringing endorsement that his party colleagues will emerge from the Tea Room or the Library, or wherever they are--they are certainly not in the Chamber--and surge through the Lobby in support of the amendments: we shall see.

I do not want to amend clause 1, unlike the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy by means of amendment No. 6, or even the Opposition by means of amendment No. 1. Clause 1 introduces life sentences where the judge himself decides the minimum tariff. I shall confine my remarks to clauses 2 and 3 and mandatory sentences for drug trafficking and burglary, because it is here that real injustice will inevitably arise.

There may not be many cases when the interests of justice will not be served by the mandatory sentences introduced in the Bill, but there will be enough of them to bring the new arrangements into disrepute--just as the system of unit fines was brought into disrepute by a small number of cases where the courts had to impose fines

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which they knew were ludicrous. Plainly the Government now accept that the courts must have some discretion as to whether to impose mandatory sentences. They would not otherwise have included the phrase

"unless the court is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances which justify its not doing so."

The trouble is, as the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy pointed out, and as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) argued in Committee from the vantage point of a distinguished recorder, that those words do not give the judges very clear guidance to follow. There will be exceptional circumstances, as the Government acknowledge, when a less harsh penalty is needed; but there will be others when a mandatory sentence will be equally or even more unjust or counterproductive. The circumstances, however, will be far from exceptional; they will be all too banal and ordinary: the youth of the offender, his mental health, the occasion in question, the nature of the crime. All these coming together--hence the reference to concatenation--will make the mandatory sentence the wrong one, but no particular aspect of the case will be exceptional.

I shall not take up the time of the House by giving examples--I have done that in earlier debates. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy was kind enough to repeat some of them and to add some more of his own. It is easy to think them up, just as it is easy to dismiss them as contrived, but the trouble with such contrivances is that they occur from time to time. It will not serve justice and the public's respect for the law's firm application to put a judge in a position where the mandatory sentence is plainly wrong but he must pass it, unless he can descry circumstances that make it exceptional--but not if they make it simply unjust.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton argued forcefully that, not being given a clear form of words, the judges will interpret them broadly--in effect recreating, in large measure, the discretion that the Bill is designed to remove. He hopes that he is wrong. It appears that the Lord Chief Justice thinks that he is, as he has said that he expects the court to interpret exceptional circumstances narrowly. In Committee, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said that he thought so too, a decisive reaction on his part as the courts seeking guidance as to Parliament's intention will no doubt construe his words accordingly.

"Quite right" say the enthusiasts--including some of my hon. Friends, who happen not to be here--for clauses 2 and 3. A few sentences may be heavier than justice might otherwise require, but that must be balanced against the benefit to society in that mandatory sentences will deter far more effectively, so there will be less burglary and less drug trafficking, with the essential corollary that that deterrent effect will be nullified if the court, in its wisdom, is allowed to substitute a lesser sentence on those occasions where the needs of justice require it.

I know of no convincing evidence, commonsensical or statistical, to support that view. The interesting articles by Charles Murray in The Sunday Times, under headlines suggesting that more prison was always the answer, did not. He appeared to say that the essential ingredients that had been lacking in the UK to reduce crime were detection and prosecution. He also said, very relevantly to this debate, no doubt to the disappointment of some of my hon. Friends--and certainly to my surprise--that UK

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