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Mr. Llwyd: Although I think that that may be right, the way in which the Minister is interpreting the question is clearly extremely narrow. Time and again in Committee he was asked to cite examples, and in one speech he said:

"I could put together a list of 20,000 hypothetical examples".--[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 14 November 1996; c. 43.]

Would he care to give us 10 or 20 of them now?

Mr. Maclean: Of course not. The hon. Gentleman was obviously not listening in Committee. I said that it would not help interpretation of the Bill to cite many examples of general cases that I or anyone else dreamt up when the court was dealing with individuals before it. Exceptional circumstances will have to be defined in the individual circumstances of each accused or convicted person before the court--not on hypothetical, generalised examples that politicians may bandy across the Floor of the House, which would then, because of the Pepper v. Hart ruling, be read into the law as examples that have to be followed in every case. I went on to say that it would soon be the business of clever lawyers to devise the defence of their accused person around some of the examples that we had bandied about.

Mr. Llwyd: Do I take it, therefore, that the Minister is content, as the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) suggested in his very thoughtful speech, that the Court of Appeal should at some point hand down guidelines that can be followed by the courts? If so, the Minister is negating the whole point of the Bill. He started off with much bluster, saying that we cannot trust the courts and the Court of Appeal to hand out sentences, since they have had years to do it and have not done it. That was the Minister's raison d'etre for the Bill.

Mr. Maclean: We know what "exceptional circumstances" means. We know that it will be interpreted narrowly. Because the Government are satisfied that "exceptional circumstances" will be interpreted by the courts as it has been in the past, we are content to use it and rely on it.

The Lord Chief Justice said when interviewed:

"One can paraphrase 'exceptional' but it clearly means 'very unusual' at the very least and most of these explanations"--

he was referring to the examples given--

"are not very unusual".

The Government are satisfied that the test of exceptional circumstances will be used only in exceptional cases and that it will be interpreted strictly according to the Lord Chief Justice's view as expressed on "Breakfast with Frost".

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8.15 pm

Mr. Michael: The question that has to be answered, though, is what is the nature of the gate that is being provided. The Minister must accept that one example has been given--that given by the Home Secretary--which did not stand up to scrutiny; it fell apart on examination. The Government should not then give up and not cite any examples. They have three options. They can change the wording, which they have not, since they have not tabled amendments; they can give examples so that we can understand what they are getting at; or they can seek to explain in a way that would help under the Pepper v. Hart ruling what they intend the courts should do. At the moment, the Minister must accept that he is just abrogating responsibility.

Mr. Maclean: Absolutely not. It is the Government's intention that the courts should interpret "exceptional circumstances" in exactly the same way as they have been in other legislation over the past five years.

Mr. Michael: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Maclean: No, I will not. Such a view is the view that was expressed by the Lord Chief Justice in the interview. Other hon. Members have been relying on the fact that his opinion on that is correct. I believe that it is correct. It is not for the hon. Gentleman to keep insisting on hypothetical examples when he knows full well that any such examples, no matter how nonsensical, will be used in future to interpret the law in the courts and to drive a coach and horses through the Bill.

The hon. Member criticised me for not giving examples and said that we have not tabled an amendment. He has not tabled an amendment. The Liberal Democrats, the Welsh nationalists and my right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham have. I happen to disagree with my right hon. Friend because I think that his definition is far too wide and I want to maintain the present restricted exceptional circumstances test. The hon. Gentleman is trying, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said, to hide the fact that the Labour party is in a dither over the matter. It does not like the term "exceptional circumstances", and the best that it can think of is to try to get me to quote dozens of hypothetical examples that it will either try to shoot down in the House or in another place or use in future years to frustrate the intention behind the Bill.

Mr. Michael: I have not said that the Minister must cite examples. I said that he has three options: to amend, to exemplify or to define. He has chosen none of them. I shall therefore put a direct question to him. He is wrong to say that we have not tabled an amendment. We did, I spoke to it and he has not yet addressed it. Would the lower end of section 18 offences, which he has accepted exist and which the hon. and learned Member for Burton addressed especially in Committee, therefore be covered in some circumstances by the phrase "exceptional circumstances"? The answer would help us a little way forward.

Mr. Maclean: The hon. Gentleman is getting into irrelevancies and talking drivel. The minor Opposition parties and my right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham have a philosophical objection to the term "exceptional

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circumstances". I understand their argument; I disagree with it. They are offering substitute words for the term "exceptional circumstances".

It is the Government's view that the only alternative form of words offered at the present moment by the Lord Chief Justice, the Welsh nationalists, the Liberal Democrats and my right hon. Friend would drive a coach and horses through the Bill. It would widen the phrase "exceptional circumstances". We have heard nothing from the Opposition, and there is nothing in their amendment which has anything to do with the principled debate. Do we have "exceptional circumstances" and construe the Bill narrowly, or do we have the "interests of justice" which, in the Government's opinion, would construe the Bill widely? I shall discuss the Opposition amendment in a moment, but I must make some progress.

I have not yet managed to get on the record the words of the Lord Chief Justice, and I intend to do so. When he was asked to define the phrase, the "justice of the case" he said:

"It would enable the judge to avoid passing a mandatory sentence in any case where he considered it simply anomalous to do so."

In any case where the trial judge thought that it would create an anomaly to impose the mandatory minimum sentence, he could avoid it. In our opinion, that means that the mandatory penalty would be set aside in many cases. That would make a nonsense of the concept and purpose of mandatory penalties and it would drive a coach and horses through the Bill. Those are the alternative forms of words on offer tonight.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham said that other forms of words might come from another place in due course. I will be happy to consider any other forms of words, but if it is our view that they can be interpreted as widely as the Lord Chief Justice believes that the "justice of the case" terminology can be interpreted, they would not be acceptable to the Government.

I do not believe that mandatory penalties will lead to injustices. On the contrary, I contend that, without mandatory penalties, justice is not being done to the wider community now. Let me remind the House of the figures. A recent sample showed that the average sentence imposed by the Crown court on offenders convicted of domestic burglary for the first time is 16.2 months. After three or more convictions, the average rises to only 18.9 months and after seven or more convictions it rises to 19.4 months. A total of 28 per cent. of offenders in the Crown court with seven or more convictions for domestic burglary were not sent to prison at all. Our constituents are asking where the justice is in that. It is not justice. We believe that if the stringent qualifying conditions set out in clauses 1 to 3 are met--we intend that they shall be--mandatory sentences should be imposed as a matter of course in most cases.

We recognise that there may be occasional cases where the mandatory penalty would be unnecessary or inappropriate. That is why the discretion is in the Bill to set aside the penalty in exceptional circumstances.

I believe that we have achieved the right balance and that to go further and accept the view of the Welsh nationalists, the Liberal Democrats, my right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) would be to go too far and undermine the effectiveness of the penalties.

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The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth raised a point about section 18. I can see no good reason for treating section 18 offences differently from other offences covered by clause 1. The maximum penalty for offences under section 18 is, like other offences covered by clause 1, life imprisonment. Section 18 is used to prosecute the most serious assaults committed by dangerous and violent criminals, such as wounding or causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Such offences are always extremely serious. Frequently they are life threatening or leave the victim permanently disfigured and injured. It is exactly that type of person from whom the public need protection. That is what the automatic life sentence is designed to achieve. Criminals who persist in committing violent assault such as grievous bodily harm--not a simple fracas or a tiny punch-up outside a pub--need to know that they will face a stiff sentence such as life imprisonment. It would be anomalous for such offences not to attract the automatic life sentence.

The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy has suggested that, without the change he proposes, minor offences would attract the automatic life sentence and that that would be unjust. I do not agree. For a lesser assault, a lesser charge can be brought, such as section 20 charges, for example, wounding without intent, or section 47 charges. In such cases, the maximum penalty under section 20 is five years. I do not think that we hear many complaints from the police or our constituents that the Crown Prosecution Service has overcharged people with grievous bodily harm. We all hear, in many cases erroneously, that the CPS has undercharged. That is the view of many of our constituents. If there was any suggestion that the charge of grievous bodily harm was wrongly placed, I am certain that there would not be a conviction. It would not pass the intention test.

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