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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. This is outside the scope of the Bill.
9.53 pm
Mr. Straw: As I made clear in answer to the Home Secretary's statement on 3 April 1996, we have never disputed the overall aim of the Bill, which is to ensure more consistency, progression and honesty in sentencing. However, we have challenged the methods and the justice and practicality of those methods in some areas of the law.
The proposals in the Bill for more honesty in sentencing have been improved in Committee. I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) and for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) among others for securing that improvement. None the less, we have yet to be convinced that the Minister's method for achieving honesty in sentencing is more effective and understandable than our simpler alternative.
We have made it clear that we support the principle of indeterminate life sentences for repeat rapists and others. The Secretary of State must, however, accept that the only thing that will be automatic for those sentences is the label attached to them. The length of the tariff to be served will be set by the trial judge, and as the Minister of State made clear in Committee, that will be within the "complete discretion" of the trial judge. The decision about the release date after the tariff has been served will be made by the Parole Board on the basis of whether it would be safe to release.
We have had a dispute about the total list of trigger offences. The objections that we have raised in respect of section 18 wounding are serious, and Ministers ought to think again about it. In my judgment, the net effect of including section 18 wounding will be more downgrading of the charge to section 20 and fewer people being convicted of the former significant charge.
On minimum determinate sentences, the Bill's propositions are a far cry from those in the Home Secretary's conference speech in 1995. Then, he refused to admit that there would be exceptions. As the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) said in 1991 and since then, once there are exceptions the character of automaticity is changed. Indeed, that is very much so. The Home Secretary knows that, if serious injustice arises from rigidity in the system, British juries will simply not convict, and guilty people will walk free.
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We have not been impressed by the way in which Ministers have sought to hide behind the doctrine of Pepper v. Hart and, as it were, pass the parcel of what will be included, in exceptional circumstances, back to the Court of Appeal. Ministers ought to have been very much more explicit about what they had in mind when they agreed to the phrase. That will no doubt be explored in the other place.
The Secretary of State asked me on Monday what our overall approach would be to the Bill. As I said then, we shall make our final decisions when the Bill is in its final form, which will be when it has been through the other place. At present, it is a moving, shifting target. It has been changed in Committee and may well change again. We are not going to block its Third Reading. The Minister of State is well aware of the constructive approach that we took to the Bill in Committee.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard):
It may just about be comprehensible that the Labour party will not come to a final view on the Bill's proposals until the Bill has completed its passage through the other place, but what we completely fail to understand is why it cannot come to a view today on the Bill as it stands at present, having just about completed its passage through this House. There is no mystery about the Bill's form, its content or the proposals that the Government have placed in it. It is absolutely extraordinary that, after all the words that have been used in arguing about the proposals, we still do not know the principal Opposition party's position. It says, "Wait and see."
I suppose that such a reaction is in itself something of an improvement from the Labour party's initial reaction to the proposals. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) described the proposals as ill thought through and ill-considered; the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) described them as daft; the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) described them as a farce. They have moved--I suppose--some way since then.
The Bill substantially reinforces not only the power but the duty of the courts in sentencing serious, dangerous and persistent offenders. The mandatory penalties at the heart of our proposals are carefully targeted at crimes of particular concern to the public: serious violent and sexual offences, domestic burglary and dealing in hard drugs.
Our proposals for honesty in sentencing will restore credibility to the court's sentence and ensure proper supervision after the offender is released. The Bill will provide more flexible and effective community penalties and new powers for the courts when dealing with mentallydisordered and juvenile offenders. Most importantly, the Bill will provide protection and
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Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:--
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