APPENDIX 2
Exchange of Letters between the Chairman
of the Committee and Home Office Ministers
Letter to the Home Secretary from Chris
Mullin MP, Chairman of the Committee
FINES
Last week the Home Affairs Committee took evidence
from Professor Rod Morgan, HM Chief Inspector of Probation. One
of the points made by Professor Morgan was the use of fines had
declined because of the difficulties of collection. He advocated
a restoration of the unit fine principle briefly introduced, then
abandoned, in 1991, and claimed that
"if the unit fine principle were restored,
and the proportion of state benefit that could be paid in the
form of a fine, which is currently limited to 5%, were increased
to the sort of level that the courts typically like to have paid
per week . . . we could fine a much greater proportion of the
defendants before the courts than we currently do, and collect
them by deducting them at source."
Professor Morgan's proposal struck the Committee
as being worthy of further exploration. We would be very grateful
to receive your comments on it. I enclose a complete transcript
of the evidence session (please note that this is an uncorrected
and unpublished version). The relevant comments by Professor Morgan
are at Questions 24 and 40 to 43.
February 2003
Letter to David Winnick MP, Acting Chairman
of the Committee, from The Rt Hon Baroness Scotland of Asthal
QC, Minister of State, Home Office
The Committee asked for our comments on the
evidence presented by Professor Rod Morgan, about the possible
restoration of unit fines.
The Government is totally committed to revitalising
the fine and to increasing confidence in it as a sentencing measure.
Although community penalties are effective in dealing with more
serious offenders, there is a sizeable group at the bottom of
the range for whom community intervention is not necessary and
for whom a fine can provide a perfectly adequate disposal. We
are already working with the Department for Constitutional Affairs
and the Treasury to introduce measures which we hope will encourage
sentencers to consider a fine for such offenders.
The issue of unit fines and the case for their
reintroduction was considered towards the end of last year. At
that juncture it was decided not to go ahead, partly because of
the unsuccessful implementation of the policy after the 1991 Criminal
Justice Act and partly because the current arrangements for setting
fines seem to work reasonably well. It was felt that the statutory
scheme was too rigid and did not allow sentencers to exercise
their discretion in order to avoid the imposition of wholly unrealistic
fines.
Because of your interest and the evidence from
Rod Morgan we have revisited the subject, but even so we have
not been convinced at this stage that unit fines would be a profitable
way forward.
However, the concept has not been wholly dropped,
even though the statutory scheme was not a success. The current
Magistrates' Association Sentencing Guidelines do, in fact, incorporate
a less rigid version of unit fines, which appears to work satisfactorily.
This was introduced in the most recent revision of the guidelines,
in 2000. It includes a table which allows guideline fines to be
read off depending upon the offender's disposable income and the
fine `band' into which the guidelines place the offence in question.
For example, an offender with weekly disposable income of £100
convicted of an offence of TV licence evasion, which falls into
band `A', would have a suggested fine of £50. At the higher
end of the scale, for an offender with a weekly income of £300
convicted of criminal damage, in band `C', £450 would be
suggested. But this is just a starting point for magistrates and
is to be increased or decreased depending on any aggravating or
mitigating factors and whether there has been an early guilty
plea. This guidance enables magistrates to operate flexibly, using
their own discretion and taking income information into account,
to ensure that a fine is set at an appropriate level.
We believe that the main current priority for
increasing the use of the fine lies in supporting the considerable
number of current initiatives designed to promote its use, particularly
those in the Courts Bill, which is introducing a wide range of
provisions to ensure the collection of fines. The Government is
proposing to make wider use of the existing arrangements for recovering
fines income by the attachment of earnings and benefit. The Courts
Bill also includes plans for the creation of fines officers and
a single debt registry which will result in fine defaulters being
black-listed for credit. In addition, Home Office research published
in March identified ways within existing legislation for improving
enforcement which, together with LCD, we are taking forward. With
the exception of unit fines, these initiatives, when taken together,
do pick up most of Rod Morgan's concerns.
There are however no plans at present to increase
the maximum amount that may be deducted each week from an offender's
benefit, as he proposed. This was considered in the Courts Bill
context, but decided against because of its disproportionate impact
on the very poor.
We will monitor very carefully the effect of
all these measures on the use of the fine and will take any further
action which is necessary. I would also expect this to be a key
issue for the current review of correctional services being led
by Pat Carter, supported by the No. 10 Strategy Unit, and we will
clearly want to consider carefully any recommendations that come
out of that review.
June 2003
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