Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Fines on Summary Conviction) Regulations 2015
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Aldous, Peter (Waveney) (Con)
† Brine, Steve (Winchester) (Con)
† Bruce, Fiona (Congleton) (Con)
Cunningham, Mr Jim (Coventry South) (Lab)
† Evans, Mr Nigel (Ribble Valley) (Con)
† Field, Mr Frank (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Godsiff, Mr Roger (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)
† Hemming, John (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
† Huppert, Dr Julian (Cambridge) (LD)
Moon, Mrs Madeleine (Bridgend) (Lab)
† Morris, Anne Marie (Newton Abbot) (Con)
† Mosley, Stephen (City of Chester) (Con)
† Penning, Mike (Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims)
† Ruddock, Dame Joan (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
† Shannon, Jim (Strangford) (DUP)
† Slaughter, Mr Andy (Hammersmith) (Lab)
† Turner, Karl (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
† Wallace, Mr Ben (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)
Marek Kubala, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee
Wednesday 28 January 2015
[Mr Adrian Sanders in the Chair]
Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Fines on Summary Conviction) Regulations 2015
2.30 pm
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Fines on Summary Conviction) Regulations 2015.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sanders. The regulations are needed to accompany the commencement of section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Section 85 has not yet come into effect, and provides for all fines and maximum fines in magistrates courts of £5,000 or more to become unlimited, meaning that magistrates will be able to impose higher fines than previously. It also allows the Secretary of State, should she need to, to designate through regulations other sentencing fines that might be needed in future.
Sentencing decisions in individual cases are a matter solely for the independent courts. Parliament sets out the maximum and minimum penalties for an offence but the courts need guidance, particularly in this area. Dangerous criminals will always belong in prison, and others need to be subject to community penalties, including fines and other measures.
When the sentence is a fine, courts are required to take account of not only the seriousness of the offence, but the financial means of the offender. The logic behind the provision is that a professional footballer, for example, clearly has much greater means to pay a fine than someone on a minimum income, so we are allowing for an unlimited fine. The maximum sentence will stay the same. The sort of offences that would come under the provision include: the making and selling of realistic fake guns—I am sure that all colleagues would think that that is pretty important—for which the maximum sentence is six months but the fine will become unlimited; using threatening behaviour; not making a property safe before renting it out; and, interestingly, unauthorised sale of football tickets, which has a maximum sentence of six months but the fine will become unlimited. The measure is really important as we try to protect our constituents. People who have the means to pay more than £5,000, which is the cap at the moment, would fall under the regulations.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con): I am just wondering how this differs from what happened under a previous Conservative Administration. We had unit fines for a bit, which were repealed because of instances such as a fairly well-off person being fined
£1,000 for dropping a crisp packet, while somebody on benefits basically paid nothing. That was incredibly unpopular. Does the Minister believe that having no limits at all might mean that we end up in a similar situation?Mike Penning: I do not think we have that situation. We have a situation where, for example, if someone assaults a police officer, the maximum fine—if they are not convicted of a grievous assault—is currently £5,000, no matter what their income. Most of our constituents would agree that that is fundamentally wrong.
It is a difficult area. I freely admit that we wanted to introduce the regulations in June. The Minister at the time made the decision not to bring them forward then, simply because they were not ready. Members on both sides of the Committee would agree that, if we are going to introduce regulations, they have to be robust and ready. This is a difficult and complicated piece of law. I touched on only a couple of the offences, but the regulations are needed to cover a huge number. They were not ready in June but they are now. I hope the Committee approves them.
2.34 pm
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab): It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sanders. The Opposition are not going to disagree with the regulations. We did not disagree with section 85 of LASPO when it was debated, for some of the reasons given by the Minister, alongside some others. It increases judicial discretion and allows more proportionate sentencing on the basis of means, which seems reasonable: when someone has very substantial means, a higher financial penalty might be appropriate because it will have the required punitive effect. Indeed, the Government have recognised that by saying that there should be a punitive element in sentencing, and that that can be achieved by financial penalties.
For those reasons, we did not oppose the measure previously—in fact, I looked over the report of the debate and the Chair of the Justice Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), said at the time that I was in a conciliatory mood. I took that as an admonition and have not let it happen again, but we are not going to disagree on the principle.
I pray in aid not only what the Minister has said, but the fact that the crime and justice section of the “Sunifesto”, with which I am sure the Minister is familiar, says:
“Too many jail terms for non-violent crimes: fines better and greater deterrent”.
We therefore have support for the greater use of financial penalties from The Sun as well. The Government will take that as a warm recommendation, although The Sun has still not decided which party to support in the upcoming general election.
However—there is always a “however”—I am genuinely confused about how the regulations have come about. I suspect that it is because section 85 was introduced at a late stage—I think it was on Report. I am not sure that it was terribly well drafted. Yes, we agree with the intention, but at the time there was a
view that we would look at level 1 to 4 fines as well as removing the cap on level 5 fines. The Government have since decided not to change those limits for the time being. That in itself creates some degree of disproportionality; that is, fines at levels 1 to 4 will remain the same for the foreseeable future, but for level 5 the maximum penalty is going to be large.I have been waiting anxiously for an instrument relating to these matters to come up. A substantial statutory instrument called the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Disapplication of Section 85(1), Fines Expressed as Proportions and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2014 dealt with this matter, but I think it has now been withdrawn. There was also the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Standard Scale of Fines for Summary Offences) Order 2014. I am not sure whether that has been withdrawn, because it appears to do the same job as another set of regulations mentioned in the explanatory memorandum: the Legal, Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offender Act 2012 (Increases to Levels 1 to 4 Fines) Order 2014, which has been withdrawn. That is three sets of regulations, none of which appears to be going forward, and all of which dealt with the implementation of section 85 of LASPO.
The Government have got themselves into a bit of a mess, because whatever the laudable intentions, when they came to look at the consequences of removing the cap, there were clearly a number of circumstances, referred to in paragraph 4.4 of the explanatory memorandum, in which it simply did not make sense just to withdraw the cap. I am not going to go into that, but the information is there if anyone wants to read it.
I asking the Minister two things. First, is the aim of the instrument finally to address all the problems created by section 85? That is to say where, as a consequence of removing the cap, no logical penalty can be imposed, one has to make the amendments in the instrument. Secondly, is this the end? Have the other draft instruments been withdrawn or are we expecting further ones? It is not an ideal circumstance and is unnecessarily complicated. It would have been better if the matters were thought through at the time of the primary legislation. We are where we are but, for
certainty, before we agree to the regulations, we should know whether they alone will be the definitive solution. I hope that I have been reasonably clear. Reading through the provisions, I was far from finding them clear.2.41 pm
Mike Penning: I was very honest in my opening remarks by saying that, when the previous Minister looked at whether the regulations were ready in June, he made the right decision to hold them, ensuring that when we brought proposals to the Committee and the House, they would be fit and proper to meet their requirements. We prioritised level 5 fines because they cover some of the most serious offences. As the shadow Minister mentioned, the regulations for level 1 to 4 fines were withdrawn. We are considering and working on those.
We intend to move forward with those regulations but it was right and proper that we moved forward as soon as the draft regulations for level 5 fines were ready, particularly given the types of offences they cover, including, as I mentioned, assaults on police officers. Another example is that a huge amount of money is being made from the sale of alcohol to children. We want to stamp down on that as hard as possible. At the moment, the maximum fine would be £5,000. That will become unlimited.
We will move forward with the regulations for level 1 to 4 fines later but, at the moment, we are confident with the ones before us. I accept that they were not ready in June. If I had been the Minister in June, I would have withdrawn them. I hope I will bring the draft regulations for level 1 to 4 fines to Committee before purdah, when the Government have finished considerations. With that in mind, I hope the Committee realises that we are moving forward to protect the public by ensuring that those who can pay, pay proportionate fines and not disproportionately low fines. I hope the Committee accepts the regulations.