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Baroness Seccombe: Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may make one comment. I admit that I am not qualified in any way. However, the guidance given to magistrates is that the magistrates' court is not the right place to hear the offence of burglary of a dwelling house because the sentence that a magistrates' court can impose is not severe enough. I am amazed to hear the figures given by the noble Lord and that so many such cases appear to be dealt with in the magistrates' courts. I understand they would not hear them.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: I took the figures from the White Paper--that was my justification. They are to
be found on page 52 of the White Paper. Figure 11 shows the number of convictions and average sentence lengths for burglary of a dwelling for, I believe, 1994. The table shows that 305 of them were given in the Crown Court, and 277 in the magistrates' court. Of those 277, 36 per cent. were sent to prison and the average length of sentence was four months.My noble friend is right. Under the Bill, magistrates will no longer have the power to deal with a third offence of domestic burglary. There will rightly be a requirement to commit, because higher sentences than those should be considered. My point was that it seems an extraordinary jump from saying in those days that 64 per cent. of such offenders do not go to prison at all to saying that we should enact a Bill which requires every one of them to be sent to prison for at least three years.
Lord Renton: Can my noble friend make it clear whether the figures given in the White Paper relate to first, second or third convictions?
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: The figures I gave related to third convictions. That was my point. Figures are also given for first and second convictions. I shall not bore the Committee by reading them out but I can assure noble Lords that such is the case. I shall hand the White Paper to my noble friend.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: It is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle of Bucklow, who spoke so powerfully in favour of the amendments.
The Committee will know that for many years the noble Lord has been chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. In that capacity he has been involved in the problems that affect victims. I had the privilege of serving on the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board under the chairmanship of the noble Lord and previously under Sir Michael Ogden for a period of about eight years. Every member of that board has passing before him every year something in the region of 2,000 files of victims of violent crime, and day by day and week by week the members of that board are concerned to see what happens to people who suffer from violent crime. Members are provided with medical reports. They see what follows. The overwhelming impression that one receives as a member of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board is that victims must be protected.
So when the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle of Bucklow, and I speak, I hope that we do not speak from the point of view of recorders or part-time judges. We do not represent a trade union. We speak because we have practical experience of the effects of crime upon people. We are anxious to ensure that the limited resources available for dealing with crime in this country are spent properly in the prevention of crime and not simply in the containment of people for longer and longer periods. If those resources have to be spent upon people who are in prison, then they should be spent on rehabilitation, to enable prisoners, who are still human beings and not
statistics, to come out of prison and take a rightful place as fruitful and, it is to be hoped, more honest and less violent members of our society. That is the point from which we come when we address the issues that are now before the Committee.I ask the Committee to ponder for a moment on what we are seeing; namely, a most extraordinary attack upon the judiciary. Its discretion is to be taken away and limited by statutory restraints as set out in the Bill at the very time when, as the Committee heard earlier today, the gaols are full. There are 62,000 people in prison today. The judges who are so failing in their duty to society have succeeded in filling every cell, doubling up in some cells and perhaps tripling up in others, in gaols which have been made available by the state for punishing people.
There is a paradox which I am sure the Committee must comprehend. How can the judges of this country be said to be failing in their duty and a soft touch all of a sudden, as we approach an election, and be accused of not doing their duty, when all the gaols are full? The practical experience of those who have been involved in the criminal law for a period of time is that over the past 20 or 30 years the Crown Courts, the circuit judges and High Court judges have become tougher and tougher in their response to an increasing crime wave.
I refer to an increasing crime wave because over the period that the Conservative Government have been in power, since 1979--I do not, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle, said, want to make a political point; it is merely a fact--crimes of violence have doubled and the judges have responded. They have increased the sentences. But it is not right to interfere in the balance between the judiciary and Parliament (the executive), by taking away from judges the discretion which for centuries they have exercised in sentencing matters.
I support the amendment, although I am not completely happy with it--our amendment will be discussed later--but as the noble Lord said, the issue in the amendment is the question of exceptional circumstances. What is an exceptional circumstance? Is it exceptional that a wife who has been battered by her husband takes a knife to him, or, in a case which I recall, that a wife should strike her husband on the head with a hammer and kill him? Is that exceptional? It is not. It happens all the time. I am afraid that it is a fact. There is nothing exceptional about circumstances of that sort which come before the courts. There is nothing exceptional about the manner in which burglaries take place: young people break into premises, steal on a whim and under the influence of alcohol or drugs. There are people who come from a rough background and who have had no chance in life. Those are everyday matters with which the courts have to deal and there is nothing exceptional about them.
A judge tries to listen to what an individual criminal has done--what his crime is--and consider its circumstances. He balances it against all the other circumstances of which he has learned throughout his career and asks how that appears in the scale. Against that he sets the mitigating circumstances relating to that particular individual in front of him. Having carried out
that exercise, he passes a sentence which he considers from his experience is just. Are politicians to interfere in that? Is the Home Secretary to come along and say, "Well, I know better. I am responding to a wave of feeling in the country, expressed through the tabloid press"? Or is it better that we should rely upon the instincts, the training and the just feeling of the individual judge who tries a case? I ask those noble Lords who may be thinking of voting against the amendment seriously to consider what they will be doing to the constitution of this country.
The Earl of Dudley: Before the noble Lord sits down, does he not agree that the issue before the Committee this afternoon is not whether judges are too soft, but whether the law is too soft?
Lord Thomas of Gresford: The law, in all the offences set out in the first clause of the Bill, permits a life sentence to be passed; therefore, it cannot be said that the law is soft. In the first clause the law allows judges to pass condign sentences, and they frequently do. I am not aware in my experience of a person who has raped for the second time not receiving life imprisonment.
Lord Bingham of Cornhill: I find myself in such complete agreement with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle, that, perhaps uncharacteristically, I can be very brief. I hope I shall be forgiven for stating the obvious by reminding the Committee that for one citizen, whatever office he holds, to pass sentence on another is a solemn and serious task. However deserving of punishment a defendant may be, it is always a difficult and anxious task to measure that punishment.
Judges do their best. They weigh what they perceive to be all the relevant factors: the interests of the public; the legitimate interests of the victim; the protection of other potential victims; and the interests of the defendant himself. They are not always right. I make no claim for infallibility. Judges alone among mortals are not so gifted. If they pass sentences which are excessively severe, then a Court of Appeal exists to correct those sentences. If they pass sentences that are unduly lenient, then the Attorney General has power to refer those sentences to the court for review. Members of the Committee will not hear me resist a request for an extension of the Attorney General's power. It is a power which, since it was introduced, has been exercised--to the best of my belief--with great responsibility and discretion. I have no fears that it would be misused if extended.
No doubt our sentencing system is imperfect; any human system of the kind must necessarily be so. But I invite Members of the Committee to search the world for any system that is less imperfect. Rules of thumb do not provide an answer to these problems because the passing of a sentence is not a mechanical task. Nowhere in the world does one find evidence that logarithmic tables or mechanical rules of thumb yield better answers than the courts of this country.
I hope the Committee will not be seduced by the analogy of compulsory disqualification. To draw an analogy between the compulsory deprivation of a
driving licence and a period of incarceration potentially for life is to trivialise this discussion to such an extent as to defy rational argument. All that we plead for is that the courts be given the power to decline to pass sentences which are offensive to the professional and moral consciences of judges. Surely that is not asking too much.
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