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Baroness Blatch: My Lords, we are talking about with or without intent in relation to the particular qualifying offence.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, manslaughter is a qualifying offence. My point is that in manslaughter the largest divisions, the greatest gradations, occur between very nearly murder or the simple punch to which we have been referring.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness will allow me to intervene. If there had been an intent in the fatal case to which reference has been made, it would be murder. In a manslaughter case no intent is required except to inflict the specific violence complained of.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, again the noble and learned Lord makes my point. The person may not have intended to kill somebody, but will certainly have intended to harm somebody. The fact that the single punch knocked somebody to the ground and they died as a result would mean that it is a matter for the courts to determine whether that person intended to kill and
therefore whether it was murder or manslaughter. However, the fact is that it is a violent offence and somebody was fatally wounded by the punch.I come back to the principle. Noble Lords appear to be bent on finding ways of dealing more leniently with people who cause serious injury to members of the public. We are saying that repeated offences of violence, sexual or otherwise, should be regarded as extremely serious. My noble friend does not agree with Clauses 2, 3 and 4 and I respect that point. We agree to differ in that regard. But we regard violent and sexual offences as serious and believe that the minimum mandatory sentence is important and pertinent.
My noble friend Lord Carlisle referred to automatic life sentences as being inconsistent with honesty in sentencing. Again, the tariff that is set to reflect the seriousness of the offence is announced in open court. Everyone will know what it is and exactly how long the offender must serve before being released. On release the offender will be supervised for life. That is the point of the clause.
There is a balance to be struck between ensuring that the public are properly protected from dangerous and persistent offenders and ensuring that the courts have some discretion to set aside the mandatory penalty in certain circumstances. The Bill allows the courts to set aside the automatic life sentence in exceptional circumstances--which may include the circumstances of the previous offence, the current offence and any other relevant factors. I believe that this provides the necessary balance. I do not think the provisions would be improved by introducing uncertainty and what amounts to an element of luck on the part of the offender as to whether his previous conviction will count. I hope therefore that my noble friend will not press the amendments.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, I am disappointed by that reply. I never suggested that because an offence was spent it should therefore be ignored for all purposes. Perhaps it was my fault for not making my position clear. Of course the courts can look at spent convictions. They can still look at spent convictions under my amendment. That is part of the history of the individual which they take into account when deciding what is the appropriate sentence. The purpose of my amendment was not--nor do I believe that, as drafted, it did it--to say that in future the courts should be oblivious of or ignore spent convictions. It was to say that if a conviction was spent, that should not automatically trigger a life sentence. Equally, with great respect, at the end of her remarks my noble friend the Minister came very near to saying that those of us who are critical of such Bills are in some way soft on crime. I repeat: I do not believe I am soft on crime. I have said that my amendment would not prevent the courts passing either a life sentence or a long determinate sentence, whichever they thought was appropriate, in a particular case. What I object to is the mandatory provisions which will interfere with the ability of the courts to do justice.
Perhaps I may say to my noble friend with great respect--this may have been dealt with by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner--that the point I was making and the point that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, was making was that manslaughter does not require an intent to do serious bodily harm. The Minister insisted that those who kill with one blow, if they intend to do serious bodily harm, should take the consequences. That would be murder. The difference with manslaughter is the causing of the death unlawfully but without intent to do serious bodily harm. If two people agree voluntarily to enter into a fight and one strikes the other and tragically that other dies, that is the unlawful infliction of harm even if there was no intention whatever to do serious bodily harm. With the greatest respect, the Government do not enhance the credibility of their proposal by misunderstanding many of the objections that have been made.
As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, has reminisced on occasions, I wonder whether I might give one example. I prosecuted in a case at Lancaster Assizes which was defended, as it so happens--this is merely for background information--by my noble friend Lord Waddington, who is now in rather warmer climes than us in Bermuda. A wife was charged with wounding her husband with intent, the facts being that he had provoked her and provoked her until she eventually, in a fury, grabbed a carving knife and stabbed him. By the time the case came to trial the woman and her husband were reconciled. That wonderful judge, Mr. Justice Stable, who will be remembered by some of the learned Law Lords present, even said to the warder, "Take that lady out of the dock and let her come and sit in the witness box". On her plea of guilty to wounding with intent, to which she had no answer, he addressed her in a friendly manner, pointed out the possible disastrous consequences of what she had done and then told her to go home and live the rest of her married life in bliss with her husband. Is my noble friend really suggesting that instead he should have said, "You must go to prison for life"? Situations change so much.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. If the lady commits that offence again at some time in the future, or indeed had committed a similar violent offence at some time in the past, is he saying that it would be a one-off isolated case to be treated leniently in the courts?
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, under the Bill it may not be necessary for it to be the same offence. It may be that a person at the age of 15 had been swept up as a look-out for a gang which was involved in a street robbery and even on that occasion may have been dealt with without being sent inside and then, 25 years later, appears in the circumstances which I have given. I realised, as I was making the analogy, that of course it is subject to there having been some other offence. But the purpose of the amendment is not to be weak on crime but to point out that the difference in degrees is such that one should have some flexibility in the courts. The amendment is an attempt to give the courts that flexibility.
I should have liked to press the amendment to a vote. However, as the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has not only abandoned the support that he was prepared to give to the proposal in Committee but is not even here, and since New Labour appears to have lost all principle of any kind so far as concerns this Bill, it would be merely wasting the time of the House. I just say this to the Minister. I think it is tragic that the Home Office is not willing to consider any of the proposals that are put forward. I hope that noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches may choose to divide on the next amendment, which is wider in its interpretation than that which I moved. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank moved Amendment No. 2:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the House will remember that five weeks ago, when the Bill was spending its first day in Committee on 13th February, it agreed significantly to amend what were then Clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill, which are now Clauses 3 and 4 of the Bill, on a Motion of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey. The amendment was supported on all sides of the Committee. Perhaps I may remind the House of the key parts of it.
It removed from the clauses to which I referred the phrase "exceptional circumstances" and in its place said that the courts should have regard to the specific circumstances which would make,
I abbreviate the amendment slightly not to mislead your Lordships but simply to remind the House of the nature and purpose of the amendment to which it then agreed.
In essence, the amendments now before the House and standing in my name seek to do for what was Clause 1 and is now Clause 2 what was done in the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey. The amendments follow very closely the amendment which was tabled but not moved by the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle of Bucklow, on that occasion. The issue raised by the amendments and by the clause were fully explored at Second Reading and in the discussion we had on Clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham, will allow me, because it may well be that he wishes to contribute later to the debate, to quote from some remarks he made at Second Reading. They are a very forceful expression indeed of the shortcomings of the clause. Of the provisions of the clause, the noble and learned Lord said--
Page 2, line 3, after ("unless") insert (", in the interests of justice,").
"the prescribed custodial sentence unjust in all the circumstances".
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