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Lord Renton: My Lords, will the noble Lord give the column number of Hansard from which he is about to quote?
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I normally give the column number after I have given the quotation. However, if it will help the noble Lord, I am
referring to col. 986 of Hansard of 27th January. I think the noble Lord will find that I very fairly quote--I would not want to do otherwise--what the noble and learned Lord said. He said that the solution contained in Clause 1 was "irremediably flawed", that it would give rise to "indefensible anomalies" and that those anomalies were symptoms of "a radically unsound approach". In addition, he said,
- "To some extent measures of this kind are also self-defeating".
The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, had a great deal to reply to in that debate. I do not believe that I am being unfair when I say that her references to the remarks of the noble and learned Lord were scattered throughout her reply at Second Reading. There were many other matters to discuss. I hope very much that she will take the opportunity today to reply in substance to these very important points.
Nothing much has changed since 27th January, except perhaps that the chairman of the Prison Governors' Association has expressed the deepest alarm at the growth of the prison population. That is something which was referred to by noble Lords on all sides of the House when they contemplated the possibility of this Bill adding between 10,500, which I believe was the Minister's figure, and 30,000 to the prison numbers. The chairman of the Prison Governors' Association, in a statement which seems to me to be without parallel, referred to the dangers which would come in terms of security because of overcrowding. As I say, that is in respect of the provisions of this Bill. He said in his remarks on Wednesday of last week,
- "We can no longer cope with this unprecedented rise. No one in their right mind would seriously consider the introduction of prison ships and abandoned holiday camps as prison accommodation ... The Prison Service has reached the crossroads where policy and operations meet".
In the debate on that occasion, I referred at length--perhaps at too great a length--to the alternative forms of prison accommodation then being anticipated. I said, as regards the additional prisoners who have to be accommodated,
- "Are they to be accommodated in disused military camps, in a former Pontins holiday camp ... or is the front runner still a prison ship? Can the Minister say categorically that police cells will not be regularly used?".--[Official Report, 27/1/97; col. 982.]
The Minister will recall that she was unable to reply to these questions given the pressure of time. Perhaps I may anticipate what she might have said, if that inversion of time is possible in your Lordships' House. In response to,
- "Are they to be accommodated in disused miliary camps?",
she might have said, "Possibly". In response to my question,
- "in a former Pontin's holiday camp?",
she might have said, "If we can get planning permission". In answer to the question whether the accommodation would be in a prison ship, she might have answered, "Yes". But what would she have said about the possibility of accommodation in police cells? In replying to this particular group of amendments, I ask her to say something to your Lordships about whether she anticipates sooner or later that the overflow of
requirements for prison accommodation will involve stays in police cells. If the Minister is prepared to reply now I shall be very grateful.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I rise because I am fascinated by the line of argument that the noble Lord is using. We are talking about Clause 2. The amendments are about setting aside the mandatory life sentence in more cases than are allowed for under the Bill. There is no question whatever of curtailing, changing, modifying or varying the tariff that will be imposed by the courts. Therefore, the impact on prisons is not affected one iota by Clause 2 of the Bill. The courts will give a tariff which entirely reflects the seriousness of the crime. No one is suggesting otherwise.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I shall turn very briefly to the question of the tariff in a minute. I make it absolutely clear that the present problem of overcrowded prisons cannot relate to this Bill. The noble Baroness is saying that it cannot relate to Clause 2 either. If that is her point I shall consider it. My understanding of the Bill, given her remarks about the tariff, is that the prospect of the provisions of Clause 2 will in due course add to the prison population. However, if the noble Baroness says I am wrong I am willing to consider it. But irrespective of that, I hope that she will reply to the specific point that I have raised. Will she say in the course of her reply on this occasion whether in the near future we shall find that the overcrowding of our prisons will lead to the use of police cells? It is a simple question and I ask the Minister to give a simple reply, irrespective of whether she believes it is relevant to the discussion about this clause.
As regards the tariff to which she referred and which, I believe, was in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, at one stage in the discussion on this clause, judges already have discretion in setting the minimum period to be served under the life sentence. It is very interesting to reflect on what was said about this in discussion in another place. The Minister's colleague, Mr. Maclean, said as regards the argument on tariffs,
- "it will be entirely up to the judge to set up an appropriate tariff within the automatic life sentence, taking account of the seriousness of the assault for which the person has been found guilty under section 18".--[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee A, 14/11/96; col. 66.]
Unless the Minister says otherwise, I assume that those sentiments are ones that the Minister herself will express. Surely it makes nonsense of the idea of honest sentencing and holds the whole system of sentencing up to disrepute, if indeed the judge has complete discretion under the tariff in the provisions of this clause.
I do not want to add anything further because I know that noble Lords on all sides of the House want to contribute. With respect to the Minister, I hope that she will not say, as she said in relation to amendments to what were then Clauses 2 and 3, that persons in fear of life sentences will rejoice in these amendments. That is not a sufficient case against them. I hope that neither
will she seek to speak "for the man on the top of the bus". To change the expression, I hope that she will not say, as the Home Secretary and the noble Baroness, I believe, have said, that these amendments will drive a coach and horses through the Bill.I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said on the first day of Committee stage that they were not wrecking amendments. These are not wrecking amendments, even if some noble Lords might like them to be so. They should be judged on their merits. I beg to move.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I did not realise that the Minister was going to intervene quite so rapidly. I believe that some people on the Cross-Benches wish to speak. I hope that, after me, the Minister will wait in order to allow them to do so. I am a little bewildered by the Minister's references to the tariff. The point raised by my noble friend Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank about how the imposition of a sentence which has nothing whatever to do with the tariff is compatible with honesty in sentencing. It is one that has puzzled me for quite some time.
I notice the noble Baroness registering--shall I say "dismay", if that is a sufficiently courteous way of putting it.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I express dismay on two counts. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, did not speak to his amendments. His line of argument was entirely to do with the length of custody and not with the test for applying the automatic life sentence. I am also dismayed at the gratuitous insult just afforded to me by the noble Earl. I got up rather slowly then. I looked around and nobody seemed to be rising. In fact, the noble Earl rose from his seat rather slowly because I believe that he too was looking around the Chamber. I hope I have never had a reputation in this House for cutting people out of debate.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have always made sure that people who wish to speak in a debate do so.
5.30 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I made no imputation at all in relation to the noble Baroness's motives. If she thought that she heard such an imputation, I am happy to withdraw it unreservedly.
But the point that she made about my noble friend's line of argument is rather more substantial and deserves rather more of a reply. As I understand her, she complains that my noble friend was talking about length of time served and not about length of sentence. Is the noble Baroness telling us that length of time served has no relationship to length of sentence? If she is telling us that, I really cannot see how that is compatible with any claim whatever to honesty in sentencing.
Indeed, the whole question of the relationship between the tariff and the sentence has been far too little explored during the course of the Bill. The specific
words of the amendment take out "exceptional circumstances" and instead insert "specific circumstances". In line 3, they insert after "unless in the interests of justice". Amendment No. 4 seeks to insert the words,
- "would make the imposition of a life sentence unjust in all the circumstances".
Those are very much nearer to words which should be used in any Bill which purports to be concerned with the administration of justice. I have always been unhappy about the words "exceptional circumstances". I listened with great care to the words used about them at Second Reading by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham of Cornhill. There are two ways in which the words "exceptional circumstances" could be construed: either because you believe all cases are different, as I do, in which case you could construe all circumstances to be exceptional; or, as the noble and learned Lord assured us the courts are more likely to do, you could give a much stricter and tighter construction, as courts must obviously be inclined to do, and then find that very few circumstances are exceptional.
The word "exceptional" will mean that we shall find no end in wandering mazes lost. The word "specific" is what is needed if we are to make any attempt to do justice. If we are considering what is the right sentence in a particular case, we must consider what happened exactly in that particular case; in other words, the specific circumstances.
The noble Baroness is obviously not pleased with that idea but I cannot for a moment understand why. I cannot understand how anything else can purport to be just and I cannot understand how a mandatory sentence can purport to be just, whatever its length, even if it is the right length for that particular crime. Then it is, as the Italians say when two trains meet at a junction, coincidenza.
We are asked also in Amendment No. 4--and this is important--to consider whether the sentence would be unjust in all the circumstances. Here I should mention the briefing that we have received from Women Against Rape which deals particularly, among other things, with murders and manslaughters committed by people who have been victims of domestic violence. Those cases are capable of producing the most tragic injustice.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, in the Ahluwhalia case has given a truly memorable judgment on that which I am pleased to see tends to be being widely followed; but it is not always. The Minister will remember the case of Sara Thornton which caused her department considerable perplexity in times past. I have written to her department on that case, which turned out to be more complicated that I then realised. I must apologise to the department for writing letters which were not always fully conversant with all the facts. But in making that apology to the Minister's department, I merely underline the basic point of my case: that until you know about all the specific circumstances of a particular offence, you cannot have the first idea about what type of punishment should be imposed.
In considering this amendment, we must consider also that we have not yet received any favourable response to the amendment moved right at the very end of the Committee stage by the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle of Bucklow, and spoken to with great eloquence by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, about the discount for guilty pleas. That also is a point of considerable concern to Women Against Rape because where there is no sufficient discount for guilty pleas, a rapist or, indeed, a burglar, detected by a night watchman is sometimes under temptation to kill in order to destroy the only possible witness. If we should make that more likely then, in my opinion, we should not be protecting the public. For those reasons, among others that I shall not list at present, I am happy to support my noble friend's amendment.
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