Female Offender Strategy
Debate between Baroness Scott of Bybrook and Lord Thomas of Gresford
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
What steps have the Government taken to introduce gender-specific sentencing guidelines to encourage judges and magistrates to approach sentencing women from a completely different starting point from that for men? Does the Minister agree that equal sentencing guidelines for men and women do not result in equality of outcome, having regard to the specific problems that women have to deal with while incarcerated and afterwards?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I agree that we should be working with the courts system to ensure that judges and magistrates understand the particular issues for women and issue sentences accordingly.
Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020
Debate between Baroness Scott of Bybrook and Lord Thomas of Gresford
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I will give the same answer as before: children are extremely important. In future, before people look into divorce, all the advice will be online and support will be there.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
Can the Minister assure the House that guidance will include the need for all discussions, telephone calls, emails, Facebook or WhatsApp messages and other modern means of communication to be properly recorded, so that the court can be assured that issues of finance and children have been fully explored and fairly agreed, and not imposed by a dominant partner—or, worse, by a trained and expert lawyer acting on behalf of the other party?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that the Family Procedure Rule Committee is looking at all these issues that relate to reform and the implementation of the Act.
Crime: Emergency Services Staff
Debate between Baroness Scott of Bybrook and Lord Thomas of Gresford
The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)
My Lords, this is an important issue. We are going very slowly on it.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
My Lords, I am the son of a policeman and spent my first five years living in a police station in Llangollen. The November 2018 guidelines for an unlawful act of manslaughter were arrived at after four years of consideration and consultation with 45 bodies, including the council of Her Majesty’s judges, the criminal Bar, the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association, the Ministry of Justice, the Justice Committee, the unions, the Howard League for Penal Reform, leading academics, the royal medical colleges and many others. The guidelines were widely accepted and came into effect less than two years ago. Why is the Ministry of Justice proposing to revisit this issue so soon?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, it is for public confidence. We consulted over the summer and there was a wide agreement that the tariffs should go to two years rather than the 12 months.