Sentencing Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

I am intervening.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

It is Committee.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

It is Committee, so I am entitled to speak in relation to that point.

The case that comes to my mind would highlight the absurdity of the position of simply having an immediate deportation: namely, the Russian agents involved in the Salisbury attempted murder. Had they been captured and convicted, they could have been immediately sent back to Russia on that basis, possibly to a hero’s welcome, rather than any level of punishment. It shows the absurdity, and I agree entirely with the remarks made by the noble and learned Lord.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I oppose this clause standing part of the Bill. It seems to me that everything that has been said by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Chakrabarti, is right. I also agree with the suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that there is nothing at all wrong with saying that work of a particular kind was done by offenders as part of their community order. What I object to is, as she says, the naming and shaming.

But it goes further than that—it is, by definition, naming and shaming of offenders under supervision, because it is only offenders who are undertaking an unpaid work requirement who will be subject to this clause. I suggest that the compulsory photographing of such offenders—by probation officers, if you please—and the publication of those photographs and the offenders’ names, would be profoundly damaging. I, like the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, regard this clause as likely to damage relationships between probation officers and their clients, undermine offenders within their communities and make it more difficult for those offenders to integrate within those communities. The clause is overwhelmingly unlikely to do anything to rehabilitate offenders or reduce reoffending. It is, in short, largely vindictive only. Since one can expect the publication of names and photographs mostly to be by local media outlets, such publication is likely to fuel hostility to offenders whom we are trying to rehabilitate among their community and likely to encourage what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester earlier today called “penal populism”, with what, I suggest, could be only damaging effects.

We completely accept the position put by the noble Lord that community sentences are punishment and are intended to be punishment. They are punitive in the sense of restricting an offender’s liberty and imposing requirements that may be onerous on offenders, but they are also primarily directed at enabling rehabilitation and reducing reoffending. For such sentences to work, friendly and constructive relationships between probation officers and offenders, their clients, under their supervision and efforts to enable those offenders to be settled in their communities are vital. These proposals are, frankly, inimical to those ends. I have come across no evidence whatever that this kind of naming and shaming will do any good or reduce reoffending in any way. I believe it can only do harm. For that reason, I oppose this clause, and I invite the Government to abandon it.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a great supporter of this Bill, and I also believe in tough community sentences. I think they are essential if we are to keep people out of prison. But I have to say that on this issue I do not see any positive point arising out of this clause. In my experience of working with probation officers—a long time ago, but I dare say they are not that different now than they were when I was in practice—I cannot see the likelihood of any probation officer wanting to do this and thinking that it was helpful in terms of making sure that his or her clients behave themselves in future. I think this is an excellent Bill, but I do not think this clause should be part of it.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. The powers in this Bill currently propose that probation officers will have the power to publish offenders’ names and photographs alongside details of their unpaid work. The Government rightly argue that there is a need to increase the public visibility of sentences being carried out and allow people to see that justice is being done. I would go further and say that it is vital that those who are responsible for sentencing have greater confidence in community sentences.

I am currently chair of your Lordships’ Justice and Home Affairs Committee, but before I took over, my noble friend Lady Hamwee was the chair of that committee, and her committee produced an excellent report, Cutting Crime: Better Community Sentences. That made it very clear that over a long period of time community sentences had declined, not least during the upheaval, as we might call it, of the Probation Service; nevertheless, there was a continued decline. When it tried to analyse why that was, it found that it was in part because sentencers had lost confidence in community sentences. The mood was, “We simply don’t think that the orders we’re imposing will actually be enforced”.