Magistrates: Sentencing Powers

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to my noble friend. We recognise that magistrates deal with more than 90% of criminal cases in the justice system. The proposed increase in sentencing powers was introduced by the Labour Government in 2003. They contemplated it for about seven years. We have not quite caught up with them yet, but we have had the recent report from the Justice Select Committee and we will consider its recommendations carefully. One of those recommendations noted that the Sentencing Council’s new allocation guidelines, which came in in March 2016, should be given an opportunity to bed in before the matter is finally reviewed, and we will do that.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

The former Minister Shailesh Vara, before being sentenced to life on the Back Benches, told the Justice Select Committee that the Government were considering piloting increased sentencing powers in some areas. Can the Minister confirm the Government are not going to adopt this proposal, given the inevitable sense of injustice which would follow from the imposition by different courts of substantially different sentences for similar offences? Would he also comment on the wisdom of the Magistrates’ Association receiving funding from Sodexo, MTCnovo and Working Links, which are all engaged in the Prison Service or running community rehabilitation companies, to generate income for the association’s education and research network, as was revealed in Private Eye last December?