Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Act 2020 (Exception) Regulations 2020

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

It is in no way to disrespect the noble Baroness, who has made a good fist of explaining this very simple measure, to say that I am extremely sorry that the Advocate-General, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, was not able to be with us, for reasons we understand. I put on record that it is critical that we applaud those who show such a principled and moral stand. I have no idea what the response will be from Downing Street, but our thoughts are with him.

I am participating in this very simple instrument because I took part in the debate on the consolidation Act and raised one or two questions about whether it would be possible to use the exemption facility we are debating this evening to deal with one outstanding anomaly. I do not expect the Minister to respond in detail, but I would be very grateful if she would take this back to the Ministry of Justice with a view to trying to examine it.

Taking the regulations before us, I am slightly mystified as to whether someone who commits or committed an offence that duly warranted a surcharge under the sentencing code before the measure came in, and committed a similar offence afterwards, would be charged two different rates. Perhaps that is an esoteric point, but it seems to me that there was some ambiguity in how it was outlined in the Explanatory Memorandum.

I particularly want to raise IPP prisoners with indeterminate sentences. I was responsible for both the surcharge and the subsequent mistaken implementation of the IPP. The surcharge has held; the IPP sentence was abolished eight years ago. However, people are being sentenced now for minor breaches of the terms laid down by the Parole Board under the previous legislation and are therefore subject to exactly the same terms of incarceration as they were prior to the abolition of the Act in 2012, even though the minor offence or breach might warrant a very small sentence—including, perhaps, regulations of this sort, with surcharge and reparations. Could the noble Baroness go back and see whether some of the outstanding issues here could be resolved in this way?

Finally, as everyone here and online knows, today the Government published a White Paper on sentencing. It included some of the things I talked about 17 years ago, such as the importance of a victims’ code, which also went through the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act in the same year. It talks about trying to sort out issues relating to low-level offences, as we might call them, and the sentencing appropriate for them, and the strengthening of sentences for more heinous crimes. We went through all this, and I would like the noble Baroness to take back to the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary one simple thing: is any sentencing code to be left to those participating in the judiciary, with the Lord Chancellor chairing that, or is it to be laid down rigidly? This was quite a contentious issue 17 years ago, and I erred on the side of allowing the Sentencing Council to determine the guidance and therefore the terms on which the law would be implemented. Having been severely rapped over the knuckles since for not having been more prescriptive, I put on record that I hope the present Justice Secretary gets the balance right.