Criminal Justice Reform
Debate between Lord Lemos and Lord Foster of Bath(3Â weeks, 5Â days ago)
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Lord Lemos (Lab)
The observation that sentences have doubled at the hands of legislators over a few decades is at the heart of the way we are progressing with the Sentencing Act and creating a different structure for these things. I do not know what the intention was, but if it was to win public confidence in reducing crime by doubling these sentences, it has palpably failed. Of course, there are several objectives—not competing ones—that we need to take into account: seeing that justice is done, taking the views of the victims into account, and making sure the public understand why the sentences imposed are the ones being imposed. But we must proceed with all those objectives in a considered and holistic way. That is what seems to me to have been missing.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, in what appears to be plucking figures out of the air, we are told that between 200 and 900 new cells are going to be created by the conversion of laundries, office spaces and storage areas. Can the Minister at least assure us that every one of those new cells will be fitted with automatic fire-detection equipment? Secondly, can he tell us where the staff are going to come from to supervise the prisoners in those cells?
Lord Lemos (Lab)
We will of course take all the standard precautions, including fire safety, in the provision of these new cells. They are not cheap—that is not a secret —and I think the Lord Chancellor said that the numbers will be in the middle of the range the noble Lord suggests. I agree that we need to make sure that these places are properly staffed. On increases in capacity, as noble Lords know, I am not generally one for blaming the previous Government, but they created 500 new places net in 14 years; we have created 374 in two years.