Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Lords Chamber

As to the second half of that contention, I would suggest that it must be unjust to impose something which a judge does not think is the appropriate form of punishment. Given that the way to treat an offender is the most difficult of judgments, we will get into situations where the judge conducting the task of disposal will not be given the liberty, having come to a conclusion on the appropriate manner of disposal, not to impose another form of disposal. That does not seem to me to be good sense.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, it is clear from the Government’s response to the community sentencing consultation held last summer that there is substantial consensus among the consultees, and the Minister was right to point that out in his opening comments. The Government have accepted most of the advice given and the current proposals seem to be largely evidence-based and practical. However, there is one glaring exception, which has been raised by every noble Lord who has spoken so far in the debate, and that is the introduction of a mandatory punitive element into every community sentence. The Government’s original impact assessment of the proposals, which was published in March with the consultation, acknowledged that they would have an adverse impact on reoffending rates by causing primarily rehabilitative requirements to be replaced by primarily punitive requirements:

“Given a limit on the overall resources available for probation services, delivering a clear punitive element to every community order may cause the primarily rehabilitative requirements to be substituted for primarily punitive ones. Evidence is unclear on the effectiveness of different community order requirements in reducing re-offending i.e. some requirements may be more effective at reducing re-offending than others. There is a risk that some of the rehabilitative benefits of current Community Orders could be lost with adverse implications for the re-offending rate of those offenders subject to community orders”.

I have a clear question for the Minister, and in asking it I remind the noble Lord of the wise words of the great Jimmy Maxton, who said that you should not be in the circus unless you can ride two horses at the same time. My question is this: will it be open for sentencers to deem any element of a community order to be punitive? It is clear that a curfew, community payback or an exclusion order are, but can a court decide that, for example, an alcohol treatment programme taken alone as part of a community order has a sufficient punitive element to satisfy the requirements of this Bill? Here I should make it crystal clear that I am not talking about exceptional circumstances, but what the sentencing Bench deems to be punitive. It is important that sentencers retain their flexibility since every case is different. Can sentencers deem the rehabilitative requirements of community orders to be punitive as well, so as to satisfy the requirements of this legislation?

I want to give an example of how excessive restrictions on sentencers’ flexibility can lead to perverse consequences, which are clearly against the Government’s intention. My example is from the victim surcharge, a separate matter, but one which I think illustrates my point. On 1 October, the new extended victim surcharge provisions came into force, where offenders are charged money—cash—for the sentence they receive. Under the new arrangements, sentencers are obliged to charge a victim surcharge of £60 to those who receive a community order.

Last week, while sitting as a magistrate, I came across something that I am sure would not be the intention of the Government. I had a beggar in front of me who had a number of convictions for begging both this year and last, a Romanian lady in her mid-40s. The new element in her life was that she now had an address in north London. As a sentencing Bench, we wanted to give the beggar an exclusion order from central London—the City of Westminster. However, if we had gone ahead with that sentence we would have been obliged to charge the beggar £60, because the exclusion order is part of the community order. Clearly, this was not a practical way to proceed, so we dropped that idea on the advice of our clerk and sentenced in the usual way of one day deemed served, so the beggar effectively walked free. I am sure that that is not the intention. It would be much better if sentencing Benches had discretion in that matter. However, it illustrates the point that if sentencers do not have discretion, you can and do have perverse consequences.

My next point has, I believe, been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I was contacted by the Magistrates’ Association regarding the status of people who are working a number of hours in one week and the prospective conflict of their receiving jobseeker’s allowance. I got the same letter as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and will not repeat the point she has made, but am sure that that is a point that should be resolved between the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions.

The Government’s response document contains statements about restorative justice, victim personal statements, separate provisions for women offenders and a number of elements for people who breach their community orders, all of which, taken in isolation, are to be welcomed. However, one group of offenders was not concentrated on in the Government’s response, which I think is regrettable—younger adult offenders or 18 to 24 year-olds. The Minister will know that this is a particularly prolific and vulnerable group of offenders. There has been a number of initiatives over recent years and months, some of which have been very successful, as the Government acknowledge. However, there is no provision in this legislation to take any of those pilot studies forward. There have been initiatives in Manchester and Yorkshire, and it is disappointing that none of those has been taken forward. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how he proposes to address this group, which is often regarded as a forgotten group.