(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Lords ChamberI thank the noble Lord for that question, and I recognise its complexity. That is why my right honourable friend wants to look at this question in the round, because the point he made is correct. I do not want to anticipate what the answer to his question will be, but nevertheless I acknowledge the complexity that he has pointed out.
My Lords, I commend the Justice Secretary and, indeed, the Opposition for agreeing on the need for legislation on this matter. Does the Minister agree that, as illustrated perhaps by many of the comments that we have already heard, the guidance on pre-sentencing reports or differential bail et cetera, which is designed by an unelected quango, is not the place to pursue wholly political and often divisive and contentious policies around identity, whether it is race, ethnicity, faith, transgender and so on? It is just not the right place for it to happen. Is not the problem a bit broader in that whenever an unelected quango, such as the Sentencing Council, acts in defiance of Parliament, it undermines public trust in democracy, not just in the courts? That is why I am glad the Justice Secretary acted at last.
I thank the noble Baroness for her support.
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberI agree with every word the noble Baroness has said. My noble friend Lord Timpson has just whispered in my ear that he has been to Holland, so we are looking at that very closely. The other point he made is that they use a lot of tagging in Holland, so that is another factor when we are looking at reviewing sentencing as a whole, although of course the sentencing review will look at adult sentencing and not at youth matters.
My Lords, I am worried about a public loss of confidence in the contradictions around sentencing. I think there was public disquiet about the high-profile case of a woman given a two-and-a-half-year sentence for a social media post, which the noble Lord has pointed out was possibly somebody being made an example of. Yet letting people out before their sentence is up for more serious crimes seems to contradict that. Also—dare I mention?—many IPP prisoners have served their tariff in prison. Will the Minister comment on whether some of those could be looked at to see whether, having done their time, they could be released earlier than their indefinite sentence? They have done their time for the crime they committed and yet they still languish in prison. It just does not seem to make any sense to the public.
I thank the noble Baroness for that question. In a sense, she exemplifies the difficulty of the various matters we are grappling with when trying to address the overall problem of having this large number of people in prison at the same time as the riots were happening over the summer period. I acknowledge that that is a difficult situation. Regarding the IPP sentences, the Government have set up an IPP action plan which they are working at full speed on, and proposals will be coming forward in due course.