Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Slaughter]

No, the Labour party does not disagree. As I said a moment ago, the Labour party set up the Sentencing Council and believes that thus far—we do not always necessarily agree with everything it does—it has done a good job. I do not see the point of the hon. Gentleman’s comment.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, under the previous Administration, the Sentencing Guidelines Council said that a first-time dwelling-house burglar who was addicted to a drug, and who was susceptible to treatment for that addiction, should not go into custody?

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady is still practising—she was practising recently—but she has a slight advantage over me in relation to those issues. However, the point is that we cannot pick and choose. Where I do agree with her, and where I disagree with the Lord Chancellor, is that the public have a role. The idea that they, or indeed the media, do not have a role in expressing their view of sentencing policy is quite wrong; if they did not, we would have no change, be it a liberalisation or an intensification of sentencing policy over the years. It is arrogant to say that they should not have a role. Indeed, in giving evidence to the Select Committee, Lord Justice Leveson said as much. He sees one of his important roles as chair of the council as going in the media to explain things. Yes, he is in despair, as the Lord Chancellor is, when his comments or recommendations are taken out of context and bowdlerised, but he sees that it is important to have the confidence, support and advice of the public, and indeed the media, in these matters.

I was talking about drug mules. The Lord Chancellor has referred to this issue, but it is a good example of where a comment by the Sentencing Council has been taken out of context. The council noted that drug mules are often vulnerable people and victims of exploitation and violent coercion by organised gangs. Disproportionately, they are women, poor and poorly educated, and they are minor beneficiaries of the illegal trade, if they benefit at all. However, the guidelines retain the deterrent effect of a substantial prison sentence, while rejecting the current entry point of 10 years’ custody. They reduce that substantially, but the sentence is still six years.

There are changes in sentencing for the possession or supply of illegal drugs. However, if people make money from selling drugs, they will go to prison; if they deal heroin or cocaine, they will go to prison for a long time; if they deal drugs to children, they will go to prison for a longer period still; and those who take an industrial approach to drug manufacturing and supply can, under the guidelines, expect substantially longer jail sentences than is currently the case. That guidance and clarity is invaluable. By setting standards, it increases the likelihood of the deterrent effect working. It will increase public confidence and increase the confidence of victims in the justice system.

In government, Labour aimed to replace a patch-and-mend system of criminal justice with something more coherent and long term, whether it was a matter of prevention, detection, reassurance, due process—including sentencing—or punishment and rehabilitation. Now, we are going back to patch and mend. To get to the point of sentence, we need a well-resourced police force that can detect and solve crime, but we face 20% cuts to policing numbers. We need effective prosecutors, but we face 25% cuts to the Crown Prosecution Service.

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[Philip Davies]

I share many of my hon. Friend’s concerns and I am certainly concerned that many people are anxious to get back into custody. There are an awful lot of reasons for that, one of which he has given. Some might argue that another reason why people are so keen to get back into prison is that their quality of life in prison is far better than their quality of life outside prison. When 4,070 prisoners enjoy the luxury of Sky TV in their cells—not even in a communal area—we know that something is fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system.

[Anna Soubry]

Could it not be that the quality of their life outside prison is so utterly miserable that even life behind bars is preferable to the dreadful life that they live in the community?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have this wretched organisation, HM inspectorate of prisons, the members of which come down from their nine-bedroom mansions in Oxfordshire, go around the prisons and say, “Oh, it’s jolly awful in here, isn’t it? Absolutely terrible.” If those same people came from the same crime-ridden estates that people in prison tend to come from, they would probably say, “It’s jolly nice in here.” There is rather a big disconnect between the backgrounds of the people in prison and of these do-gooders, the prison inspectors.

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[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson). I agreed with many of the points that he so ably made based on his experience. It is easy to joke about the profusion of lawyers taking part in debates such as this, but in reality many of us stopped practising only within the past two years, before we came to this place. We therefore bring with us an abundance of experience and knowledge, especially those of us who were at the criminal Bar and both prosecuted and defended, which gave us an insight into cases from both perspectives. That is a great feature of the criminal Bar and, I hope Members will concur, adds to our ability to bring real experience and hopefully insight to this important debate.

I shall put my cards on the table. I practised at the criminal Bar for some 16 years until my election, and I am very proud of that. I should perhaps not put this too strongly, but it was one of the most rewarding and enjoyable jobs I have ever done, for all manner of reasons. As a member of the criminal Bar I defended far more than I prosecuted.

I should like to put it on record that I find it most peculiar that the Labour party, certainly in my constituency, seems to think it should criticise me for standing up in the House and talking about the law, particularly the criminal law. Often, I speak in defence of not only my own profession but solicitors, who are suffering in a way they have never suffered before due to the reduction in legal aid. I find it perverse that the Labour party attacks people such as me in those circumstances. It professes to be the party of the poor, the repressed, the deprived and some of the most needy in our society, but it is those very people whom so many at the criminal Bar and solicitors have represented for a long time, often with very little reward.

When I joined the criminal Bar, somebody said to me, “You are going to be a social worker wearing a wig.” Those of us who have been at the Bar or worked as solicitors and who have defended criminals will know from experience how often we go beyond the fee—and it is not a very great fee. We know how often we have given a fiver or £10 to clients who have no money in their pockets so that they can get home when they find themselves in the fortunate position—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) will despair at this point—of not going into custody when they thought they might receive a prison sentence.

I once gave a client £10 so that he could catch the train back to Worksop. This perhaps shows my naivety. I took him to Nottingham railway station and assumed he would spend the money I had given him on his ticket. In fact, he went off and bought a large amount of heroin and was arrested by the police. Hon. Members can imagine my reaction when I found out what he had done with the money.

I digress from the subject of the debate, but I want to make the point that the criminal justice system could not operate without the Bar and solicitors who often go that extra mile, often at their own expense, to ensure that it works properly. I fully understand and appreciate that the legacy we have inherited means we have no option than to reduce the amount that goes into the legal aid pot, which means that members of the criminal Bar are seeing a reduction in their fees—that is in the context of having had no genuine increase since 1997. I know the Government can do nothing about that at the moment, but when the time comes we must ensure that those who do legal aid work are properly remunerated. It could be said that I have diverged from the subject of the debate, but I wanted to make that point.

Consistency in sentencing can be truly achieved only when the following occurs. It starts at the beginning. To achieve consistency in sentencing, we must ensure from the outset that there is a proper and full investigation of the allegation. That means that witness statements must be properly taken and that all relevant evidence must be properly gathered. A constituent who has come to me has quite properly complained following an assault allegation—she was the victim. She suffered cuts that required stitching to her face and a broken jaw, but the police did not collect her medical records despite the fact that she had signed the right form. She has now been told that the police are going to make the charge “common assault”. On the basis that what she told me is true, it is clear that the charge should be either for wounding or for a section 20 offence, or perhaps for an even greater offence. It was not a common assault, and it is clear that the police did not do a proper job in their investigation and in ensuring that all relevant evidence was available, which is important not just for the progression of the case, but so that the sentencing judge can pass the right sentence. In order to do that, we need to ensure that there is a full and proper investigation from the outset and that the right charge is reached. We also need to ensure that witness statements are properly taken, which includes, if appropriate, a victim impact statement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford said that the previous Administration were overly prescriptive and mandatory—a long-standing complaint of many of us about their conduct of the criminal justice system. I do not want police officers to go out with a checklist of all the things they must do when they take a witness statement. I want them to be properly trained to be able to rely on their own plain common sense. I do not want them to be overly prescriptive and certainly not stereotypical.

In his statement the other day, the Secretary of State talked about the changes we intend to make to the compensation scheme. This might be difficult to understand, but he quite properly mentioned the fact that not all victims of crime look at the crime in the same way. I have been burgled more times than I care to remember; in some instances, that did not have a particularly upsetting effect on me, and I would be the first to say that, but on one occasion it upset me greatly because my grandmother’s engagement ring was stolen. I do not know the value of the ring, and it does not really matter; what mattered to me was my sentimental attachment to that piece of jewellery. On another occasion when my home was broken into, I found it distressing that somebody had been through items of a very personal nature in my study. On another occasion, nothing much was particularly disturbed, so the trauma, or the effect, was not as great. However, we cannot say everybody will be the same, because, as we all know, crimes come in all different shapes and sizes, and they affect each and every one of us differently.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Did the hon. Lady welcome, as we on the Select Committee did, the fact that the Sentencing Council was prepared to treat burglary as an offence against the person, as well as against property?

[Anna Soubry]

Absolutely. If I may say so, there was so much I agreed with in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech. From my short time on the Select Committee, I know he brings a huge weight of experience and plain, good common sense to his chairing of the Committee. I absolutely agree with what he says.

To be frank, I would never stand up and say we definitely want to keep the Sentencing Council. I know some of us disagree about this, but I always thought the Court of Appeal was a good place to determine the issues we are discussing, and I could see no good reason why that should not continue. However, we are where we are.

What we do know—this has already been mentioned—is that the sentencing judge will look at the aggravating and mitigating features in relation to every offence. It is therefore important that when the police go out and take witness statements, they make sure everything that should be in them is in them so the judge can pass the right sentence. If items of great sentimental value are stolen in dwelling-house burglaries, for example, that is an aggravating feature.

The same is true of trashing or ransacking the property, and of inducing fear in a particularly vulnerable person. One of the burglaries I suffered was at night-time, and my children were of an age where they were very frightened. They thought—this is common among children who have the misfortune to have their homes burgled at night—that the person would come back, and they were in fear of that. Such things must be in the witness statements so the judge can pass the right sentence. That will give us the consistency we want.

One of the things that is extremely annoying for somebody who has been the victim of a car crime is the fact that they lose their no claims bonus. There is also the huge inconvenience caused by the fact that their car has a broken window and that they will not be able to use it because it has to go off to the garage. Again, those are important aggravating features.

In offences of violence, there can be an assessment of the physical scarring that might remain, and of the pain and suffering the victim might have been caused, but their mental anguish must also be set out in detail so that the proper sentence can be passed.

I would go further and say that when police officers go out to get statements from witnesses, they should include in them the effect of a particular crime on the witness. The classic example is somebody who witnesses a fight in the street, which might be a particularly violent and unpleasant incident. That will have an effect on the witness, and if it does, it should be in the witness statement.

At the heart of good, consistent and transparent sentencing is an overriding and underlying belief in the fact that we should trust our judges. I say that with absolute certainty in one respect: if I had not come to this place, I would undoubtedly never have been made a judge. I am not, therefore, making these comments to curry favour with any judge. Hon. Members may not find this surprising, but the reason I would not have become a judge is that I fell out with so many judges.

[The Solicitor-General]

My hon. Friend never fell out with me.

[Anna Soubry]

The Solicitor-General makes an unfortunate intervention, because I did indeed have the great pleasure of appearing in front of him—I was going to reference him slightly later—and we certainly did not fall out. No doubt, though, some of his brother and sister judges would say that that was because I appeared in front of him only twice, and that had I done so several times, perhaps the outcome would have been different.

One of the problems that occurred under the previous Administration was that they began not to trust judges enough, which was a terrible mistake. My attitude is this: I would give the judges the powers that they need and then leave them to exercise their discretion. At the end of the day, most judges come to the bench after many years in practice—usually in the discipline in which they sit in judgment. I said that I was going to mention the Solicitor-General, and I know that he has sat as a recorder in the criminal division, even though that was not his area of practice. I am not trying to curry favour with him, but the fact is that many recorders do not come from the criminal Bar and did not work as criminal solicitors but nevertheless have the great ability and skills required to act in just as brilliant a way as any other judge who was at the Bar for 15 or 20 years. [Interruption.] I am glad to see him nodding in approval.

The point is that with few exceptions our judges are outstanding, having practised at the highest level and coming to the position after years of experience on the basis that they have the ability to exercise good and wise judgment. That is why, with few exceptions, I trust them, and those of us who have practised know that if a judge makes a mistake, the case can be referred to the Court of Appeal.

Our judges have training, and I give full credit to the previous Government for something that I noticed at the criminal Bar: a huge shift in judges’ attitude towards what we call domestic violence—an unfortunate term, because it is normally violence against women by somebody with whom they are either in a relationship or have been in a relationship. Undoubtedly, when I returned to the Bar about 18 or 19 years ago, some senior members of the Bar and judges just saw domestic violence as a bit of a domestic scuffle and not something to be dealt with or viewed as seriously as it is now. I give full credit to the work undertaken by the previous Government in that respect. I certainly saw a sea change among the judiciary, which was no longer going to tolerate any man even slapping his partner or previous partner. I saw that on a regular basis in the Crown courts in which I had the great pleasure to appear, and I give the previous Government full credit for that. That should give us confidence that our judges are properly trained and are more than able to pass the right sentences, as long as we trust them and enable them to use their discretion.

That, of course, was one of the great failings of IPPs. These sentences, introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to deal with defendants deemed to be dangerous, sounded like, and were, a very good idea. What could be more sensible than providing that a paedophile who had sexually assaulted a child and who had done the same thing previously would not only be sentenced for the outrage that they had committed against a child but that there would be a report on him—invariably it was a “him” as opposed to a “her”—specifically looking at whether he would pose a danger even after completing the determinate part of his sentence? If the report revealed that he had delusions and fantasies of a particularly vile and alarming nature, it was thought only right and proper that he be in custody, in prison, not just for the offence that he had committed but for the protection of the public—in this case, children—at large, because he posed a clear and obvious danger to those children.

In theory, therefore, the idea was wonderful. Many of us approved and agreed with the theory; however, I do not think that the legislation was ever properly looked at—I fear I am criticising both sides of the House for that. Indeed, we talked about the idea in robing rooms at the criminal Bar, and as we thought about it more, and then as it was rolled out, we could see its profound shortcomings. Because it was overly prescriptive, judges effectively had no discretion, so people were sent to prison—quite properly, because they had committed a serious offence—but then found themselves in custody with no time limit on their sentences and no idea when they might be released, on the basis that they were supposedly dangerous. However, that was often because the judge had no alternative but to making that finding, when the offender was clearly not dangerous in the terms that they have should been, as the sort of offender that I have described. Not only did those in custody not know when they were going to be released, but there were no courses and no proper treatment available for them. None of the things that should have been done to drill down into their offending were done, so people were literally—and still are—languishing in prison. With great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, I find it perverse that Opposition Front Benchers should agree with that aspect. For a party that has always prided itself on the liberty of the individual and the rights of the prisoner, it is absolutely wrong to support a system that has people languishing in prison, year after year, without the treatment that they need.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am pleased to agree with the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) when, on occasion, he is right, but I do not exactly follow the hon. Lady’s argument. Is she saying that she objects to IPPs in principle or only to how they are working? If it is the former, we have a disagreement; if it is that IPPs have not worked perfectly, I would say that we made omissions in that respect. I advise her to have a look at the Government’s response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights report on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill yesterday—which dealt with the point in detail—where the Government assert that they have resolved most of the problems with the administration of IPPs. If that is the case—and if she supports her own Government—why is she not now supporting them?

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful for the information, and I will go away and look at it, but IPPs have just not worked. The legislation was flawed. Indeed, it was so flawed that after its introduction in 2003 there was a huge growth in the prison population. What did the then Government do? Did they take an honest approach and revisit their legislation, or did they take a different, simplistic approach and say, “Goodness me! There are too many people in prison. How can we bring the numbers down?”? They effectively amended the 2003 Act with fresh legislation in 2008, which made the situation even more perverse and wrong. What the then Government introduced in 2008 was a system whereby a finding of dangerousness could not be reached for someone who would not have got four years for their offence. Let me set out what that meant. I know of a case, which I worked on myself, where the trigger offence that had brought the offender—a man who was clearly a paedophile—before the sentencing judge did not warrant more than nine months to one year. I will not bore hon. Members with the details, but the judge was able to the look at the various reports on that man, which clearly showed that he was a danger to children, and he rightly decided on an IPP. However, after the Government changed the law in 2008, somebody like that man would now serve four and a half to six months, when that is exactly the sort of person who should be behind bars for a very long time.

[Philip Davies]

I have some sympathy with the idea that people should not be languishing in prison, not doing anything for years and years and not knowing when they might be released. However, surely my hon. Friend would agree that it is far better to say to somebody, “You will be released only after you have done something to address your offending behaviour,” to give them an incentive to do so, as an IPP does, than just saying, “You’ll be released after a certain period halfway through your sentence, irrespective of whether you’ve done anything to address your offending behaviour or not.”

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[Anna Soubry]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and agree with him in this sense. It is not right for people for stay in prison without courses or the assistance that they need to address their offending, so that they can be released when they are no longer a danger. That is absolutely right. The problem is that those courses were certainly not provided by the previous Administration. As for release halfway through a sentence, I am very much with my hon. Friend on that for a number of reasons that other hon. Members have already discussed. I would like us to reach a situation whereby the judge can make it absolutely clear when sentencing how long somebody will spend in prison, which might involve changing the wording. If a judge says, “I am passing a sentence of two years; you will serve only one,” it immediately undermines confidence, particularly that of the victim, in the criminal justice system.

I accept the difficulties that we have with the budget, but I would like us to be in a position in which a person is given a sentence and serves that sentence. Perhaps the parole board might see fit to release them early if they make remarkable progress while serving their sentence, as happens with community sentences. In those cases, if someone is making good progress, the probation officer can go back to the court and ask for the sentence to be shortened. The person can then be released from the sentence, because the job has been done. I would like to see that happening. The present situation is a hangover from the previous Administration. Judges have been told, “You’ve got to say this. You must say that. This is the formula.” It is all too prescriptive. I want to see greater consistency and greater transparency; we need to trust our judges.

I hope that I have made it clear that I support the Government’s reforms, including the abolition of the IPP, and the new system that we want to introduce. I also want to make this point on transparency. I will be absolutely frank: I have always been deeply cynical about the introduction of television cameras into courts. However, I have been persuaded otherwise by the Stephen Lawrence trial, as it is called. The judge had allowed members of the press to tweet from the press gallery in the court, and that allowed people to be informed in a very positive way. I have also been surprised by the number of my constituents who have gone to the trouble to read not only the sentencing remarks in full but a further interlocutory matter that the judge had dealt with in relation to the evidence. Reading that material from beginning to end had a profound effect on the way in which they have perceived the case and on their understanding of the sentences.

On the basis that any televising would cover sentencing only, and that it would involve all the remarks, not just the edited highlights—with great respect to the popular press, that practice has, as the Lord Chancellor has said, led to much disenchantment with the system—I have come to the conclusion that it would be right to have cameras in court. It would be good for transparency, and I agree with the Lord Chancellor when he says that it would restore trust in the system.

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who is no longer in his place, talked about early intervention. Under this Government, we are bringing together different strands from various Departments, including the Department of Health, the Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice, to look at this matter. We finally have a Government who are being tough on crime and particularly tough on the causes of crime.

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[Mr Buckland]

That is absolutely right. We are often told that guidelines are not tramlines, but my worry is that as we develop the system, that will increasingly become the case, which is a matter of legitimate concern to us all. My hon. Friend rightly reminded us earlier about the historic role of the jury. In fact, it is interesting to remind oneself that in addressing juries, counsel will be enjoined not to talk to them about the likely sentence that may be passed on the offender, because that is to trespass not only on the function of the judge, but on the function of the jury. My hon. Friend is quite right to introduce into the debate that element of realism, common sense and public experience that juries bring to the court system. That is why they are there, why the system works and why we as parliamentarians support it, and vigorously so.

Having criticised some of the Sentencing Council’s functions, let me commend its research work. One of the better things that it has done is to start the process of looking at the decisions that are made in our Crown courts up and down the land, and to commission research on the attitude of the general public to sentencing. There are two reports in particular that I think the House would be interested to hear about, one of which I referred to in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). The report commissioned by the Sentencing Council and published in May last year by Ipsos MORI conducted a survey of just under 1,000 members of the public and interviewed offenders and victims of crime. Perhaps inevitably—but for the first time based on empirical evidence—the report quite rightly pointed out a number of key things, including that the public perceive the system as being too lenient, but that some of their concerns are allayed once they have a greater knowledge of the workings of the sentencing system. The points that have been made about greater transparency and awareness, and about the televising of proceedings, are all founded on the research that has been carried out. It is plain and simple: if we give the public a greater understanding of the system, they will give the system greater support.

I was fascinated by the public’s view on the reduction of a sentence in return for a guilty plea. They feel that we, the lawyers, are getting it back to front. They would understand and appreciate the system better if, instead of reducing sentences and giving people credit for pleading guilty, the court were to give longer sentences to those who plead not guilty and string the process out, only to be convicted at the end of a trial. They do not like the notion that offenders are somehow being rewarded for having admitted their guilt. That was a fascinating insight that we, as legislators, should bear in mind. Indeed, the Sentencing Council should also take it into account when it reviews the system of credit being given for a guilty plea.

[Anna Soubry]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the public perhaps do not understand that the courts give credit for a guilty plea because it spares the cost, and the trauma to the witnesses and victims, of a trial? Furthermore, if someone has admitted to having committed a crime, they stand a much better chance of being rehabilitated and helped, so that they will not go on to commit more offences.

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right. The report found that there was an appreciation of the economic and emotional benefits of early guilty pleas. However, the public preferred the argument that guilty pleas spare the victims trauma; they were somewhat resistant to the economic, pounds, shillings and pence argument. That is quite understandable, given that members of the public view sentencing and the other criminal justice procedures with the utmost seriousness. To them, public protection through the criminal justice system is second only to military matters such as the defence of the realm—my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has arrived in the Chamber at just the right moment—and is a matter of the utmost seriousness.

Other work has been commissioned by the Sentencing Council, and it has caused a bit of angst among judges, because they have to fill in forms after every sentence—[Interruption.] I hear involuntary groans in the Chamber at that. For the first time, the courts in England and Wales are being asked to provide a wealth of evidence about what factors and influences are taken into account when those decisions are made. The first report was published in October 2011, and it covers the six-month period from October 2010 to the end of March 2011. The results bear close scrutiny.

The survey covered many hundreds of cases. When studying previous convictions, it found that 78% of offenders with 10 or more previous convictions taken into account by the court were sent to immediate custody. That is a significant and reassuring statistic. It also found that 59% of offenders with one to three previous convictions were also sent to immediate custody, and that 49% of offenders had no previous convictions taken into account when their sentence was determined. Those facts need to be stated. For the first time, there is an emerging body of evidence to show what influences judges and what is going on in our Crown courts.

On the subject of discount for guilty pleas, the survey found that 69% of those who pleaded guilty received a full discount; 12% received a discount of between 20% and 32%; 8% received a discount of between 11% and 20%; and 8% received a much lower discount. That shows, in my view, that judges are using their discretion within the guilty plea discount system and are not formulaically applying the guidelines as laid down by what I think was the Sentencing Advisory Council in a previous incarnation of the Sentencing Council. We have started to create a body of evidence, although we still have a long way to go in working out what decisions are made.

I finish where I started. This is a human system, and it will always be an imperfect system, but if we rob of the system of its humanity, we are doing a disservice to our fellow citizens.

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[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is a real honour and a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who gave a powerful speech.

I hesitated to rise to speak on a subject on which I know so little—a fact of which I am particularly conscious in the light of the extraordinarily powerful remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry); she talked about my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who will wind up for the Government, and his appointment as a criminal recorder even though he had no knowledge of criminal law. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) thought that my hon. and learned Friend did so well that he subsequently gave me the same honour.

When my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor opened the debate for the Government, he referred to the critical importance of the independence of the judiciary, and precisely what it has delivered, in proper sentencing, proper trials in the criminal courts, and public confidence in the criminal justice system.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who opened the debate for the Opposition. He, too, recognised the quality of this country’s judiciary and what it has meant for the United Kingdom and our citizens in the delivery of proper justice. However, such judicial independence inevitably means that from time to time we in this House, as we are entitled to do, have to consider the sentences handed down, because our constituents rightly raise concerns about them, just as they raise many other concerns about the criminal justice system and other matters.

When the House discusses sentencing, certain tensions manifest themselves as a result of the doctrine of the separation of powers that is rightly in place in this, as in all democratic countries. There are the public expectations—or perceptions, at least—of the sentences that courts hand down, fuelled from time to time, as a number of Members have said, by journalists picking up on sentences that appear not to reflect the severity of the crimes of which a jury has found a defendant guilty. Those public expectations need to be recognised and met, and it is the function of this House and the Government in part to do that in setting the guidelines and framework within which the sentencing operation must take place.

However, in tension with that is the role of the judges. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor rightly recognised that it is a judge in a criminal court who hears the entirety of the evidence against a defendant when presiding over a trial, and such a judge is therefore best placed to determine the appropriate sentence to pass on someone convicted of a crime by a jury of his peers. My right hon. and learned Friend did say, however, that in all such cases the judge will oversee the entire case, but that is not always so. In many instances, a conviction is obtained by the Crown and the case is adjourned for sentencing; indeed, that is the usual practice. As a result, the sentencing judge often has to be re-educated about the precise circumstances in which the offence took place, in order that an appropriate sentence can be imposed. I encourage my right hon. and learned Friend—as I would encourage any Minister—to consider whether it is appropriate in most cases, if not all, to reserve sentencing to the judge who actually heard all the evidence. That would engender better respect for, and greater public confidence in, sentencing.

[Anna Soubry]

It is very rare that the judge who conducted the trial in a given case does then not make sure that they pass sentence, for precisely the reasons that my hon. and learned Friend has identified. However, my hon. and learned Friend makes the powerful point that, if at all possible, it would be much better if they retained sentence, even where pleas have been taken by judges, which is usually because they have read the papers the night before. Actually, it just makes things a lot simpler and easier all round, which must be to the benefit of justice and is much more cost-efficient.

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about cost-effectiveness. If a different judge has to sentence, the papers have to be read and more work is done in court, thereby taking up court time, while the case is explained by the advocates for the Crown before the plea in mitigation is taken. Then, there is generally a further adjournment—certainly when I sentence, and no doubt when my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) sentences—when the judge retires to consider precisely what he is going to do. All of that could be avoided.

In my experience as a recorder—a role I continue to carry out for a few weeks a year—sentencing lists often include trials where there has been a conviction, and the case is not always reserved to the judge who heard the evidence. In my view, it certainly should be, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and his Front-Bench colleagues will look at that issue.

The first tension for the House when it considers such matters, therefore, is that between public expectation or perception on the one hand and the necessity for judges who hear cases to deal with sentences and impose them appropriately on the other. There is another tension, however, between the discretion of the judiciary to impose the appropriate sentence and the expectations of the public that sentences will reflect the gravity of the crime. That, of course, is a tension that manifests itself most clearly in the discretion afforded to judges in passing the sentences they impose for which they are criticised, from time to time, both in this House and in the press.

Let me echo some of the comments of other Members about the wisdom of this House second-guessing the judiciary in sentencing exercises. If we are to stand behind the independence of the judiciary, as I know my right hon. and learned Friend and other Ministers do, and to insist that the judiciary are responsible for sentencing and not the court of public opinion—as we have seen from time to time—we must be robust and stand up and say here that which is right. That which is right is that there must always remain a certain element of discretion in the sentencing exercise, notwithstanding the frameworks that this House establishes, within which the exercise itself must take place, and the guidance laid down by the Sentencing Council.

The debate therefore takes place in the context of those tensions. Any Member who thought that the tensions were unreal and that the public did not have such perceptions or, indeed, criticise judges from time to time, will find when they return to their offices and read their e-mails an e-mail from our frequent correspondent—by which I mean that of all Members of the House—who goes by the name of UK Patriot. Many Members might delete his e-mails, but I read them. He has sent us all an e-mail today about the “Big Ben bomb gang” who are, he says, apparently out in six years. He says:

“The fact that this has happened is outrageous!”

He tells us that they appear to have been treated by the courts as though

“they were naughty boys owning up to scrumping apples.”

He goes on in the same vein.

There is a common public perception that the judiciary are not imposing proper sentences. It is therefore important, in the terms of the motion today, that we consider both consistency and transparency and that the Government push that agenda as they carry forward their work on sentencing and consider reform of the criminal justice system.

I openly acknowledge that the advent of the Sentencing Council, formerly the Sentencing Guidelines Council, has ensured greater consistency in sentencing. Like the hon. Member for Hammersmith, I am pleased that the Government have not decided that, because of the current financial crisis—we will not touch today on who is responsible for that, although the hon. Gentleman knows my views—this body should be abolished.