Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The honesty in sentencing issue concerns the fact that it is not currently explained to people that sentences are likely to involve so much time in prison and a further amount outside on licence but subject to recall. We will see whether we can address that and make people understand more clearly what sentences actually imply. It was the previous Government, not us, who moved the amount of sentences being served from two thirds to half—a move that we intend to reverse in the cases of the most serious sexual offenders and violent criminals when we move away from imprisonment for public protection sentences to a more sensible system of determinate sentences.

[Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I welcome this latest and expertly executed U-turn from the Government. Cannot the Justice Secretary see that this whole row, as well as the cuts to probation, the cuts to youth offending teams, the banned people being allowed to volunteer in classrooms and the failure to close all the loopholes on the monitoring of sex offenders together create a very ugly picture of the Government’s attitude to victims of crime?

[Mr Clarke]

I have done many U-turns in my time. They should be done with purpose and panache when we have to do them, but I do not think this is a U-turn at all—[Laughter.] No, I do not. Let me explain—[Laughter.]