Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Bill [HL] (Law Commission Bill)

Baroness Hallett Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hallett (CB) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, as a barrister for 27 years and a judge for 20 years, I am accustomed to speaking in public, yet I confess that I find the task before me now somewhat daunting—a feeling that has been exacerbated by the relatively long wait today. The good news from your Lordships’ point of view is that, as every hour passed, I deleted yet another passage from what I had intended to say.

My feelings of trepidation stem from the knowledge that becoming a Member of this noble House is both an honour and a privilege. I am extremely grateful to those who played a part in my appointment and to my supporters, especially my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who left his sick bed to be with me on the day of my introduction. I shall do my utmost to prove that their trust in me is well placed.

I am also extremely grateful to the staff, to officials and to noble Lords and Baronesses who have proved so helpful and welcoming since my arrival. I should also like to thank my noble and learned friend Lord Judge and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, for their kind remarks. If I had to leave the justice system—which I did because of an Act of Parliament and I was getting too old—I can think of no better place to be. The justice system will, however, remain close to my heart.

My father, as noble Lords have heard, was a police officer, who taught me at an early stage the importance of the justice system. I am proud to have played a part in it, particularly as I was told more than once that people from my background, especially women, could not cut it as lawyers.

I shall therefore follow with interest steps taken to ensure that the justice system of this country remains one of the best in the world. A fully functioning and properly funded justice system is essential to a healthy democracy. We have the excellent business and property courts, but they are only part of the equation; we must not allow other parts of the system to crumble. It is the system as a whole that makes this country a desirable place to invest, to do business and to litigate, and it provides access to justice for all our citizens.

This is not the time to list the problems that beset judges, magistrates and practitioners. The Bill aims to address just one of them. The idea is simple, as noble Lords have heard. It is to streamline the sentencing process; it is not about outcomes. It is the sentencing process that affects hundreds of thousands of cases each year. The aim of the Bill is to make it quicker and easier for a sentencing judge and practitioners to find the relevant sentencing provisions.

As your Lordships have heard, at present sentencing provisions are extraordinarily complex. Experienced judges and lawyers struggle to interpret them even when, in the Court of Appeal, there is rather more time than is available to the sentencing judge in the Crown Court, who may have nine other cases in her busy list that day. The provisions are scattered among several statutes, and in the case of one defendant different statutes may be in play.

Back to that busy judge, who has a list of 10 cases —one of them involves four defendants, one of whom is under 17, one was 17 at the time of the commission of the offence and is 18 at the time of sentence, one may attract the dangerousness provisions, and one may be lucky to get away with a suspended sentence and possibly a community penalty. I cannot tell your Lordships how many statutory provisions would be involved in the judge trying to work out how to sentence the four—and do not forget that she also has nine other cases to deal with that day. The scope for error is huge.

As vice-president of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division until last October, I promise your Lordships that I lost count of the number of unlawful sentences put before us, costing time and money to rectify and, in the process, causing unnecessary distress to the victims of crime, who were uncertain of the sentence passed on the perpetrator of the crime against them and who were extraordinarily, and obviously rightly, angry when we were forced to quash a sentence because it was unlawful.

When Professor David Ormerod QC first announced that, as a Law Commissioner, he intended to embark upon a codification of the sentencing process, many experienced criminal lawyers—and I confess that I was one of them—thought it was an impossible task. But with the help of parliamentary counsel the Law Commission has done it, and after much consultation, the code has been greeted with acclaim by the informed legal community.

It is worth repeating that, if enacted, the code will not: alter any maximum sentences currently available for offences; subject any offender to a harsher penalty than could have been imposed at the time of the offence; or affect the release dates as currently set. Those are all matters that may have to be considered on another occasion, as will the point about the principles of sentencing, rehabilitation, deterrence and the like. But that is not for today.

This Bill is about process. It will, at a stroke, simplify sentencing, save unnecessary distress, money, time and effort, and it will not cost any money. I know of no criminal lawyer or judge who objects to it. On the contrary, they are impatient for it to be enacted. They have been disappointed twice; there is no reason for them to be disappointed a third time.