Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Tony Lloyd

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I am afraid that I do not entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s basic premise. Just to get the position in perspective, I should say that 95,795 sentences were passed in the Crown Court in 2011, and we had referred to us in that period some 377 requests to reconsider sentences. Many of those requests were in fact wrong, and the total number we referred reflects the sorts of cases that we identify where a mistake has been made. I have to say to him that I am afraid that in human affairs such mistakes will always be made, which is precisely why we have the mechanism we have got to try to ensure that they are corrected.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

It would be odd for me to agree too often with the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) but, nevertheless, there is genuine public concern about levels of sentencing. It is certainly true, on one level, that too many people go to prison, but it is also a matter of fact that at any point in time there are cases that do trouble the public. A 71-year-old man being given a four-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting a very young child is not seen as the kind of punishment that the public would expect. Nobody wants overly harsh sentences, but we do want realistic sentences, so how do we assess the judges?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Tony Lloyd

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

First, I commend my hon. Friend for the work that he does as a special constable. The idea behind the streamlining process was precisely to achieve better practice. Performance in terms of the way in which the police have responded to it is variable. Some police forces have responded very well indeed, and the reviews suggest that they are applying the measures correctly; others appear to have more difficulty. If they have more difficulty, that means that they are spending unnecessary time over-preparing files. The Crown Prosecution Service is committed to working with every police force to try to ensure that best practice can be rolled out, and we will continue to do that, and to conduct periodic reviews to see how the process is progressing.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

The Attorney-General has mentioned the huge variation between police forces, as did the National Audit Office last year. Is it possible to iron out those differences to ensure a common standard? Is any research being carried out to examine whether the process is leading to different outcomes—for example, in relation to guilty or not guilty pleas, or even to final sentencing?

[The Attorney-General]

In human affairs, achieving the complete elimination of all disparities might be rather difficult, but more could certainly be done to reduce them, and that is what we are striving to do. I will go away and check whether we can draw any specific conclusions from the process. Clearly, if people overburden themselves it will take up more time, and it could lead to a case not being properly presented, because the amount of material involved could hamper the presentation of the prosecution. I am afraid that I am not in a position to tell the hon. Gentleman whether statistics can show that the problem is leading to cases failing when they might otherwise have succeeded, for example—but it is clearly undesirable, and we must do what we can to help the police to make their lives easier.