Sentencing (Pre-Consolidation Amendments) Bill

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

3rd reading & Committee stage & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) in his place on the Opposition Front Bench. I know that the Justice Committee, which I have the honour to Chair, will look forward to engaging with him and the Minister as we go forward on these issues. May I adopt a number of the questions that he has raised with the Minister, which are not partisan but important questions of procedure?

As the Minister rightly said, this is an important and technical Bill. It is warmly welcomed and, I think, universally supported among practitioners and, I hope, by the broader public too. It is therefore important that the substantial Bill makes progress as soon as possible. I join both Front Benchers in paying tribute to the work of the Law Commission. I might mention that again on Third Reading, as I know the Lord Chancellor will wish to do. I particularly want to mention the work of Professor David Ormerod, who was the criminal law commissioner for a period and recently retired. He has done exceptional work in this regard and has been almost the principal driver behind the measure and the code itself.

I particularly welcome the introduction of the “clean sweep” provisions in clause 1. That is novel, but it is much to be commended, and I hope that this will not be the only occasion on which it is used. Incorporation by reference, which is the style of legislative amendment we tend to have now in this country, can create inconsistencies and anomalies, and it is quite a bold measure to have a consolidation platform of this kind. I am glad to hear the Minister say that it is not intended that anything should undermine either the common law or article 7 rights that there shall not be retroactively greater punishment than would have been available at the time.

I particularly welcome the Minister’s reference to the need for linguistic clarity and consistency in sentencing legislation. That has been a real difficulty for those of us who have practised and sat in the criminal courts over the years. At the moment, about eight statutes have to be referred to, depending on the nature of the offence, and experienced professional judges can get this wrong as much as anyone else. I ask him for assurance that the Government as a whole will bear in mind the need for linguistic consistency in any further sentencing measures that may come forward. Many Bills may have sentencing provisions attached to them, and it is important that, having got consistency through clause 1, we do not lose that by a departure from that approach in future legislation, not all of which will necessarily come from the Ministry of Justice. I hope that the Government will take those points on board.

I think it will be generally welcomed by those who sat as recorders in the Crown courts, sometimes dealing with matters being sent up from the magistrates court on appeal, that the Bill will enable us to remove the current inconsistency of language between the law that must be applied in resentencing in the magistrates court as opposed to the Crown court. Although the effect is the same, and the rule on greater retrospectivity not being permitted remains the same, the language of the provisions relating to the Crown court and the magistrates court is different. That causes confusion when judges are sitting as recorders, or judges and recorders are sitting with magistrates on the Crown court dealing with an appeal from the magistrates court where they have to apply the magistrates court provisions. Anything that removes that anomaly is to be welcomed.

I think we all hope that the Bill is enacted as swiftly as possible. I note the observations of the noble Lord Judge, on behalf of the Joint Committee in the upper House, about the importance of the Bill and of it being a living instrument. Will the Minister reassure us that it is intended that all future Government legislation touching on criminal justice and sentencing matters will adhere to the principle behind the code?

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I concur with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). This is an uncontroversial Bill that has support right across the House, and as such, I do not wish to detain the Committee for long. However, I want to return to a subject raised by my colleagues on Second Reading, and I would be grateful if the Minister could respond today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) raised the shocking statistic mentioned in the Library briefing that 36% of 262 cases sampled by the Law Commission involved unlawful sentences. This has potential serious repercussions for the administration of justice in our courts. One suggestion made by my hon. Friend was for the Government to publish a list of common mistakes made, to draw to the attention of the judiciary. The Minister said he would investigate that idea, so could he update us on his investigation or any work being done to draw up that idea?

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I should state at the outset that, before coming to this place, I was a magistrate for 12 years and consequently sentenced a large number of offenders. For some 18 months, I was the magistrate member of the Sentencing Council. While there, I was party to briefings by the Law Commission on the proposed sentencing code that is indirectly the subject of today’s legislation.

The sentencing code is greatly to be welcomed, and thus so is this legislation. It must be right that sentencing law is as clear and straightforward as possible, in the interests of justice for all parties in a case, including, naturally, not only the offender being sentenced, but the victim of the crime, for whom clarity and certainty can be a comfort. It follows that it must be right to take the necessary steps towards achieving that aim by amending existing legislation to facilitate the enactment and operation of the proposed sentencing code. The clean sweep approach covered in clause 1 is a significant step that will help avoid errors and appeals resulting from historic or redundant aspects of legislation being incorrectly reflected in a sentencing exercise. I welcome the improvement that that will bring to initial sentencing decisions and am reassured that the concomitant safeguards against retroactivity will protect human rights.

Although the details of other clauses of this Bill may not seem to merit great discussion in and of themselves, they do form part of a significant and important process to improve a vital element of the criminal justice system. In the interests of brevity, I will reserve any other remarks for Third Reading. However, I ask the Minister to do all he can to ensure that the magistracy is properly trained once these provisions come into place, along with the sentencing code, to ensure that they are able to apply to all correctly and appropriately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Bill is a very welcome culmination of the Law Commission’s four-year-long project to clear up and consolidate sentencing legislation. It acts as a clean sweep that has the potential to make the window to our sentencing law much clearer not only for judges but for those going through the criminal justice system and those who wish to hold the justice system to account for its failures. It cannot be right that the Law Commission’s survey found that more than one third of sentences are handed down against the statutes of our Parliament. Passing the Bill, along with the upcoming Sentencing Bill, makes those errors in our justice system easier to stop and spot.

I remind Ministers, and Members hoping to become Ministers, of how we ended up here and why the Bill is necessary in the first place. On Second Reading in the other House, Lord Falconer drew attention to the fact that there had been substantial changes to sentencing in no less than 16 years since 1990. It is little wonder, with such regular reform, that our sentencing statutes had become so cluttered. As we saw earlier this year, new legislation on sentencing is of course necessary, but this clean sweep does not in itself stop future legislation rendering the window to our justice system opaque once again.

When the Sentencing Bill comes in, I urge Ministers not to lose track of the importance of this measure. In the other House, Lord Falconer outlined four principles: any changes should be made by changing the terms of the sentencing code; any changes due to come into force after Royal Assent should be put into schedule 22 of the Sentencing Bill; any new arrangements should maintain the principle of the clean sweep; and any commencement information should be included in this Bill. Those guidelines are sensible and easy to follow and they maintain the clarity that we wish to create. Will the Minister commit to following those guidelines? If not, will he inform the House of any other plans going forward?

I finish by paying tribute to the Law Commission for its hard work in getting the Bill to this stage today.