Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

They did not differ in any substantial way. All the guidelines, in so far as they concern issues relating to race, religion, culture or belief, are exactly the same as those to which the Justice Minister responded under the Conservative Administration. Hiding behind that, I am afraid, shows a failure to reckon with the Opposition’s own track record, which has become quite a hallmark of theirs in recent weeks and months.

These guidelines help judges, when sentencing an offender, to determine whether to impose a community order or a custodial sentence, providing guidance on the thresholds for disposals of this type. In the process of deciding which threshold has been met, judges are required by law to obtain a pre-sentence report, except in circumstances where they consider such a report to be unnecessary. The reports are used to give the courts more context of the offending behaviour in a given case, and set out any factors that should be considered as part of the sentencing process. As I said to the House on 1 April, generally speaking I am in favour of the use of pre-sentence reports, and in fact I have recently freed up capacity in the Probation Service precisely so that it has more time to produce reports of this type.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The chairman of the Sentencing Council has argued that the sentence should be tailored to the offender, but my constituents—and, I suspect, those of the Secretary of State—think that the sentence should be tailored to the offence and its effect on the victim. That is what counts, not the background, circumstances, history or origins of the offender.

[Shabana Mahmood]

The purpose of the pre-sentence reports, used properly, is to provide the court with the full context of the offending behaviour. That enables the court to ensure that when it imposes a custodial sentence it will be successful and capable of being delivered in respect of that offender, or else a community sentence should be imposed instead. It is a useful mechanism that judges have at their disposal. We would expect it to be used in all cases except when the courts consider it unnecessary because they have all the information. Because I consider pre-sentence reports to be so important in giving the courts all the information that they need to pass the right sentence for the offender who is before them, I have specifically freed up capacity in the Probation Service so that it can do more work of this type. However, the updated guidelines specifically encourage judges to request them for some offenders and not others, stipulating circumstances in which a pre-sentence report would “normally be considered necessary”. That is the bit that I am seeking to change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

The Sentencing Council might argue, rightly, that given the guideline was welcomed by the former Government, it probably thought it was on safer ground than I consider it to be. However, there is clearly a confusion, a change in practice, or a development in ways I disagree with about the proper line between what is practice or the application of the law and what is properly in the realm of policy. That is what I am absolutely not going to give any ground on and that I will be setting right.

[Sir John Hayes]

The right hon. Lady is right about the moving process or trend that she has described, but the trouble is that it is part of a bigger problem, is it not? It is the problem of judicial activism, and it is not new. For some time, judicial activists have sought to do exactly what she has said, and it is they, not people in this House, who endanger the separation of powers.

[Shabana Mahmood]

However, it is always up to the people in this House, if they feel that a law is being applied in ways that were not intended, to put that law right. I am afraid the right hon. Member’s comment is a rather damning indictment of 14 years of Conservative Government, with 14 years of sitting back and allowing other people to do the policy work that Ministers in the previous Government perhaps did not have the time or inclination to do themselves.

I do not think that judges, in applying the law, are doing anything wrong; they are doing their job. They are public servants, and they do their job independently. It is right that we have an independent judiciary in this country. We are very lucky to have a judiciary that is world class and highly regarded. One of the reasons why so many businesses from all over the world want to do business in this country is that they know they can trust our courts system and the independence of our judges. I think it is incumbent on the whole of this House to defend the independence of the judiciary, because that independence was hard won. It is one of our absolute USPs as a rule of law jurisdiction in this country, and none of us must ever do anything that puts it at risk.

If there are issues about the way in which the law is applied—if Parliament or Ministers ever consider that it has strayed too far from the original intention—we can always legislate, and I am doing just that today. I hope this is an example that others, if they have issues in their areas, may consider taking as well. It is a question of policy, and that should be decided and debated here in this place, in this House, and the public must be able to hold us to account for the decisions we take, rewarding or punishing us at the ballot box as they see fit. This is the domain of government, politics and Parliament, and today we reassert our ability to determine this country’s policy on the issue of equality of treatment before the law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

Let me make some progress.

Eventually the Sentencing Council did U-turn, but not before the guidance had briefly come into force. The council took until midday on 1 April, which was several hours after the guidance had come into force, to update magistrates and judges. Its email undermined the Lord Chancellor yet again. It stated that it still believed that the guidance was “necessary and appropriate”. The whole saga has been nothing short of farcical. It has been an embarrassment. It has damaged public confidence in the justice system, and the Justice Secretary’s Bill does not fix that trust deficit. It is half-baked. It is a half-job that stores up problems for another day—because, make no mistake, we will be back here again and again; it will be like Groundhog Day. The Justice Secretary has left in post at the Sentencing Council the very people who drafted these rules and declined her initial invitation to change them. She has left the system intact, and she has left the door wide open for this to happen again. That is not hypothetical. We know for a fact that more offensive two-tier sentencing guidelines are incoming.

The Sentencing Council is consulting on new immigration guidelines that water down sentences for people smugglers. If they come into force, hundreds of immigration offenders a year will not meet the 12-month threshold for automatic deportation, blowing a hole in border controls. If the Justice Secretary wanted to stop that—there are plenty of open-border activists who would oppose her—this Bill leaves her powerless to do so. She has chosen to be powerless. It is the definition of madness to repeat the same decisions and expect different results. History will keep repeating itself until Ministers take back control of sentencing frameworks. But still the Justice Secretary stands at the Dispatch Box and claims that there will be no two-tier justice under her leadership.

The Bill fixes one small element of the problem and leaves the rest of it entirely intact. It does nothing to stop the two-tier pre-sentence report guidance, which still instructs probation officers to take into account so-called intergenerational trauma—trauma suffered not by the defendant, but presumably by their ancestors. It does nothing to stop the bail guidance issued by the Ministry of Justice, which instructs officials to “prioritise” ethnic minority defendants for bail decisions—not on the facts of the offence, not on the basis of risk to the public, but because of their racial or cultural identity. It does nothing to stop the “Equal Treatment Bench Book”, the official handbook for judges, which is riddled with activist talking points, including the claim that migrants are mistreated by the press, and the adoption of a dangerously expansive definition of Islamophobia that could amount to a back-door blasphemy law.

Everywhere we look—more examples emerge every week—this ideology runs through the Ministry of Justice like rot through the rafters. The principle of equality before the law, one of the great inheritances of our country, is being systematically inverted, replaced by cultural relativism, by a hierarchy of victimhood. Some defendants are to be treated gently; others are to face the full force of the law—all depending on their background, race, religion or self-declared identity. That is not justice. It is injustice, wrapped in the language of compassion. But who is it compassionate to? The victims? Of course not; they do not get a look in.

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. Friend deserves great credit for championing the cause of justice and obliging the Government to follow suit, albeit grudgingly. Leaving aside the fundamental injustice that he describes—the two-tier justice system—does he acknowledge that what the Sentencing Council proposes and continues to do undermines popular faith in the rule of law and justice and, as the Lord Chancellor herself says, tears the whole system apart?

[Robert Jenrick]

That is the very real risk of what we see, not just in these aborted sentencing guidelines, but in the broader fabric of two-tier justice that we are revealing with every passing day. What we all want to see, and what I believe the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) wants to see as well, is equality before the law. That means that in no instance should the law be applied differently depending on the colour of people’s skin or the faith that they abide by. We must all fight against that, because it is immensely corrosive to public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is right: many Conservative Members appear to have a very loose relationship with their own track record.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The Lord Chancellor is right that equality before the law lies at the heart of popular respect for justice. However, I must say to her that it is not this House that endangers the separation of powers, but judicial activists, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) has made palpably clear, who are more interested in making laws than applying them. Will she, as my right hon. Friend requested, let this House know whether she retains faith in the Sentencing Council and its members or whether, like me, she believes that having been exposed, they should now do the honest and right thing and resign?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I have already said that I am not interested in making a personal attack on anybody. I have a disagreement on a point of principle with members of the Sentencing Council about what is the proper preserve of policy and what is the proper role they should play. We have tried to resolve it. They have agreed to pause their guideline. We will move forward constructively.

I will not stand back and let people attack the independence of the judiciary. I have sworn a solemn oath; I will fulfil that oath. We are very lucky in this country to have the sort of legal system that we do and a judiciary that is held in high regard. These are public servants of the highest order. It is easy for politicians to attack on matters of policy or politics they do not like, but as I have just shown, if politicians or parliamentarians disagree with something, we have the power to change it.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the difficult fiscal inheritance for this Government, and that we have had to make some difficult choices. We received a good settlement from the Treasury at the last Budget, but it is not without its challenges, given the high demand in our system. He will know that we have protected funding for victims of violence against women and girls, including rape and sexual offences. We have sought to protect the most vulnerable victims when making decisions on our victims funding packages.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

15. What steps her Department is taking to ensure that people convicted of charges related to grooming gangs receive adequate sentences.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)]

The right hon. Member raises a very important point on these heinous gangs and the crimes that they commit. The 20 recommendations made by Alexis Jay in her independent inquiry on child sexual abuse were ignored for far too long. The Government are working at pace to respond to them. We will also legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, ensuring that the punishment fits these horrific crimes.

[Sir John Hayes]

As in Bradford last week, where more of the grooming gangsters, largely of Pakistani origin, who raped white girls there and elsewhere were sentenced, the paucity of the Home Secretary’s audit, whereby authorities mark their own homework, was made clear. Will the Justice Secretary agree to a wide-ranging review of these matters with statutory powers? Surely those whose lives have been ruined, and those whose lives may yet be ruined, deserve more than the weak reticence of people with power who refuse to face the facts.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and I have a shared objective in making it clear that there is a desire in all parts of the House to ensure that we face the full facts and that the victims of these heinous crimes receive the justice they deserve. I am sorry to hear that there are concerns in Bradford about the audit ordered by the Home Secretary; I will ensure that they are passed on to the Home Secretary, because, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, these matters fall directly within the purview of the Home Department.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger]

I am sure that the hon. Member for Spen Valley is delighted to have the support of the hon. Gentleman. I refer him to the point that I was making: this is an inappropriate process.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a superb speech, as I expected him to do. On the issue of process, I say this to the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), my constituency neighbour: as he will know, I have introduced some very serious Bills, including the one that became the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. It was preceded by three independent reports and pre-legislative cross-party scrutiny by both Houses, which happened before the Committee stage. The point is that that process should take place before Second Reading, not after.

[Danny Kruger]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I will now run through the process before taking any more interventions.

As I have explained, pretty much anybody with a serious illness or disability could work out how to qualify for an assisted death under the Bill. Members may think that far-fetched, but it is what happens everywhere that assisted suicide is legal, including in Oregon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I have known well only one person who committed suicide: my former professor. I learnt after his death that he had been haunted by imagined demons for most of his life and, in the later part of his life, hounded by heartless humans. Had assisted suicide been available to him, I am sure that he would have died much earlier. After those demons first visited him, he had a loving wife and three daughters, so he had moments of joy, though most of his life was punctuated by pain. I am just as sure, because I knew him well, that he would have voted against this Bill today, for all our lives are a mix of sorrow and joy.

I will not amplify the arguments about process, although I think it is immensely naive to assume that this Bill could be changed substantially in Committee. As a shadow Minister and a Minister for 19 years, I oversaw many Bills in Committee, and I know what Committees do. They calibrate, refine and improve legislation; they do not fundamentally alter the intent voted for on Second Reading.

Neither shall I talk too much about what happens in other jurisdictions, except to say that it is certainly true that everywhere it has been introduced, assisted dying has expanded—not always by subsequent legislation, but often through judicial interpretation. The idea that we should put this charming but rather naive faith in the judiciary to make these decisions subsequent to the House passing the Bill is just that: innocent—that is the most generous way I can describe it.

What I will talk about is simply this: the Bill would change the relationship between clinicians and patients forever. It would say to the NHS, “Your job is not only to protect and preserve life; it is sometimes to take life.” I am not prepared for our NHS to be changed in that way. Beyond that, the Bill would change society’s view of what life and death are all about. This is not just about individual choices, as hon. Members have said in their interventions and speeches; it is about a collective, communal view on how we see the essence of life and death.

Finally, we have had a civilised debate in this place, but it is very different out there on the mean streets, as each and every one of us knows. There are many cruel, spiteful, ruthless and unkind people in the world, and there are also many vulnerable and frail people. When those two groups collide, the outcome is not good for the second.

I fear this Bill. I will vote against it. I will vote for what a politician in another place once called “the audacity of hope”—hope that we can improve palliative care; hope that we can do better. I fear for the disabled and vulnerable people who would be affected by the provisions of this Bill, which—regardless of the good intentions of its advocates—I believe will fan the flames of fear.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

My hon. Friend is right: the quality of prison education must continually improve if we are to achieve the best possible rehabilitation outcomes.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State make available—perhaps through a note in the Library—the number and type of foreign national offenders who, aided by deluded interest groups and dodgy lawyers, are resisting deportation by means of appeal, either to domestic courts or to European—foreign—judges?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that all the data that was published under the previous Government will continue to be published by ours.

Criminal Law

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have only three brief points to make.

First, we need an honest debate in this place about the purpose of prison. It is true that prison exists to protect those who otherwise might suffer harm—we incarcerate people because they are dangerous—but prison also matters for the reason of punishment. To incarcerate somebody who has done something wrong is to deprive them of their liberty to punish them. We should be straightforward that most of our constituents believe in just retribution. They do not spend their time, like so much of the liberal establishment does, agonising about the circumstances of criminals; they are more concerned about the circumstances of victims. Prison works for that reason above all else. It is a deprivation of liberty, endured by those who deserve to endure it. My constituents, and I suspect those of Members from all parts of the House, will be outraged by the idea that some of those people will now be let loose on our streets.

I accept that there are exceptions set out in the proposals before the House, but I have to say that had the previous Government introduced this measure, I would have voted against it, and I will vote against it today. I tabled amendments along with the former Home Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), and many other colleagues that would have further altered these provisions. I will not go into those in detail, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I suspect you would not allow me to do so, but I advise the new Lord Chancellor to take a look at them to see what further steps can be taken to mitigate this unfortunate circumstance, for that is the least we can do.

My second point is about the specifics of this proposal. It has already been said that the way of dealing with the prison population is twofold in essence. One is to reduce the number of people on remand by improving the throughput of people from arrest to trial. The second is to reduce the population by dealing with foreign national offenders. Remand prisoners represent about 20% of the population. Foreign national offenders now number, as the Lord Chancellor will know, in the many thousands. We can take people out of the system by doing those two things, and we can also build more prisons. I accept that the previous Government should have done more, but this Government should look at urgent prison building. We were able to build Nightingale hospitals at a stroke, so why can we not have Fry prisons built as at least a temporary measure to accommodate people who would otherwise commit further crimes?

My final point, which has been made repeatedly— I am being brief, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I know you will want me to be so, and I want to support you as much as I can in your new role—is simply this: if this is a temporary provision, as the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) just said, why is there no sunset clause? It is all very well saying there will be a review in 18 months, but a sunset clause would mean that the measure had to come back to this House for further consideration. That is the difference between something written in the legislation and something promised in the form of a review.

I have no reason not to believe the promises of the Lord Chancellor—I take them at face value—but let us have some substance around those promises by building a sunset clause into the legislation. That would, at the very least, show the good faith that is a necessary component of good governance. Prison works. Let us build more prisons and say to our constituents that we will no longer pander to the predilections, preoccupations and prejudices of the liberal establishment, but will instead speak for them, for what they believe is what I believe: many more wicked people should be incarcerated for much longer. That is what they would say on the doorstep in any constituency; it is about time that it was said here, and I am delighted that it now has been—by me.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Ghani)]

I call the Lord Chancellor to make her closing remarks.

Sentencing Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful—

[Alex Chalk]

Hang on, I haven’t given way yet. [Laughter.] I give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings.

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. and learned Friend is such a tease.

As my right hon. and learned Friend will know, 6% of the offences that attract a 12-month sentence are indeed for the possession of an article with a blade or point, in other words a knife, and a further 9% are for common assault and battery. Those are the kind of sentences that we are speaking about here, and if you are a victim of assault, you do not really worry about whether your attacker is literate or illiterate; you just worry about having been attacked.

[Alex Chalk]

There are some important points to make about this. As my right hon. Friend will know, there is a whole suite and hierarchy of offences of assault. There is common assault, but if there is even a reddening of a skin, that becomes assault occasioning actual bodily harm, which carries a five-year maximum sentence—although, of course, this applies only to those who are given sentences of under 12 months. However, if the skin is pierced in any way or there is any serious harm, that is charged as grievous bodily harm, either simpliciter or with intent, and carries a maximum of life imprisonment. We must therefore be very clear on what we are talking about and what we are not talking about, and we are not talking about grievous bodily harm. Let me also stress that the two highest categories of offence that fall within the 12-month sentencing period are driving offences and offences relating to class B drugs. However, I take on board the important points made by my right hon. Friend, and I refer him to the remarks I made to our hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

It is a product, I suppose, of living in an age infected with contagious liberalism that people in this place and elsewhere spend a lot of time speaking about freedom. I care about freedom too. I care about freedom from disorder and about freedom from the fear and actuality of crime. I think it was Burke who said:

“The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected to order”.

Disordered society is most terrible for those who live on the frontline of crime: those who have to cope with disorder; those who do not live the gated lives of the bourgeois liberal elite.

I approach the Bill with that in mind. Are the repercussions of the Bill likely to lead to a more ordered society, likely to protect people who might otherwise become victims of crime? There is much to welcome. The first part of the Bill deals with serious crime and the sentences it attracts. I am pleased by the further development of longer sentences for people who do terrible, wicked things. There is a caveat, because as you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, the Home Secretary has always had the power to intervene personally and become involved where he or she believes that a sentence needs to be reviewed or extended, and has done so on a number of occasions to make sure that someone who might otherwise be released stays in prison. Will the Minister say whether that power will be curtailed or affected by the measures in the Bill? Will the Home Secretary still be able to intervene on those rare occasions on which they feel it is right to do so?

That is the best bit of the Bill—the part that deals with those serious crimes in the way I have described. Much of the rest of the Bill is lamentable. I am not going to vote against Second Reading because I think it provides an opportunity for further scrutiny and consideration. However, I am disturbed by the idea of turning all sentences of 12 months or less into suspended sentences. That is not quite what the Bill does, but it is its essence.

Let me explain why. Criminal justice has three primary purposes. The first is retributive. Let us be clear about that—the first principle of criminal justice is to punish people for a harm that they have done. That might be a terribly unfashionable thing to say, but it is what the majority of people in South Holland and The Deepings think, as well as the majority of people in Witham, Grimsby and even Bromley and Chislehurst. I will return to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill)—for I know Bromley and Chislehurst rather well, as I suspect he knows.

If that is the first purpose of criminal justice, does the Bill aid that purpose? To answer that question we have to consider this: is it more of a punishment to lose your liberty—to be incarcerated—or more of a punishment not to? Is it more of a punishment to be deprived of the opportunity to do all the things that you choose to do, or is it more of a punishment not to be? I have to say that in my view—and it is not just my view; it has been the view of almost every society in every civilisation over all of time—the principal way of punishing people is to incarcerate them, to deprive them of their ability to behave in the way they want, freely and openly.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful point with which I substantially agree, but does he accept that with the rise of technology, there are many different ways of depriving people of their liberty? If we can come up with ways of depriving them of their liberty that also make it less likely that they will reoffend at the end of their sentences, does that not serve a dual purpose, being both the absolutely right moral judgment as a punishment and a way of reducing the number of future victims who will subsequently need to be served by the criminal justice system?

[Sir John Hayes]

That is a plausible argument, except that having a tag on your ankle is not a deprivation of liberty in quite the same way as being in prison. Being able to go on eating fast food, watching telly and doing all the other things that you might do at home is not quite as much of a deprivation, is it?

Moreover, we have heard this so often before. It is true that technology has moved on and the tags are of a rather different kind, thanks to the work that was referred to earlier, but when tags were first introduced we were told that the technology was such—these things were so secure—that no one would be able to evade their application or use, only to find that all that was wanting. My hon. Friend will therefore forgive me for a certain degree of scepticism—not cynicism. I am cynical about nothing. However, I am sceptical about this.

The second principle of criminal justice is to provide respite for those who have been victims of crime, and others who might be, by taking people off the streets. That is to put the victims and others out of harm’s way by removing the harm—literally taking the harm beyond their purview—which is what prison does. It may be that if these tags work perfectly—if these people are constrained in the way suggested by the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend—I suppose the victims may be protected anyway; but I suspect that people in my constituency and elsewhere who have been victims of some of the crimes concerned would say, “I want these people to be as far away from me as possible, and as far away as possible from my children, my home and my community. I do not want to know these people or see them daily, because they have done harm witnessed by those who live in my locality.”

The third principle of criminal justice is that once you have caught someone, convicted them and sentenced them, you might take steps to prevent them from committing crime again. Of course I understand that. There has been a long-standing debate between those on the retributionist side of the argument, like me, and those on the rehabilitationist side of the argument, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who believe that crime is essentially an ill to be treated, and that the circumstances of the criminal—those were my hon. Friend’s words—are more important than the event of the crime.

[Sir Robert Neill]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

Now we will hear some more about the circumstances of the criminal.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I hope that my right hon. Friend will gently withdraw the incorrect attribution. What I said was that, as part of the balancing exercise, the sentencer must take into account both the nature of the offence and the circumstances of the offender, which is wholly different.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend did indeed say that, and it is the argument that I have heard repeatedly over decades—that if only we could understand more about the circumstances of the offender, we could dig down to why they ended up like this, and perhaps we could make the world a better place. It is a lovely idea and we can see the sentiments that drive it, which are probably quite noble in many ways.

Frankly, however, these are the arguments that have permeated the debate since the Children and Young Persons Act 1969—my hon. Friend will remember that, but it was before my time—when intermediate treatment orders were introduced. Remember those? The Government then said that, because the circumstances of the offender were of such concern—because these people had had such shabby and difficult lives—they would impose an intermediate treatment order, which is a community sentence in the modern idiom. So young thugs, vandals and villains were sent off on holiday in the Brecon Beacons and such places, while their contemporaries who were law-abiding and just as poorly off—working-class fellows who had done nothing wrong—were lucky if they got a weekend at Margate. That is the kind of thinking that, unfortunately, has punctuated the debate on criminal justice for far too long.

Crime is not an illness to be treated; it is a malevolent choice to be punished, and that is what the public expect. In the paper on this subject by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, to which he drew the House’s attention a few moments ago, he makes this very clear on page 33:

“Lord Burnett of Maldon, Lord Chief Justice between 2017 and 2023, speaking in December 2020, said:

‘To my mind, there has been a perceptible hardening of the public and political attitude to crime, particularly sexual and violent offending, which has resulted in a general shift in the balance between culpability and harm when determining sentence.’”

In other words, to put it in a nutshell, people want those who do harm, damage lives and spoil others’ chances to be treated more severely, not less severely. Frankly, I do not think the Bill meets that test. I do not think that the emphasis on recidivism at the heart of this Bill—as I have said, it is understandable and perhaps even noble—will be welcomed by the vast majority of people, whose position has hardened in precisely the way my hon. Friend’s Committee’s report suggests.

My perspective on the people who commit these crimes is as follows. Let us look at what crimes most commonly attract sentences of 12 months or less. The most common is theft from shops. We have an explosion in shoplifting, as has been highlighted by Members on both sides of the House. It is something we should take seriously and act upon. That is about 13% of short sentences. Then there is common assault and battery. Yes, I agree that it is not grievous bodily harm, as the Secretary of State rightly said, but I suspect most people would feel that common assault and battery should result in a custodial sentence. That is 9% of sentences of 12 months or less. Then there is assault of an emergency worker. Can we think of anything more appalling than that—a fireman or ambulance crew turns up at an emergency and is assaulted by someone? My goodness! That is about 3%. Breaching a restraining order is 7% and possession of an article with a blade or point—in other words, a knife—is 6%. That is the list of sentences that most commonly attract 12 months or less in prison, which is the kind that are now to be suspended.

This proposal neither passes the test necessary to fulfil the key functions of the criminal justice system, nor passes the still more fundamental test of being likely to restore—I say “restore” rather than “maintain”, because I think it is a matter of restoration—public confidence in law and order. If we want once again, as we should in this place, to reflect and give life to public sentiment, frankly, this Bill will have to be amended very significantly indeed.

Disraeli said that

“justice is truth in action.”—[Official Report, 11 February 1851; Vol. 114, c. 412.]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is a deductive thinker: he likes to look at the evidence and deduce an outcome. I am more of an inductive thinker: I believe in arguing from first principles, so the truth really matters to me. On that basis, I say to Ministers, “Let us amend this Bill. Let us take the best parts of it, and change those things that will not pass either of the tests I have set out.” I therefore reserve my right to oppose it on Third Reading, but knowing this new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), and knowing our excellent Secretary of State, I rather suspect that they have heard those arguments and taken careful note of them—for I know too that they are the kind of politicians who want to do the right thing, rather than the easy thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

There are parts of this Bill that I am sure my constituents will welcome, including the stronger sentences for serious criminals and the inability of people to be released early on parole, but there are areas that my constituents and I have serious concerns about, particularly with regard to the presumption of suspended sentences for crimes that attract a sentence of 12 months or less. I am particularly concerned about home detention. The word “home” is not about detention. Home is about home comforts; it is about people being able to do what they want to do, whether they have a tag on or not.

We know that repeat criminals, which most people who have home detention and home curfew are, have clever ways of working the system. In Grimsby and places like Grimsby, somebody who has a tag will find a way, through coercive control, of getting their partner to commit crimes, or get criminal associates to come to their home so that they can carry on their criminal behaviour. I also have constituents whose children and grandchildren have been coerced into committing criminal behaviour, because they are the ones who do not have a criminal conviction—yet. Quite often, those who are seen as minors will not have anything serious done to them with regard to sentencing, and they are being encouraged, either through payment or perhaps a lack of violence, to continue the criminal activity.

I am particularly concerned about some of the examples that have been given, and I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for speaking to me about this yesterday. Yes, if somebody works hard for a living and they have made some mistakes and need help, we do not want to prevent them from being able to live in their house or apartment. We do not want them to lose their job or to be unable to carry on positive, healthy relationships with people, but my concern is that people who are on benefits and who are not working in legal jobs will be able to be at home doing pretty much whatever they want and working the system. My constituents would like to see those people doing visible community service to pay back to their victims and repair what is going on in the community. We need it to be long-term: community service orders of 200 hours are, frankly, derisory; community payback sentences should be 1,200 hours. It should be a year long so that it is inconvenient and involves things that people do not want to do.

We also need to stop the merry-go-round, operationally, that follows legislation. People in Grimsby know that offenders such as these often end up on a merry-go-round involving every state-funded service, but they do not take them seriously or do not take an active part in them, because they know that they do not have to. That costs the taxpayer huge amounts of money, but this is about not just the monetary cost but the cost to the community.

We have just passed the Victims and Prisoners Bill. What about the victims here? My constituents want to see that somebody is being inconvenienced and having to work hard to pay back. We have heard that people’s circumstances can result in their becoming a criminal, but lots of people come from those same circumstances and do not make the choice to become criminals and it is about time we started thinking about them. We need to make it clear to people that criminal behaviour is unacceptable, and ensure that they go out and visibly do good activities, with people watching them and keeping control of them. The reality is that if somebody is at home, they are on the internet, watching television, meeting their criminal friends and laughing at the rest of us.

[Sir John Hayes]

What my hon. Friend is talking about is stigma. There must be some stigma. Stigma is very unfashionable in the modern age—even to mention it is probably regarded as politically incorrect—but we have to stigmatise people who do really bad things among their contemporaries. If we do not do that, they will carry on with impunity.

[Lia Nici]

My right hon. Friend is, as always, absolutely spot on.

We need to start having these kinds of discussions. In my constituency of Great Grimsby, we have people who are repeat offenders in aggressive retail crime who are getting away without having to do anything positive to pay back society. Colleagues talked earlier about people who have a reading age equivalent of nine or 10 and who must improve their literacy. I have worked in further education for over two decades, and what happens with state-funded organisations is that people will be told, “Go and see a person who will help you with mental health issues. Go to a person who will help you with learning to read and write. Go to the probation office to register where you are.” These people do not go there. They cannot be controlled in any way, so it becomes extremely expensive and is a derisory way of using taxpayers’ money.

I and my constituents want there to be no home detention so that people have to get up in the morning to go and do their community service. They should be seen to be doing it, and they have to be doing it for the amount of time that they would have been inconvenienced by being incarcerated through any other sentence. Otherwise, it will not work. We will end up with an extremely expensive system where nothing works properly. Instead of sending people to go and improve their literacy, we should get them to work off their crime and learn how to read and how to interact with other professional people and what it means to be socially positive in those situations. They should not be sitting in pretend classrooms for hours and hours not doing anything.

We know that positive work and having positive role models in society is what will turn people round, but the proposed approach to sentencing will end up being an extremely expensive way for people to play the system and continue the merry-go-round. I would like the Lord Chancellor and the Front-Bench team to think seriously about what the majority of people in our communities would like to see.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Daly]

I agree. We cannot have a debate about criminal justice simply on the basis that everyone should be sent to prison; there has to be some form of alternative sentence. My experience over 17 years, however, is that none of it works—little or none of it—because this is about the individual.

I have not met an individual—unless they are suffering from severe mental health problems—who does not know what they need to do with their life to be a better person or to not commit crime, whether that is to stop taking drugs or drinking alcohol, or whatever it is. The vast majority of people who appear in court are not demented fools; they are intelligent, articulate people who are choosing not to make the correct decisions that could put their life on a more even footing. The range of sentencing options, such as a curfew, or all the types of modern technology we talked about, are nonsense. They will not make a blind bit of difference to anyone’s behaviour.

The point I am making is that the criminal justice system is, by its very nature, fallible. It will never be efficient or give us the outcomes that we want. The idea that any MP in this place could set up a structure that will deal fairly with every offender that appears before the courts is absolutely for the birds. My view is that the Bill does not make much difference to the position we are in. It is not something that colleagues should get overly concerned about, because having spent 17 years in front of magistrates, I can tell the House that they will still send people to prison on the basis of this Bill. A few people might well get a chance, with a curfew or something like that, but they will breach it in five minutes and will be sent to prison.

Under the Bill, someone is forgiven for the first breach, but they go to prison for the second breach. Whatever happens, they will go to prison at some point, because most of them breach the order that is imposed in the first place. I support the Bill because I support—

[Sir John Hayes]

Is my hon. Friend saying that the Bill is inconsequential? If it is inconsequential, why do we need it? The Bill is either as bad as I think it is, or it is as harmless as he thinks it is. Either way, we do not want it.

[James Daly]

Frankly, it allows our independent judiciary and magistrates, sitting throughout the country, to make decisions based on the individual circumstances of the case. I think it still allows them to impose an immediate custodial sentence in the vast majority of circumstances. I have read out the legal test, which can be applied any which way we want.

Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

What a very kind offer. I am sure that call will be echoed by those in the SNP Benches in front of the hon. Gentleman. We, of course, would be delighted to share any best practice. He makes a very serious point. To do all the things we want to do to protect vulnerable people requires boots on the ground—it requires police officers. That is why we are proud of the fact that in this jurisdiction the number of police officers stands at, or close to, an all-time high. We would be happy to commend that approach to our friends north of the border.

On public protection, taking the most serious offenders out of circulation is how we stop them committing crime. But we also want to follow the evidence about what works to prevent reoffending, because that is also how we keep the British people safe. The evidence—not sentiment, evidence—shows that those on immediate prison sentences of less than 12 months are significantly more likely to reoffend than similar offenders who get sentences in the community. They are over 50% likely to reoffend, as compared to less than 25% for those who are required to adhere to tough conditions, with a risk of going to prison if they fail to comply. Let me be clear about what that means. Those who are on suspended sentence orders are required to comply with onerous requirements—be they unpaid work orders, alcohol rehabilitation requirements or whatever—on pain of going straight to prison if they fail to comply. The evidence shows that people see that as a powerful deterrent.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend will want to comment, in that context, on persistent offenders, because he will know that there are many offenders who persistently offend and commit crimes that would not attract a sentence of more than 12 months. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) spoke of shoplifting, for example. Criminal damage would be another example, as would antisocial behaviour. Some 30% of persistent offenders commit 80% of crimes. Is he really saying that none of them should go to prison?

[Alex Chalk]

On the contrary. I know that my right hon. Friend rightly, on behalf of his constituents, wants to ensure that those who destroy lives and have a corrosive impact on communities are brought to book. That is why the provisions have been carefully constructed and calibrated to ensure that those who are unable or unwilling to abide by an order of the court can expect to hear the clang of the prison gate. Not only will the proverbial sword of Damocles be hanging over them, but for those who commit an offence when they are subject to a court order—be it a supervision order, a community order or a non-molestation order—the presumption no longer applies. We send a clear message to criminals: obey the order of the court or expect to go to prison.

Judges will retain their discretion to impose immediate custody when an offender poses a significant risk of physical or psychological harm to an individual—this is to the direct point made by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford—so that domestic abuse offences and other violent offences against women and girls can and will continue to be punished, with immediate custody protecting victims. Nothing changes, but for those whose sentence is suspended, the courts will be able to continue to use a range of requirements, including curfews, electronic tags, community payback and exclusion requirements. Those who do not comply or who commit further offences can be brought back to court and risk being sent to prison.

Alongside that, we want to ensure that we have the prison places to keep serious and dangerous offenders locked up for longer, while allowing lower risk offenders to benefit from community-based restrictions to assist with their resettlement, get back into work and start contributing to society where that can be safely managed. For that reason, we are extending home detention curfew to offenders serving sentences of over four years and keeping our tough restrictions that prevent serious violent, sexual and domestic abuse offenders from accessing this facility.

The Criminal Justice Bill includes measures that deliver on three strategic objectives: first, protecting the public from violence and intimidation; secondly, enabling law enforcement agencies to respond to changing technology deployed by criminals, including by equipping them with sufficient powers to address emerging types and threats; and thirdly, strengthening public confidence in policing. We will protect the public from violence and intimidation by strengthening the law on the taking of intimate images without consent and expanding the offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It was a pleasure to listen to the Lord Chancellor open the debate with the characteristic moderation and eloquence that he brings to the Dispatch Box. I also welcome the two new Under-Secretaries of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon)—my constituency neighbour—and my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), to the Treasury Bench. They are both great assets to the Government team.

I welcome what the Lord Chancellor said in his speech. I will concentrate on justice-related issues, given the pressure of time. The Justice Committee has, in fact, already worked on some of these policy areas, and I am grateful to him and his ministerial colleagues for taking on board some of the issues we have raised. We may want to press them a little further as we see the details of legislation, but I welcome the moves they have made. I appreciate their courtesy throughout our dealings.

I will start with our recent report, “Public opinion and understanding of sentencing”, which is important in the context of the Sentencing Bill and some provisions of the Criminal Justice Bill. The report shows that there is a real problem with the lack of a coherent approach to sentencing policy in the UK, as well as an issue with public understanding of the objectives of sentencing. In particular, there is insufficient analysis of the potential impact of sentencing changes.

This is not unique to the last few years; it has been systemic for all the time I have been involved in politics, and probably for all the 30-odd years I spent in practice at the Bar, specialising in criminal work, before coming to this place. No Government takes particular blame, but systemically we have perhaps not done enough to adequately collect and efficiently and fully use data to drive evidence-based policy. I know the Lord Chancellor and his colleagues understand that, and I know the Department is making moves to improve it, which I welcome. These Bills are examples of where we can try to put some of that into practice. That is certainly what our report is looking to achieve.

Given the public’s view that public protection is the top priority—we came to that conclusion after a very detailed sentencing exercise, I might add—I do not think people object to stronger sentences for the most dangerous offences but, equally, we need to be alert to identify any potential unintended consequences. That means we have to level with the public. If we repeatedly enact measures that increase sentencing, with the mantra of being tough on crime, we have to be honest with the public by saying it will cost money. Keeping an adult male in prison costs £47,000 a year. If they are a danger to the public of if they committed the worst types of crime, that is money well spent, but the Lord Chancellor is quite right to look at alternatives, where that money could be better used, for those who are not a danger and who are, in many respects, inadequate and have been failed much earlier in their lives, leading to a chaotic situation.

Tougher sentencing is sometimes part of the mix, and rightly so, but smarter sentencing is usually what is important. I think the Sentencing Bill recognises that and gives us an opportunity to build on it. That is also important because of the capacity crisis we have identified in prisons through our study of the prison workforce, where we have real difficulties in recruitment and retention. That is also important, as we cannot have rehabilitation without sufficient and adequate staffing.

As Winston Churchill said, “There is, in truth, a golden treasure in the heart of almost every man.” Not everyone is redeemable, but very many are. Far more than people in politics sometimes think. It is a good thing if we can turn people’s lives around through the prison system, because that means less reoffending. That is why the presumption against shorter sentences is right. There are certain areas, which have been mentioned, where we must carefully look at the detail but, overall, the evidence is overwhelming that short sentences do more harm than good. Sentencing policy should be about evidence and preventing reoffending, not about soundbites and grabbing headlines. I know the Lord Chancellor has adopted that approach.

[Sir John Hayes]

rose—

[Sir Robert Neill]

I will give way once and once only, because time presses.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. Those are the arguments that have been used for most of my lifetime: the idea that recidivism is caused not by punishment, or by retributive justice; that somehow this is less important than the fact that, as he said, the people who commit crimes have somehow been failed. For a long time this has been the prevailing view in criminal justice, yet it has brought no decline in recidivism—rather, the opposite.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before the hon. Gentleman comes back on that, I must point out that if those who are trying to catch my eye later intervene before they have spoken, they will be moved down the list.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

What a pleasure to follow the thoughtful eloquence of the new hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Michael Shanks). One of his predecessors, Tom Greatrex, shadowed me when I was the energy Minister and became a great friend. I hope that he, too, might become a good friend over time.

When I was a boy, still younger than the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather), I attended my first Conservative party conference in 1975. Margaret Thatcher, the new Conservative leader, declared then that

“The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty…then so will the governed, and…nothing is safe—not home, not liberty, not life itself.”

For a civilised society is an ordered society, and because it is the most vulnerable—the old, the frail and the less well-off—who live on the frontline of disorder, they must be protected from it. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West spoke about the hopelessness that can lead to when people feel they are exactly that: on the frontline of crime. For that reason, a prerequisite of social solidarity is a civil order where law is enforced, justice prevails for all and the guilty are punished. We in this place must stand in defence of the gentle.

Yet too often in my lifetime, those who shape criminal justice have been impervious to the harm their doctrines do. Detached from the concerns of hard-working people, those with power are too often influenced by guilt-ridden, bourgeois liberals. Too many members of this opinion-forming elite have lost any sense of proportion about what matters and what does not. They are unable to gauge the significance of trivialities which waste time and resources; unable to tell the difference between the petty and the pertinent. Many people often believe, rightly, that the criminal justice system is more interested in hurt feelings than in the hurt that crime causes. They cannot understand why elements in the police appear to care more about silly social media than they do about burglaries and theft. It is preposterous that half the calls passed on to frontline police in recent years have been about social media.

Figures released in June revealed that the proportion of crimes resulting in a charge or summons was just 5.7%—a slight increase on last year’s figures, by the way—which means that 95% of crimes in England and Wales go unpunished, and that is leaving aside those that are not even reported. Meanwhile, in the five years to 2023, an incredible 120,000 people were recorded for “non-crime hate incidents”. Causing offence may be rude, but is it really worthy of police time? The liberal elite who offer a multitude of platitudes about equality are none the less content to see a two-tier justice system in which cultural relativism determines what is investigated and what is not. The law must be applied equally to all, whether they are eco-fanatics or Islamic extremists. For such characters, in the absence of a sense of proportion, anything can be legitimised in the cause of self-righteous purity, and that includes, when they glue themselves to roads, stopping ambulances taking the sick to hospital.

We must end the culture of excusing and rewarding deviant and wicked behaviour. I recall from when I studied criminology at university in the 1980s a seminal book, “Rehabilitation and deviance”, which showed that a rehabilitative ideal had become so institutionalised that the criminal justice system had become disconnected from the core concept of justice. Crime is not an illness to be treated. It is a malevolent option chosen by those who carelessly harm and damage people, largely out of greed or spite or malice, yet too many heinous and hardened criminals receive risibly lenient sentences.

We should not be letting people out of prison early, nor should we be suspending custodial sentences for persistent prolific offenders. That is not what the public expect, it is not what our constituents want, and it is not fair because it is not just. Crime must be punished, and punishment matters because the public want to see law-abiding, decent, patriotic people protected from the minority who seek to do them harm. Is that too much to ask? No authentic Conservative should vote for early release, and no authentic Conservative should vote for the end of custodial sentences. If any do, they must answer to their constituents.

Assisted Dying

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger]

I really do thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She is absolutely right, and I thank her for allowing me to make it abundantly clear what I hope I made clear earlier: I recognise the enormous power of the campaign, and that the overwhelming majority of people want it for the best of intentions. All of the people campaigning for this, and the overwhelming majority of the people who imagine making use of this law, do so for the absolute best of intentions. Please can we not have a deliberate misunderstanding of the points I make? I represent a lot of people who think this way, and I am making the point in all sincerity.

I challenge Members, many of whom must visit their hospices and know what is acknowledged as the fact of elder abuse. Tragically, we have a rising epidemic of elder abuse in this country. Half of elderly people who are victims of financial crime are victimised by their own adult children. It is not just the elderly we need to be concerned about. It is no surprise that no disabled organisation supports the proposal. It is the most vulnerable people, who by definition rely on the support of other people—their families and professionals—who are most at risk of assisted dying laws being misapplied, which is what I fear would happen. Suddenly, every controlling and coercive relative, every avaricious carer or neighbour, every overstretched or under-resourced doctor or hospital manager would have the means to cut their cost, and I do not believe it is possible to design out the risks.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case. We have heard a lot about quality of life, but who are we to judge what a quality life really is? Is someone who is profoundly disabled without quality? Is someone with profound learning difficulties without quality? Why do we assume that the only lives worth living are those that are perfect or of high quality in the eyes of others?

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. I fear that we shall never hear the answer to my right hon. Friend. We have to stick to the five-minute limit, and you get injury time only on the first occasion that you give way, I am afraid. That is a message for all Members.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 2
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

When the Home Secretary said that she wanted criminals to “feel terror” at the thought of committing offences, she reflected the heartfelt sentiments of those who live on the frontline of crime, starkly contrasting the small clique of bourgeois liberals who use wealth to segregate and insulate themselves from the reality of disorder and have sought to amplify time and again, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) did tonight, the rights of thugs and villains and the civil liberties of the violent mob.

This week, Members of Parliament have rightly resolved to redouble our efforts to prevent violence against women. It is strange then that just months ago 70 Labour parliamentarians sought to block the deportation of 50 violent criminals, including those convicted of murder and rape, and that they will vote against a Bill tonight that cracks down on crime. It does seem that the Labour party is more motivated by the political posturing associated with what the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), whom I greatly admire by the way, typically described as headline grabbing, than it is with protecting the safety of the innocent.

As figures show, our police forces are continually challenged by increasing demands. Hard-working officers are frequently derailed by the malign advocates of the rights of criminals and distracted by the politically correct delusions of the ideologically motivated elite. Imagine the demoralising disappointment they must feel when, after working tirelessly to solve a crime, an unelected judge insists on awarding a derisory sentence, inhibiting the incentive to prosecute, weakening deterrence and undermining public trust.

Typically, custodial sentences are drastically reduced, and even the most ruthless criminals are released early. Many killers are released after a dozen or so years, while naive utopians in gated communities plead for even greater leniency. How the liberal left misunderstands the criminal mind, for deviant individuals who have chosen crime as a career weigh up the balance between risk and reward, cost and benefit. It is a measure of their trade.

The misassumption that crime is an illness to be treated has become so pervasive that it is barely questioned in the broadcast media, yet to see those who choose to profit from the misfortune of others in the same way that we regard the sick and infirm is to demean the latter and elevate the former to a status they do not deserve. This assumption that wickedness is a misfortune of less significance than the suffering it causes means relegating such acts and the victims of them. In this way, justice is neither seen to be done, nor done at all.

This Bill goes some way to regaining public faith by strengthening law and order and regaining that mantle for the Secretary of State and our party. All Members of this House who care about the innocent should vote for it, for our task is to be fierce in defence of the gentle.