Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the work of the Sentencing Council and the transparency and consistency of sentencing.

I am glad to have the opportunity to debate this issue today. Public confidence in our criminal justice system rests on the principle that justice is dispensed independently by a judge in possession of the full facts of a case. It is normal to quote Magna Carta: we do not deprive people of their liberty

“without due process of law”

in this country. It is not the case in the United Kingdom, as it still is, unfortunately, in many parts of the world, that the Executive can order the detention and trial of people simply on the basis that they disagree strongly with the Government. Neither is it the case, as it is in some other judicial systems, that trials can be stretched out and rerun, until the “right” judgment is reached. Politicians do not sentence people in individual cases, judges do, and British Governments lose cases when they are parties in civil actions. I shall not go on, because we all know that those are the fundamentals of civil liberties and the rule of law in this country.

Independence is what we employ judges for, but alongside that fundamental truth lies an equally important principle—the discretion to do justice in individual case. Only judges see the full circumstances of each case, and they need the freedom to vary sentences in individual instances in accordance with the gravity of the offence. They have to bear in mind the circumstances of the individual offender and such mitigation as they may be able to offer. Sometimes the offence will be so aggravated that a higher than average sentence is required, as we saw, for example, after the riots in August. On other occasions, there will be significant personal mitigation, or relatively little harm caused to the victim, which means that a lower sentence than average will be justified. Just as we trust that our independent judges are the right people to make sensible decisions about the running of cases, so we generally trust them to apply the framework of criminal law across a range of different kinds of case of varying degrees of seriousness.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

It is very early, but I give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Keith Vaz]

On the point about gravity, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will have noted the sentences that were given yesterday to a group of four al-Qaeda inspired fundamentalists, who as the result of a Goodyear hearing will, in effect, be out of prison within six years. Does he consider it important to revisit the whole notion of Goodyear hearings in view of the fact that people who were going to cause mayhem in London have got away with being in prison for only six years?

[Mr Clarke]

I am not yet familiar with the full facts of the case, so I certainly shall not comment. There is also a matter of principle. The custom is growing that Ministers conduct a running commentary on sentences in individual cases as they proceed. I do not think that that is wise. I believe in the separation of powers. The right hon. Gentleman is a senior and respected Member of the House, but my understanding is that those people will be sentenced next week. I will check. When the sentence is actually imposed, we have a system whereby the Attorney-General can put in an appeal on the ground of leniency and ask the Court of Appeal to reconsider it. I will inquire more closely during the course of the debate, as the right hon. Gentleman is obviously concerned.

Public confidence would not be well served if individual judges gave widely varying sentences in similar cases. We have one body of law as determined by Parliament, and the punishment should fit the crime. Parliament imposing the law is the guardian of public opinion. We are answerable to the general public and the maximum tariffs set by the House have to be taken as a guide by judges in all cases.

Different cases should attract different punishments. The question is how to ensure that our independent judiciary can make judgments that fit the facts of the case but are also consistent with each other: how to balance, on the one hand, the imperative of judicial freedom—such that they have the latitude to sentence according to circumstance—with, on the other hand, the need for a consistent approach across the system and in all our courts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is an enormous pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chairman of the Justice Committee. I agree with almost everything he said. Many lawyers are present, which is not unusual in the House of Commons, especially on a subject like this one. It is absolutely the right approach to highlight the importance of investing resources on prevention rather than at what happens at the end of the criminal justice system. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, that means early intervention—something that no Government seem prepared to do because it costs money up front, whereas at the moment, our system pays to keep people in prison at astonishing rates in order to punish them, but they often come out of prison and reoffend.

When the Solicitor-General winds up the debate—I understand that he is the Government’s spokesman at the end—I hope he will tell us whether Lord Justice Leveson is still chairing the Sentencing Council, even though he is also—[Interruption.] I am most grateful; the Solicitor-General no longer has to wait for the winding-up speech. We work quickly together, Madam Deputy Speaker, as he is my neighbour in Leicestershire, so we understand each other quite well.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Telepathy is difficult for Hansard to pick up and it is not easy for other Members in the Chamber. It would help if we made that sequence a little clearer.

[The Solicitor-General (Mr Edward Garnier)]

To make it clear, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) meant that I, not Lord Justice Leveson, was his parliamentary neighbour. I say that in case that does not appear clearly on the record either.

[Keith Vaz]

In football terms, that was an instant replay. I am glad that Lord Leveson now chairs the important inquiry into the media. After that is completed, he will start the next inquiry. He must be an incredible chap to be able to chair the Sentencing Council and conduct all these other inquiries. I am glad that he is still there; continuity is important.

Let me go back to the intervention I made at the start of the Lord Chancellor’s speech. He said that the Government would be able to give us more information at the end of the debate on the case that I raised, which has been concluded in the courts. It concerns a group of four al-Qaeda-inspired fundamentalists who admitted planning to send mail bombs to their targets during the run-up to Christmas 2010. Their targets included the Palace of Westminster, the home of the Mayor of London, the Stock Exchange, and other buildings of that kind.

Those defendants participated in what is known as a Goodyear direction, which, as the Lord Chancellor and other Members will know, enables a trial judge to indicate the sentence that will be given if a defendant pleads guilty. I understand that the sentence that is indicated cannot be increased by the judge at the time when the defendants are sentenced.

[Rehman Chishti]

I have huge admiration and respect for the right hon. Gentleman. However, I dealt with Goodyear indications when I practised as a barrister, and I recall that a judge can refuse to give such an indication. He can say, “This is too severe. If the defendant wants to plead guilty, he can do so; otherwise he can stand trial.” A Goodyear indication can relieve a potential victim of the stress and the ordeal of giving evidence, but ultimately it is a matter for the judge: if he thinks that the sentence is too severe, he will not give a Goodyear indication.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced prosecutor, and he knows much more about these matters than I do. Perhaps, given the charges that were levelled against the individuals in the case that I mentioned, the judge ought to have refused the application, but the fact remains that two of the defendants, Mohammed Chowdhury and Shah Rahman, were effectively told by Mr Justice Wilkie that they would be out in six years, because that was what was indicated by the sentence of twelve and a half years that he proposed to give them.

I have raised that case because it came before the court yesterday, because we are debating this issue today, and because I think we should consider the severity of what would have occurred had the matter been brought to fruition.

[The Solicitor-General]

I do not want to rain on my right hon. neighbour’s parade, but I am afraid that I will not be answering questions of the kind that he has put to me when I wind up the debate. The matter is ongoing. It may well be that the judge has given a Goodyear indication, but he will be sentencing next week, and nothing that I shall say today, or that the right hon. Gentleman will say today, should in any way impinge on the judge’s discretion. The Goodyear direction system is there, and its conduct is circumscribed by fairly strict rules. While the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to make any point that he wishes to make about particular sentences, I think that—as my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor said earlier—we would be better advised to leave that particular issue until the sentence has been promulgated. All sorts of implications may flow from that.

[Keith Vaz]

I am very happy to take the Solicitor-General’s advice. What I have sought to do is ensure that the issue is looked at, as I hope it will be in future when the sentence is finally determined.

Let me move from the specific to the general. I do not want us to reach a point at which we have plea bargaining in criminal justice, because I think that that would be wholly wrong. The hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) mentioned the riots. I pay tribute to the way in which the criminal justice system operated throughout that period. I well remember going to Horseferry Road magistrates court at midnight and receiving a call from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), who welcomed me. I do not know how he knew that I was going to be there, but somehow he knew that I was looking at the 24-hour courts. Although there was something of a gap because both the practitioners and the defendants had to be brought from police stations, the courts moved very quickly at a time when it was necessary for that to happen.

Although politicians are very wary of trampling on the jurisdiction of the judiciary, the public, and even the Prime Minister, made known their views on sentencing during the riots. The result was that the courts issued sentences that were, on average, more severe than for similar offences committed outside the period of the riots.

I also pay tribute to the Lord Chancellor and the Ministry of Justice for providing my Committee with so much information. I do not think that we have had so much transparency before, as regards figures relating to the riots being made available. I think it was the Lord Chancellor who told us, in a Select Committee evidence session, that 76% of people who appeared before the courts for offences committed during the riots had a previous conviction. He also told us that for adults, the figure was 80%, and for juveniles it was 62%. It is important, as we look at sentencing and transparency, that figures are made available to Select Committees and Parliament, so that we can have informed views on the issues that we are deliberating.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), who has left the Chamber, raised the issue of rehabilitation in her intervention on the Lord Chancellor. One of the most important issues that the Lord Chancellor has raised during his time in office is that of rehabilitation. As the Chairman of the Justice Committee has said, there is no point in just sending people to jail; if one convicted criminal in four reoffends soon after completing their sentence, something is wrong with the way we deal with rehabilitation. Of course people have to go to prison to be punished in certain circumstances, but the prison authorities need the time and space to start the process of rehabilitation.

We have been looking at the roots of radicalisation and will publish a report on the subject on Monday next week. We feel it is very important that when people are incarcerated, those who are able to detoxify—that was the word used in the evidence given to us, and I use it again today—people who have been radicalised have time to do that. One cannot do that in a short period, or without resources; it has to be done over a period of time. We need to ensure that when those people come out, the experience has made a difference to their lives, because at the end of the day it is our constituents who suffer if that is not the case.

This is a good debate, and I hope very much that it will not just be about tougher sentences, because as we all know, 83 of the 134 prisons in this country are classified as overcrowded. If we are to make sure that when people come out, they do not reoffend, we need a criminal justice system that is fit for purpose and able, in the end, to do the one thing that we want it to do: help in the reduction of crime.