Lord Beith
Main Page: Lord Beith (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beith's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
If I said that, it was one of those slips of the tongue that I very rarely make. Prison is the best and only punishment for serious criminal offenders; it is the one that we all want to use. It has a strong punitive element if the just and correct sentence is given, and the public are, of course, spared from the crimes of the individual for so long as he is in prison—but we should also strive to do much better than we have ever done before in reducing the likelihood of the person reoffending and committing new crimes as soon as he is released. I am, however, delighted to hear that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me that short-term sentences are used too much. He should have a word with his party’s newly appointed Front-Bench spokesman, before that Front-Bench spokesman slips into the folly of the last 10 years.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Since no funding was in place from the previous Government for the post of chief coroner, the decision not to go ahead with it was hardly surprising, but does that not leave a gap both in raising standards and in having an appeal procedure less costly than judicial review?