Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Beith and Lord Bach

Committee stage & Lords Hansard part one
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, of course we want to change attitudes and that is what we must try to do, however long it takes us, but I have to say, from my experience over five years as a police and crime commissioner—I am sorry to keep on about this—this wrong seems to have increased on a fairly enormous scale. That is only anecdotal, but the truth is that many more of those who are about to be arrested seem to think that it is okay to have a go at the police in order not to get arrested. That seems to me to be very unfortunate, and it is going to take a long time before it changes. It puts the police, and obviously other emergency workers, in a nearly impossible position sometimes—and when I talk about the police, I am really referring to other emergency workers as well.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, I do not want to see higher sentences for the sake of higher sentences, and I do think that their effect is often very limited, but I have to say—it seems odd, coming from these Benches, I suppose—that I have a certain sympathy with the Government here, because it seems to me that the position has to be dealt with immediately in some way, and one of the purposes of raising the maximum sentence available is to try, in the best possible way, to convince the courts that this is a more serious offence than sometimes they think it is. It is not always minor, I am afraid—sometimes it is undercharged—but it is a really serious problem that every emergency worker, and in particular every police officer, faces every time he or she makes an arrest, and I do not blame the Government for wanting to do something about it.

I am not saying it will be very successful; I think it is a much wider societal problem. But I do think it is something the Government are entitled to at least think about in this way. I do not say that with any happiness at all, but to claim that it is not a real problem is just untrue: it is a real, everyday problem.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I entirely accept that this is a real problem, but real problems require real solutions that have some chance of being effective. I cannot imagine anyone who commits an assault on a police officer or emergency worker actually knowing what the maximum sentence is for that offence—still less that the Government are currently increasing it. That information might just get through to the newspapers for a week or two, but there is no measurable deterrent effect from something that people do not know much about anyway. Most people must realise that if they get caught assaulting an emergency worker they will get into some kind of trouble, but whatever impels these dreadful assaults is clearly not likely to be affected by what is happening here.

What happens when you increase the maximum sentence? If you achieve generally longer sentences, you have made a commitment of resources. The question has reasonably to be asked: is this the best way of spending money to try to stop emergency workers being attacked? We must therefore look at any other measures that you can reasonably take that would have that effect, if, as I contend, there is no evidence that increasing the maximum sentence will lead to any reduction in attacks on emergency workers or police officers.

This is just one of many examples, and there are others that we will perhaps debate more fully later in the Bill, where the Government rush to have something to say—lengthening the maximum sentence certainly looks like having something to say—but it does not have the effect in the real world that we all desire.