Sentencing Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble and learned Lord and to pick up the issue of trying to find our way through the morass, to which, I have to admit, I contributed as Home Secretary, with responsibility for justice and sentencing, with a plethora of legislation between 2001 and 2004. The only part of the Criminal Justice Act that I am not proud of is the element relating to indeterminate sentences, not because the intention was wrong, but because the implementation was left far too much to chance—or what I might have called, to pick up the pieces from the earlier contribution, common sense.

The 2012 research undertaken by the Law Commission, to which I also pay tribute, discovered that 36% of sentences were wrongly applied, in one way or another, which is staggering. I had hoped that the Sentencing Guidelines Council, which we set up in the Criminal Justice Act, would have been able to provide the kind of guidance that the noble and learned Lord just referred to, but sadly not. The codification, alongside this consolidation, gives us the opportunity for much greater clarity for the offender, those perpetrated against and those operating the criminal justice system.

I will refer briefly to Part 4 and seek the Minister’s clarification on an issue that is now under extended sentences but was under IPP. It is where somebody is involved in a breach. We still have people, even from 2012, when the IPP was abolished, returned to prison and given a sentence relating to the IPP for, sometimes, a minor breach, which results in extending an already dubious procedure. Could the Minister clarify whether, under the clean break element of this, these matters can now be cleared up once and for all in the interests of justice? I think it is in Clause 273, but there are 420 clauses. With the capacity I have at the moment out of London, I am relying a little more on the seat of my pants than I normally would.

Finally, I hope the follow-through to this will be extremely good training for all those involved at every level of the criminal justice system. It struck me in 2003 that that really was the missing element.