Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Bill [HL]

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Second reading committee (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 12th June 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and to acknowledge the fact that she has been much closer to the day-to-day problems of the sentencing process than I have. I spent my judicial career in the appellate courts, in various places; we encountered these problems from time to time but to nowhere near the same degree she has told us about, based on her substantial experience.

I have no hesitation in welcoming the Bill. I am delighted that it is being sponsored by the Government. As chairmen of the Law Commission know very well, and as the noble Baroness said, it has not been easy for Law Commission Bills to make progress in Parliament as parliamentary time is often at a premium. Without government sponsorship it would be difficult for any progress to be made at all, so we must be grateful to the Government for being willing not only to sponsor the Bill but to find time for it, as they have done today.

As it happens, it has not been all that difficult at this juncture, given the present state of politics in this country, to find time for this Bill. It is obvious to everyone in this House that it is being starved of legislation that we can really get our teeth into. The Kew Gardens (Leases) (No. 3) Bill and the Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill are really quite lightweight in comparison with what we are normally used to. There is a bit more in the Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill, as anyone who listened to the spirited debate in Committee on Monday will have noticed, but even in that case the Committee stage lasted only for two hours and 40 minutes. So, based on my own experience of dealing with the usual channels as I do, it was not too difficult to persuade them that this Bill should make rapid progress as soon as possible.

As the short title of the Bill indicates and as the Minister made clear in his opening, this is doing no more than laying the sound basis for the enactment of the sentencing code, which has been the subject of so much hard work by the Law Commission. As a rider to what I was saying about the speed at which this Bill has been brought before the House, one must wish that that rapid progress will be extended to the next stage of the process, when the sentencing code itself comes forward for enactment. Of course, at Second Reading we are concerned with only the issues of principle, not the details. The meat of the Bill really is in the two schedules, to which the Minister has referred, and there will be an opportunity for detailed examination of them in Committee with the advantage of the special procedure, to which reference has been made.

As for the issues of principle, perhaps I might make one or two points. The first is that there is no doubt whatever that the current law relating to sentencing has become less and less acceptable, and more and more confused, as it is scattered about various statutes which themselves have been subject to frequent amendment. It is one of the requirements of the rule of law that the law which the magistrates and judges have to apply in the sentencing process should be clear and accessible. As matters stand today, and for the reasons which have already been made, the law relating to sentencing is at serious risk of failing to meet that requirement. The purpose of the sentencing code is to address that problem, in a way that gets over the hurdle of piecemeal attempts to keep the law up to date. For that reason, one must applaud the work that has been done and the presence of this Bill before the Committee today.

There is, however, one aspect which deserves to be carefully noted. It is the approach to dealing with the changes in the law, which has been described as a clean sweep. The Minister referred to this in his opening. As I understand it, that is what subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 1 are about, being designed to ensure that those convicted after the code comes into force will be dealt with according to the most up-to-date law. But there is a corollary to that requirement: that the convicted person must not be dealt with by the imposition of a penalty of any kind which is more onerous than that which he would have faced when the offence was committed. This is the rule against retrospective penalties to which the Minister referred. I hope that particular care will be taken in Committee to see that the protections described in Clause 1(4) as needing to be in place before the Bill is enacted will be adequate in all circumstances. I have no doubt careful consideration will be given to that.

Although I said that we are concerned with principles and not with details I would like to draw attention to one other matter, bearing in mind that the jurisdiction from which I come is north of the border. I draw attention to paragraphs 90(1) and 90(2) and paragraphs 92(1) and 92(2) of Schedule 2. These provisions deal with the transfers of community orders and suspended sentences imposed in courts in England and Wales to Scotland under the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. The effect of Clause 5(6), which deals with the extent of the Bill, is that these provisions extend to the whole of the United Kingdom and not just to England and Wales. The effect is that to some degree, although not very much, the law of Scotland will be altered by the provisions to which I have referred. Have the Scottish Government been consulted about these provisions? If so, have they indicated whether they are content? I would not imagine there would be too much difficulty about that, but I would hope that the protocols were observed.

I draw attention to the power to make further amendments by regulation under Clause 2(2), which is also extended to Scotland by the provisions of Clause 5(6). In that connection, can the Minister assure the Committee that the usual conventions will apply in that case as well, if the power is exercised in a way that affects the law of Scotland? All that having been said, I am very happy to offer my full support to the Bill.