Sentencing Bill [HL]

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

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

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con) [V]]

My Lords, first I draw attention to my interests as set out in the register.

I warmly welcome this legislation. The principle of consolidation is an excellent one and I am pleasantly struck by the near-universal support for it in this instance. The proposed new code will bring greater clarity, which in turn will assist legal professionals in accurately identifying and applying the law, reducing the risk of error, appeals and unnecessary delays.

The Bill will also enhance access to the sentencing process, and particularly its transparency, for the general public. I was a member of the Constitution Committee, and our report of 25 October 2017 contained a substantial section dealing with consolidation. We had been particularly struck by evidence from the Law Commission which had set out two arguments in favour of consolidation. The first was that

“unlike a Queen’s Printer’s copy, a statute in digital form can be readily updated when the legislation is amended”.

Secondly, statute law is accessible free of charge on the internet, so that a single Act of Parliament containing all the statute law on one subject can be a useful resource that is available to the public as well as to lawyers. We found those arguments persuasive and we recommended that:

“The Government should as a priority provide the Law Commission with the necessary resources to start consolidating those areas of the law where the consistent application of the law is under threat from the sheer complexity of the statute book. The evidence we received indicates that consolidating immigration law and sentencing law in particular would offer real benefits.”


Consolidation may lack the giddy excitement that we associate with so many debates in the House, but it is tremendously valuable to the courts, to those who support the courts and to society in general.

All those of us who have studied law will recall the lengthy and often arid discussions about the nature of laws, what makes a good law and so forth. I have always inclined to the view of the late Sir John Mortimer:

“No brilliance is needed in the law, nothing but common sense and relatively clean fingernails.”


There is no single or simple answer to the question of what makes a good law, but if a complex system is codified and made more readily accessible, that to my mind makes for a better law and a better system of law.