Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

The Government seem to be set on a course that will increase the prison population and sentence inflation without concentrating significantly on cutting reoffending through helping offenders to avoid crime, thereby achieving an overall reduction in the levels of crime and its huge social and economic costs for society. That is why we need an independent and serious royal commission on criminal sentencing. Such a commission would focus government and public attention on the great deal of real, hard evidence that there is about the ineffectiveness of long prison sentences, and the need for a new, rebalanced, humane and evidence-based approach to using the criminal justice system to cut reoffending through rehabilitation and reform. I beg to move.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

I will speak briefly in support of this amendment. There are five reasons for my support.

First, the debates on this Bill have shown the enormous disparity of views that can be expressed about sentencing. We have ranged from restorative justice, which I warmly support, to long prison sentences. We need to look at it in whole and strategically.

Secondly, the Sentencing Code shows how complicated the system we have devised is. It needs simplification so that people can understand the system better.

Thirdly—and this is a point on which I have found Her Majesty’s Treasury more enlightened than many—are we getting value for money? I doubt whether the present system is delivering value for money.

Fourthly, a royal commission in itself is value for money. It is certainly far better value for money than management consultants, who are often deployed to look at these issues.

Finally, the time is right. I see no reason why we cannot take a comprehensive and strategic view of where we are going. I have expressed no views on what the outcome should be; I am interested solely in the mechanism of getting a strategic approach that simplifies sentencing and delivers value for money.