Sentencing (Pre-Consolidation Amendments) Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

3rd reading & Committee stage & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

In conclusion, we on this side of the House fully support the Government’s intention in concluding the Law Commission’s work, and we will not oppose the contents of the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s responses and working with him moving forward, ensuring that our legislation and regulations are fit for purpose and serve the best interests of the public.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) in his place on the Opposition Front Bench. I know that the Justice Committee, which I have the honour to Chair, will look forward to engaging with him and the Minister as we go forward on these issues. May I adopt a number of the questions that he has raised with the Minister, which are not partisan but important questions of procedure?

As the Minister rightly said, this is an important and technical Bill. It is warmly welcomed and, I think, universally supported among practitioners and, I hope, by the broader public too. It is therefore important that the substantial Bill makes progress as soon as possible. I join both Front Benchers in paying tribute to the work of the Law Commission. I might mention that again on Third Reading, as I know the Lord Chancellor will wish to do. I particularly want to mention the work of Professor David Ormerod, who was the criminal law commissioner for a period and recently retired. He has done exceptional work in this regard and has been almost the principal driver behind the measure and the code itself.

I particularly welcome the introduction of the “clean sweep” provisions in clause 1. That is novel, but it is much to be commended, and I hope that this will not be the only occasion on which it is used. Incorporation by reference, which is the style of legislative amendment we tend to have now in this country, can create inconsistencies and anomalies, and it is quite a bold measure to have a consolidation platform of this kind. I am glad to hear the Minister say that it is not intended that anything should undermine either the common law or article 7 rights that there shall not be retroactively greater punishment than would have been available at the time.

I particularly welcome the Minister’s reference to the need for linguistic clarity and consistency in sentencing legislation. That has been a real difficulty for those of us who have practised and sat in the criminal courts over the years. At the moment, about eight statutes have to be referred to, depending on the nature of the offence, and experienced professional judges can get this wrong as much as anyone else. I ask him for assurance that the Government as a whole will bear in mind the need for linguistic consistency in any further sentencing measures that may come forward. Many Bills may have sentencing provisions attached to them, and it is important that, having got consistency through clause 1, we do not lose that by a departure from that approach in future legislation, not all of which will necessarily come from the Ministry of Justice. I hope that the Government will take those points on board.

I think it will be generally welcomed by those who sat as recorders in the Crown courts, sometimes dealing with matters being sent up from the magistrates court on appeal, that the Bill will enable us to remove the current inconsistency of language between the law that must be applied in resentencing in the magistrates court as opposed to the Crown court. Although the effect is the same, and the rule on greater retrospectivity not being permitted remains the same, the language of the provisions relating to the Crown court and the magistrates court is different. That causes confusion when judges are sitting as recorders, or judges and recorders are sitting with magistrates on the Crown court dealing with an appeal from the magistrates court where they have to apply the magistrates court provisions. Anything that removes that anomaly is to be welcomed.

I think we all hope that the Bill is enacted as swiftly as possible. I note the observations of the noble Lord Judge, on behalf of the Joint Committee in the upper House, about the importance of the Bill and of it being a living instrument. Will the Minister reassure us that it is intended that all future Government legislation touching on criminal justice and sentencing matters will adhere to the principle behind the code?

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I concur with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). This is an uncontroversial Bill that has support right across the House, and as such, I do not wish to detain the Committee for long. However, I want to return to a subject raised by my colleagues on Second Reading, and I would be grateful if the Minister could respond today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) raised the shocking statistic mentioned in the Library briefing that 36% of 262 cases sampled by the Law Commission involved unlawful sentences. This has potential serious repercussions for the administration of justice in our courts. One suggestion made by my hon. Friend was for the Government to publish a list of common mistakes made, to draw to the attention of the judiciary. The Minister said he would investigate that idea, so could he update us on his investigation or any work being done to draw up that idea?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill]

I warmly congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor on the Bill and on his speech. In that very succinct and elegant speech, he made the case for why it is a thoroughly good thing to have a lawyer as Lord Chancellor as well as anyone, I think, could ever make it. He is absolutely right and, at risk of referring to my interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, every one of us who has practised in the field of criminal law knows the minefield that has developed in sentencing over the years. That is true in many respects, both in the technicalities to be circumvented and because, for both the advocate and the sentencer—never mind the defendant and the victims —it is, without any doubt, most stressful in human and emotional terms as well. Anything that brings clarity and consistency to sentencing is of great public importance.

In that regard, I welcome the tribute that the Lord Chancellor paid to the work of the Law Commission. It has been referred to, but on Third Reading I say again that we on the Justice Committee have always greatly valued the engagement of the Law Commission and, in the criminal justice field in particular, the work of Professor Ormerod, who is fundamental to this reform. His work on the Law Commission has rendered very great and significant public service indeed, and it is right that we put that on record.

The reforms have been well debated, but they are extremely welcome. I hope that this will also remind us of the value of the Law Commission as an institution and of the value of the Sentencing Council, which, when I started to practise, did not exist in its current form. We have developed and made our system of sentencing law sophisticated but not always simple—perhaps we can now have both. In particular, it is essential that the Law Commission is supported and properly resourced by Government, and I know that it will be at the current time.

There have been periods in the past when there was some concern even about the Law Commission’s very modest budgets and the support given to the Sentencing Council and others being put under pressure. I am reassured that that is not the case now.

As a country and a society, we get extraordinarily good value for money from the Law Commission. It is an undervalued institution in our public life and perhaps insufficiently recognised, though not by those involved in this debate. Against that background, it is a matter of more general regret that there has been a marked slowness —not unique to any one Government or Parliament—in introducing in legislation the Law Commission’s many thoughtful and considered recommendations on a raft of law reform. Criminal law is but one aspect that it deals with. In recent years, the rate of implementation of Law Commission recommendations has declined. Since 2010, of the 52 concluded projects listed in the table with its latest report, only 16 have been implemented either in full or in part. A succession of the Law Commission’s chairs have raised that over the years.

Although it is always a battle to get parliamentary time, I hope that, having got this important piece of work on to the statute book, we can ensure that, given the level of expertise available to us right across the law through the Law Commission, we do it the courtesy and justice of taking its recommendations seriously because they are invariably intended to be of public benefit. The Law Commission, by its nature and the way it works, can give a sometimes more considered view of important measures than is ever possible in our political debate, which is an important but different part of the process. Putting the two together gives us the best possible means of law reform. I hope that will be borne in mind. It is a good example of where collaboration, in the way the Lord Chancellor suggested, can work.

I welcome the Minister’s assurance in the Committee proceedings that the Bill will be treated, in the words of Lord Judge, as a “living instrument”. It is important that any future revisions to sentencing policy are consistent with the code, otherwise all that good work is undone. I was glad to have that reassurance. The Bill is an important step forward and I am delighted to support it.