Victims and Prisoners Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Friday 24th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, as we leave the House together, may I start by wishing you the very best for the future? I remember, as a keen young Opposition spokesman, being your shadow when you were Local Government Minister, and I could never have had a more charming or skilful opposite number. I learned a lot from that.

I see sitting behind me two of my oldest friends in politics: my hon. Friends the Members for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) and for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken). We have been around the block—literally—in various local government campaigns in London over many years. It is a certain irony that we have all decided to depart at the same time; that will probably be cause for a good lunch at some point. I have not forgotten that I owe the Minister one as well.

I pay tribute to the Minister for his approach. I totally agree with the shadow Minister, to whom I am also grateful—he has been a good friend in relation to this and to issues about the performing arts and music, which we have both championed in this place—as well as the SNP spokesman.

The Minister has been exemplary in his approach. We are fortunate in the team of Ministers that we currently have at the Ministry of Justice, including him and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor—although he is not here today, his name is on the amendments—who is a quite exceptional lawyer, a quite exceptional Lord Chancellor, a star in this Chamber and somebody whose integrity and commitment to the legal system will be long recognised.

These are improvements to the Bill—I am glad about that. May I also thank the Ministry of Justice officials? I have dealt with many of them over the years. I am sorry that they have had to put up with some of the things that the Justice Committee has lobbed at them over that time, but there has always been a great, constructive spirit. In that context, I particularly welcome the fact that the Government have taken on board a number of the Select Committee’s recommendations in relation to our pre-legislative scrutiny of what was then simply the Victims Bill and became the Victims and Prisoners Bill, as well as some, although not all, of our recommendations in relation to IPP prisoners; more on that in a moment.

The scrutiny of the Victims Bill was particularly led by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who served as my deputy on the Committee before she was rightly recalled to the Opposition Front Bench. I thank her too for the support she gave me on the Committee and the particular work she did for her constituents and for a better and fairer approach for victims in these cases. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), whom I first met when we were both elected to the London Assembly in 2000, for the exceptional work she has done in relation to infected blood. We can work cross-party on these matters and she has performed a great service.

Tribunal and Inquiries

Robert Neill Excerpts

Friday 24th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Bacon]

For the benefit of the people in the Strangers’ Gallery, I should say that it is not normal for politicians to be so nice to each other across the Dispatch Box. It gets a lot worse than this normally. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his words.

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

Will the Minister give way on the topic of being nice?

[Gareth Bacon]

I am really not sure that I should sully—no, of course I will.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I appreciate that this is perhaps one of the most contentious bits of legislation that we have to deal with in the wash-up, but I want to thank the Minister for the constructive approach that he has always adopted towards the business, and in particular for the way that he has engaged with the Justice Committee, which I have chaired, on a number of difficult issues over his time in post.

[Gareth Bacon]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. and learned Friend, my constituency neighbour, for his kind words. I have known him for more than 25 years. If the House will indulge me, I first met him when he defeated my wife in the selection for the Bexley and Bromley London Assembly constituency. We overcame that particular bump in the road very swiftly, and he has very much been a guiding light and mentor for me in the quarter of a century that has elapsed since. He is somebody who I have consistently looked up to—perhaps not physically, but certainly in every other sense.

I am grateful for the opportunity to close this debate. There will be a lot of valedictory speeches, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) will lead off on those, but I would like to personally mark this point. Many hon. and right hon. Members are retiring from the House today, as is inevitable when an election comes around. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). She has been an exceptional public servant over her 27 years in this House. Taking into account her local government experience in the London Borough of Merton, her public service extends for more than three decades. In my humble opinion, she personifies all that is best about public servants, with her selflessness and her devotion to duty and to the people she seeks to represent. The House will not be the same without her—or without you, Madam Deputy Speaker—and I wanted to get that on the record.

I am grateful for the contributions to this debate. The measure is a key element in the implementation of the Illegal Migration Act 2023. As I said in opening this debate, it is being considered today so that we can ensure that it is ready for IMA commencement after the election. I note the comments from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). I disagree with them profoundly, but that will be no surprise to her, because she disagrees with my position profoundly, and that is perfectly okay, and we will obviously contest this matter in a Division.

By laying this statutory instrument before Parliament, the Ministry of Justice has complied with the Lord Chancellor’s statutory obligations under section 50 of the IMA and ensured that the appropriate rules and procedures are in place for when the duty to remove commences. I commend the measures to the House.

Question put.

Coroners

Robert Neill Excerpts

Friday 24th May 2024 Commons Chamber

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

Mr Speaker, I hope to catch your eye later in today’s proceedings in order to thank you and others, but now I will confine my remarks to this measure and to congratulating the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Chris Webb).

This is a sensible measure, and I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Minister, who is my constituency neighbour—at least for a couple more days—in his place on the Treasury Bench. He will know that the Justice Committee published a substantial report on coroners some time ago, and that we recently did a follow-up. This measure is wise and sensible, but there are broader issues that need to be tackled in the coronial system. I hope that either my hon. Friend the Minister—if we come back into government—or any future Government will look again at our report, because the one thing that we have not done and that we need to do is tackle the root problem of the coroners system, which is that it is piecemeal and sits outside the rest of the normal judicial framework.

I hope that a future Government will revisit our recommendation that we should move to a national coroners service. That would ensure greater consistency and that the same service is provided to bereaved families right across the country, which is currently not the case. It would be a small investment but would do the right thing. There is, of course, a role for juries, particularly in important matters. I welcome the changes that the Government have made to the representation of families at inquests, but, again, I hope that we can go further, particularly where state agencies and public bodies are concerned.

This is a sensible measure in the right direction, but I hope that we will grasp the nettle and have a proper national coroners service—something that has been recommended overwhelmingly in the evidence to the Justice Committee and championed by both Chief Coroners with whom I have had the pleasure of working, His Honour Judge Mark Lucraft and the recently retired His Honour Judge Thomas Teague. Both have done a fantastic job as Chief Coroners, and I want to pay tribute to both of them.

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[Edward Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman, my friend, was my first Select Committee Chair back in 2008, when I joined the Children, Schools and Families Committee—a baptism of fire, as it turned out. I have been fortunate enough to serve under a number of excellent Chairs over the years. I wish him well in whatever comes next in the varied and colourful life that I am sure lies ahead of him.

Some of the detail behind this statutory instrument needs the continued attention of Ministers and the Ministry of Justice. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst touched on the need to look at the potential unification of the service, the funding model, how it is resourced—we do not want to imperil the rule of law by making the service unworkable—potentially the need for an inspectorate so that we know how well the service is functioning and, as the Minister rightly said, ensuring that we put bereaved families at the very heart of the process. I hope that this measure will be part of enabling many of those changes to take hold in the ensuing years.

Mr Speaker, as you will know, this is my second time around in Parliament—often called a retread, unfortunately—but, unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, this time I will not be back. This is the last time I will be standing up in this place, so I want to take the opportunity to thank you and all your team for your support and friendship over 14 out of the past 16 years. I also thank my staff up in Cheshire, in Eddisbury, and in Crewe and Nantwich my previous seat: Roz, Dan, Lynn, Joel, Amy and quite a few others who came before them, including Sean, who has recently got on the candidates list and I suspect has a reasonable chance of finding a seat, as we still have about 100 or so that have yet to find a candidate. If he is selected, I wish him and his campaign extremely well, as I do my own candidate successor, Aphra Brandreth, who will be standing in the new seat of Chester South and Eddisbury. She is a first-class candidate. I very much hope that she will be able to join colleagues here after the general election.

[Sir Robert Neill]

With characteristic modesty, my hon. Friend has not mentioned his own very significant contribution on the Justice Committee and as a Minister, and the contribution that he and his family have made to the justice system. Everybody knows the work that he, his brother and his father do to deal compassionately and humanely with those who go through prison. They and he are absolute role models. I am deeply grateful to him for his friendship and support, and we wish him all the very best for the future.

[Edward Timpson]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. and learned Friend. I probably ought now to declare my interests, which are on the register, not least my brother’s chairmanship of the Prison Reform Trust. They are there for all to see. It is true that there is clearly a gene in the Timpson family that makes us want to reach out beyond our own family to help others, whether that is through fostering or helping ex-offenders into work. That is something that, beyond Parliament, I want to continue to do.

Finally, I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Chris Webb) on an excellent maiden speech. It took me back to mine in 2008, a nerve-racking moment, but he delivered his superbly. I wish him and his family all the very best. I had a very young child when I first came into Parliament, and actually I had another young child when I came into Parliament again—it is obviously a route to success in this place.

I want to thank my own family: my late mother Alex and my father John, for all the inspiration and guidance that they have given me, my wife Julia, and my four children, Sam, Elizabeth, Lydia and Nell. I hope that they will see a bit more of me now, and I hope that is the right thing to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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

The Minister is right to recognise the work that is being done on the victims code, and I appreciate the Government’s taking on board a number of the recommendations made by the Justice Committee when we engaged in pre-legislative scrutiny of that Bill.

The Minister will know, however, that there is a particular issue with delays in cases of rape and serious sexual offences, where cases are taken out of the list because prosecuting counsel are not available—they simply cannot be found. She rightly referred to the increase in fees for solicitors and defence counsel. Does she agree that there is now just one piece of the jigsaw that needs to be put in place: to bring the fees for prosecuting counsel in those cases up to the same level as those for defence counsel? That would take about £1.5 million. Will she sit down with the Attorney General and talk with her about how we can do that swiftly?

[Laura Farris]

I can reassure my hon. and learned Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee, that I spoke to the chair of the Bar Council about exactly that issue last week, but I want to provide him with further reassurance. First, there has been correspondence between the Lord Chancellor and the senior presiding judge about any case of rape that is more than two years old. That correspondence is a couple of months old, and he said that all cases would be listed by July this year—that applies to 181 cases in England and Wales. I also want to draw my hon. and learned Friend’s attention to something I know he will be aware of: that we have increased the fees for section 28 hearings, which take place in an irregular sequence in the court listing, from £670 to over £1,000.

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[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

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

The Lord Chancellor will know that there is particular concern about the growth of the remand population in our prisons, which causes great disruption. He will also know that the senior presiding judge and others are taking innovative measures to list remand cases, but will the Lord Chancellor confirm that, to support that, there will be no financial cap on sitting days in the Crown courts?

[Alex Chalk]

As always, my hon. and learned Friend gets to the heart of the matter. Before the pandemic, around 9,000 people were in custody awaiting trial. The figure is now closer to 16,000, which plainly has an impact. It is because we did not get rid of jury trials, which was the right thing to do. I am grateful to the Lord Chief Justice and the senior presiding judge for considering remote hearings of bail applications, to ensure that more lawyers are able to do the cases. Having enough practitioners, as well as sitting days, is critical, and both will have my attention.

End of Custody Supervised Licence: Extension

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

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

This is a perfectly rational, sensible and pragmatic response to the pressures in our prisons, and the Minister should take credit for it. However, I do ask him to reconsider the point about the transparency of data—precisely because it is a sensible thing to do, there is no reason why we should not release the figures in better time. But the underlying problem, which all parties in this House must face up to, is that the pressures in our prisons, to which the Justice Committee has repeatedly referred, stem from decades of underfunding by Governments of all parties? Prison costs £46,000-plus per year for each place, so it is a very expensive way of dealing with people, and not always the best means for handling lower-level offenders. May we have a more intelligent debate on sentencing and the purpose of prison, and perhaps we could start with the Minister committing to bringing back the sentencing Bill, which would enable us to have a more nuanced approach?

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee, Sir Robert Neill KC.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s comments about the progress made on tackling reoffending, but he will be aware that it remains stubbornly high. We are in an unfortunate position: we imprison more people than most of our neighbours in Europe, but still have higher rates of reoffending. Does that not posit the fact that we need to make more intelligent use of prison, and of alternatives to custody, as parts of a joined-up system? Would he agree that the Sentencing Bill is particularly valuable in this regard, and can we hope for its swift return to the House?

[Alex Chalk]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his excellent point. He says something with which I passionately agree: strip out the emotion and follow the evidence. The evidence shows that there are tools available to this generation of politicians that were not necessarily available 10 or 15 years ago. I am talking not just about GPS tags, which we have doubled, but alcohol tags, with which there is a 97% compliance rate. The reoffending rate among those who live with the sword of Damocles hanging over them can be much lower than for those who spend a short time in custody.

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[Mike Freer]

The Legal Aid Agency keeps the location of providers under constant review. We have invested an additional £10 million over the last few months in those specific types of legal aid. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me, I can give him the details of where the spend is going in his local area.

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

Joshua Rozenberg KC has presented “Law in Action” on Radio 4 over the past 20 years, and it has frequently shed important light on areas of our justice system that need attention. Does the Secretary of State share my disappointment that today’s broadcast will be the programme’s last, because it has not been recommissioned? Will he also pay tribute to Joshua Rozenberg for his work?

[Alex Chalk]

I am very grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for raising this point. Joshua Rozenberg has made a profound and important contribution to our country. Indeed, he is required reading, and I read him most days. I share my hon. and learned Friend’s profound regret, and I echo his sentiments. I think the whole House will wish Joshua Rozenberg well.

Prisons and Probation: Foreign National Offenders

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

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

I commend the Secretary of State for his characteristically thoughtful and measured approach. Does he agree that it does no one any good service to try to reduce this issue to simplistic arguments? The truth is that dealing with prison capacity, where everyone has recognised for many years that there are real pressures, demands a careful set of checks and balances. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that those are in place? Does he also agree that we need to be honest with the public in saying that, however much we try, prison places are expensive and finite. Therefore, the system must make judicious and intelligent use of prison, which includes locking up those who are dangerous and having alternative ways of dealing with and punishing those who are not dangerous to the community. Is that not the objective?

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend makes an exceptional point. We have to proceed on the basis of evidence, not emotion. We choose to lock up the most dangerous offenders for longer, which is why those who murder in the context of sexual or sadistic behaviour should be in custody for the rest of their lives, because the threat to the population is so great. Where people can be reformed using technology, which was not available a long time ago, we should use that, not just because that works as a matter of common sense but because the data shows that it works.

On my hon. Friend’s specific point, anyone who looks at this issue calmly and in an adult way will see that there have been pressures in moments in history. There was one in 1997 and another in 2007, when Jack Straw had a terrible argument with Lord Falconer about the use of cells in Inner London Crown court. Those of us who have been in the system remember that. The key is whether to deal with that in a sensible, calibrated and proportionate way. We will take every step to look after the safety of the public, and we will not score political points in the process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

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

My right hon. and learned Friend will know that, only last week, the Court of Appeal criminal division, presided over by the Lady Chief Justice, quashed in bulk a number of Horizon appeals, on the basis of a half-hour hearing. When the cases get to court, the courts can deal with them swiftly.

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that in framing any legislation, because of the constitutional implications, it is important that we bear in mind that the failures are the failure of a prosecutor to do their duty, or perhaps the failure of the state to come to the aid of victims, but they are not the failure of the courts, which always acted entirely properly on the material put before them by the parties at the time? It was a failure of the parties, not of the courts.

[Alex Chalk]

As always, my hon. Friend gets to the heart of it. This was a failure of the Post Office, which is an emanation of the state, and it is the duty of the state to put it right. The courts have approached this entirely properly. The Post Office failed to discharge the solemn obligations on any prosecutor to act fairly and to comply with their obligations under section 3 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 to disclose material that might reasonably be considered capable of undermining the case of the prosecution, or of assisting the case of the defence. When I was prosecuting, the first rule was that we did not seek a conviction at all costs, which is an important principle that the Post Office failed to appreciate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I will not go on about how I might have got people into Wormwood Scrubs in the past in one way or another—[Interruption]—and, indeed, got some of them out!

I am sure the Minister will know that a key point that comes up time and again in reports from His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons, and when issues are raised by the Justice Committee, is the lack of purposeful activity. The physical estate is part of that problem, but so are issues relating to staffing and access to education and other provision. Is it perhaps time for a strategy for the whole of the Prison Service with rehabilitation at its centre, and might not one solution to the problem be a statutory definition of the purposes of prison, of which rehabilitation—along with protection of the public—would be a key part? Would that not be a way of holding people’s feet to the fire in order to deliver rehabilitation in the public interest?

[Edward Argar]

I shall certainly be happy to have that discussion with my hon. Friend if he feels that it would be useful. He is right to highlight the importance of adequate staff numbers, but I should point out that they have increased by 6.7% in the past year. I am also happy to tell him that this month we are launching the national regime model, which will require prisons to set out ambitious plans for dedicated purposeful activity—time out of cell. That will indeed hold their feet to the fire, because, as we know, such a regime is central to rehabilitation.

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[Mike Freer]

I will have to write to the hon. Gentleman and check exactly what the provisions are for legal aid under the Illegal Migration Act. I am more than happy to provide him with the details and meet him if necessary.

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

Precisely because legislating to overturn convictions would be so unprecedented, will my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor make sure that before such a step is taken, he is satisfied from conversations with the senior judiciary that the means of triaging and consolidating appeals that currently exist may not be capable of delivering justice within an acceptable timeframe?

[Alex Chalk]

That is precisely the point, and my hon. Friend has put his finger on it. Of course, we would not want to stray into the normal lane of the judiciary; we have huge respect for our independent judiciary, who do an exceptionally good job of ensuring that there is fairness on the facts before them. As I have said, the case is wholly unprecedented, and we will want to have exhausted all alternatives before taking radical action.

Sentencing Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I shall be supporting the Bill without hesitation tonight, and I hope to do so without indulging in some of the party political knockabout that has bedevilled debate around sentencing and prisons for too long. Frankly, our political system has failed the justice system over many decades, so let us try to step back and put the Bill into context, because context is sometimes lacking in these debates.

For the first time ever, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 set down five statutory purposes of sentencing: the punishment of offenders, the reduction of crime, the reform and rehabilitation of offenders, the protection of the public and the making of reparation to victims. There will always be a balancing act between those statutory purposes, and the way in which the balance falls will vary, perfectly properly, according to the nature of the offence and the circumstances of the offender. As with all sentencing, that must ultimately be decided by our independent judiciary. It is perfectly proper that Parliament sets the legal framework within which the judiciary operate—that is a matter of public policy—but the application of those balances to an individual case will ultimately be decided by the judge or the magistrate, and we have a highly experienced Court of Appeal to put the judge right if he or she gets it wrong in a very small minority of cases. That is part of the checks and balances of our system.

It is equally clear to those of us who serve on the Justice Committee and those of us who, like the Lord Chancellor, have spent the whole of our working lives in the criminal justice system and the criminal courts of this country—both prosecuting and defending—that courts do not, and do not pretend to, sentence in a vacuum. Of course judges are aware of public opinion, so engaging in debate about sentencing policy is legitimate and justified, but we also owe it to the public to do that in a temperate, considered and evidence-based fashion. All too often, I am afraid, we get a bidding war as to who can have the toughest rhetoric around sentencing policy, but toughness has very little to do with delivering impacts on the ground. It is against that background that I think the proposals in the Bill are a sensible package.

Let us look at what the Bill does and does not achieve. The Justice Committee carried out a very detailed piece of scrutiny, and we have published a report, “Public opinion and understanding of sentencing”. In seeking to put some context into the debate around sentencing, we did not just leave it to the views of expert witnesses or our own views as politicians; we made a more extensive effort at public engagement than any Select Committee before us. For example, we commissioned a public polling exercise. Some 2,057 adults in England and Wales were asked about their knowledge of, and views on, sentencing. We also used Involve, a well-established participation charity, to facilitate a deliberate engagement exercise, and we had some 25 adults in England and Wales meet over three half-day sessions to discuss the aims and objectives of sentencing.

The public—perhaps no one can blame them—get very little information about how sentencing works and how the justice system works, so their information is very patchy. As an example, only 22% of respondents were aware that Parliament is responsible for setting the maximum sentence in law for a criminal offence. So if we are to have a proper debate about sentencing, that must be done from a properly informed basis.

We found that the public’s opinions, although sometimes having that lack of information about how sentencing works, showed a certain degree of consistency and common sense about what the objectives of it were. People certainly wanted to see the public protected. They also wanted to see justice done to the victim, and reoffending prevented. Those, again, are all parts of the balance.

It is interesting that when members of the public were asked in the abstract about sentencing, their views on sentencing were much harsher than when they were asked about the facts of an individual case. Some time ago—some Members may remember this—the Ministry of Justice had an online tool called “You be the Judge”. That consistently showed that when people were asked in the abstract what they thought a sentence should be, they would say, “Whack—go hard!” But when the facts of the case and circumstances of the offender were put to them—the very balance that the sentencer must always use—they adopted a much more nuanced approach. Once the public have the proper information, they are not simplistic in their views in the way that some politicians and some of the media like to suggest, so we owe them that proper and informed debate.

The other interesting point that arose was that the public think that prison sentences are much softer than they actually are. A majority of the people we spoke to actually thought that those sentences had got softer or lighter in recent years, whereas the evidence clearly demonstrates that exactly the reverse is true. Sentences for indictable offences have grown significantly over the last 10 to 15 years. We actually imprison more people as a percentage of those convicted of serious offences, and we imprison them for longer. That places very real pressures on our prison system. We must therefore be honest with the public about what the trade-offs are in this regard.

As the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, said when he gave evidence to our inquiry, judges are aware that public opinion has hardened in relation to offences of a sexual nature and violence. That is reflected in what the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State is proposing to do in the Bill. The public expect that those who are dangerous will get longer sentences. I have no trouble with that at all, but, equally, £47,000 a year is an expensive amount to be spending. It is money well spent on the dangerous people—as the Lord Chancellor may have once said, imprisonment is really for those we are rightly frightened of; those who are a threat to us. But, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said, many of the people we have in prison at the moment are there because of many failures in their lives. Those are sometimes self-inflicted, or sometimes a result of circumstances beyond their control that have led to poor mental health, illiteracy, poor education, alcohol and drug addiction, break-up in family relationships early in their lives and chaotic lives. All those things lead many of the people in prison—perhaps the majority—into prison.

That chimes with my own experience in 30 years at the Bar. I prosecuted and defended in serious criminal cases, as the Lord Chancellor has, and I have met some thoroughly evil people in my time; so, I suspect, has the Lord Chancellor—[Interruption.] I hasten to add that that is purely at the Bar and in the courts. I have also met an awful lot of people who came into that category of mixed-up people with failures in their lives. We need to be more nuanced, and in fact I think the public recognise that, when it comes to a sensible approach to sentencing.

I am a little surprised that some colleagues in the House have accused us of being a bit soft in relation to some of these matters. There is nothing soft about the Lord Chancellor’s experience. Dare I say to some of my right hon. and hon. Friends and other Members that the Lord Chancellor has locked up more dangerous criminals, or had a hand in doing so, than anybody else in the House? He need take no lessons from anybody about being tough on criminals. He has done it every working day of his life and has the greater credibility for it. [Interruption.] Terrorists, murderers—you name it. He has actually done the job, rather than pontificate about it from the green leather Benches. Against that background, we ought to give credibility to the proposals.

What, then, do we need to do? It is not a question of harsher sentencing or softer sentencing. That is a sterile debate. What we really ought to be talking about is smarter sentencing. That means locking up dangerous people for as long as necessary and being honest with the public about the cost, but it also means finding better and cleverer ways to deal with those who can be rehabilitated. Not everyone can be, but the majority probably can be. Given how overcrowded our prisons are at the moment—old, Victorian and with too many people in them—it is impossible to do the rehabilitative work necessary to turn lives around. We simply cannot get the education done, and we cannot get the drug and alcohol treatment courses done sufficiently to get people clean. We cannot enable them to come out and get a job, because we simply have too many people in there at the moment. That is not serving the purpose of imprisonment very well at all.

I might make one point in passing to the Lord Chancellor. I referred to the statutory purposes of sentencing at the beginning of my speech. Interestingly, there are no statutory definitions of the purpose of prison. Perhaps we should look at that as the Bill progresses. It might concentrate the mind as to what Governments and Oppositions constructively want to do and what we want as a society from the prison system that costs us so much. We might take that forward constructively—I hope on a cross-party basis—as the Bill goes forward.

Against that background, I want to turn very briefly to the measures in the Bill. Whole-life orders have been discussed. There is a balance to be struck, but my one concern—the Lord Chancellor will know it—is what is the incentive now for a person charged with murder, who is going to get a whole-life order, to plead guilty? That is a trouble because we all know that for a victim to relive an experience in court, or for a family to have the death of their loved one relived in court, eked out over many days, is a real trauma. Therefore, the discount for a guilty plea is an important part in the justice system. It not only speeds up the trial, but above all it relieves victims and their families of a trauma. I would be concerned if we inadvertently created a reduction in the number of people pleading guilty. It is not a high number for offences of this kind compared with other types of offence, but we should bear in mind any unintended consequences.

It seems eminently sensible to extend the home detention curfew arrangements, not least because when they were brought in they related to four years’ imprisonment. Because of sentence inflation—sentences have got longer—the percentage of the prison population sentenced to imprisonment of four years or less and qualifying for early release has diminished. What we are doing, in effect, is catching up with sentence inflation by making release on home detention available, which is eminently sensible. The truth is that if people can make it work earlier, it is all the better. The sooner we can get people reintegrated into society, the easier that will be. Our reports in the past have urged that more be done to ensure that people come out of prison with a place to live and an opportunity to get work. Release on home detention will ease that transition. At the moment, there can be something of a cliff edge. People come out with their discharge grant and very little else—they are on their own. That is why periods of post-sentence release are very valuable, and this is a sensible way to do that.

Finally, let me turn to the presumption in favour of suspending sentences of less than 12 months. The first thing to say is that it is a presumption. Ultimately, it will still be for the judge or magistrate to decide. It is perfectly reasonable as a matter of public policy to say that unless there are exceptional circumstances, short sentences shall be suspended. Ultimately, though, there will be cases in which the judge will, perfectly properly, decide that that is not appropriate.

Let me give one example. References were made to cases of domestic violence; clearly that is something we can look at. A very different case that is often raised with me is that of perverting the course of justice, when someone, for example, tells a lie about who was driving a car when they got a speeding ticket—something not wholly unknown even in this place. The person who gives the lying evidence to the court about that undermines the justice system, and it has been felt that the clang of the prison gates is necessary in those circumstances. There are not many of them, but that is exactly the sort of circumstance in which the presumption would not be used, as well as the other ones that are set out. The provision in the Bill does not change that, but it does mean that generally people would not be sentenced immediately.

The other important difference, to which the Lord Chancellor referred, is that we now have far better control over people when they are on suspended sentences than we did in the old days. The use of suspended sentences has dropped off greatly: I think that now only about 4% of sentences of imprisonment are suspended; it used to be much more. Now that we have much more effective tagging, curfews and alcohol treatment orders, I think we could use them more effectively, because they are a better means of control. So I think the approach is sensible.

On the reoffending statistics, I have to say that I understand the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) in his intervention, but when I looked at the stats it was pretty clear that they consistently show that there is a lower level, by about four percentage points at the very least, and that that applies whether the sentence is three months, six months or nine months.

[Neil O’Brien]

Just to clarify the point, the statistics that my hon. Friend cites show that for those who were given a short prison sentence, the reoffending rate after they left prison was 75.6%, compared with 71.5% for those on a suspended sentence, but for somebody who has been in prison for, say, one year, their reoffending rate over that year while they are in prison is zero, so the right comparison is between zero and 71%. If we include the effect of the prison sentence rather than ignoring it, as the Ministry of Justice’s 2019 research does, there is an astronomical difference between the reoffending rate in toto over one year for those who were given a short prison sentence versus those who were not. There is a complete misunderstanding of what the statistics show us.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am sorry to have to say that my hon. Friend is just plain wrong on that, because that assumes that there is an incapacitation effect, as is sometimes said—

[Neil O’Brien]

When they are in prison, yes.

[Sir Robert Neill]

But equally, there is perfectly good evidence to suggest that there is an incapacitation effect of properly worked through and imposed sentences in the community as well, so it is not a zero incapacitation effect the other way round. Plus, there are the other damaging things that are done in prison in terms of the inability to turn lives around, and the majority of people are going to be released.

The other problem, which is not picked up in my hon. Friend’s stats—I do not criticise him for it, but it is a fact—is that short sentences are clearly demonstrated to disrupt community ties. That is important because the three things that are generally said to be best to prevent reoffending are a steady relationship, a home or roof over your head, and a job. If anyone has those and they get a short sentence of imprisonment, the likelihood is that they will lose their flat and their job, and it is much more likely that the relationship will break up, and they then come out in a worse place to avoid reoffending than they started in.

There is, then, good sense in the policy. Of course, we can always examine the stats, but there is a good public policy reason for the change, because it actually reduces reoffending, and if it reduces reoffending, that is in the public good, because fewer people reoffending means fewer victims of crime, and fewer victims of crime is in the public interest and is a sensible use of money. I say that as somebody who has never been a soft touch when it comes to these matters in my professional life. I say it in a hard-headed fashion as somebody who spent their life doing this, and I know that the Lord Chancellor has come to the same conclusion.

I urge Members to support the Bill. It strikes the right balance. These issues are always difficult and sometimes emotive, but I hope that I have demonstrated that balance on the basis of the evidence that I have picked up as Chair of the Select Committee, and I hope we can find common ground on which to take the Bill forward. We have had a very piecemeal approach to sentencing policy over the years, under Governments of all persuasions; we probably need a more holistic approach. The Bill does sensible things and I hope the House will support it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

That is a plausible argument, except that having a tag on your ankle is not a deprivation of liberty in quite the same way as being in prison. Being able to go on eating fast food, watching telly and doing all the other things that you might do at home is not quite as much of a deprivation, is it?

Moreover, we have heard this so often before. It is true that technology has moved on and the tags are of a rather different kind, thanks to the work that was referred to earlier, but when tags were first introduced we were told that the technology was such—these things were so secure—that no one would be able to evade their application or use, only to find that all that was wanting. My hon. Friend will therefore forgive me for a certain degree of scepticism—not cynicism. I am cynical about nothing. However, I am sceptical about this.

The second principle of criminal justice is to provide respite for those who have been victims of crime, and others who might be, by taking people off the streets. That is to put the victims and others out of harm’s way by removing the harm—literally taking the harm beyond their purview—which is what prison does. It may be that if these tags work perfectly—if these people are constrained in the way suggested by the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend—I suppose the victims may be protected anyway; but I suspect that people in my constituency and elsewhere who have been victims of some of the crimes concerned would say, “I want these people to be as far away from me as possible, and as far away as possible from my children, my home and my community. I do not want to know these people or see them daily, because they have done harm witnessed by those who live in my locality.”

The third principle of criminal justice is that once you have caught someone, convicted them and sentenced them, you might take steps to prevent them from committing crime again. Of course I understand that. There has been a long-standing debate between those on the retributionist side of the argument, like me, and those on the rehabilitationist side of the argument, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who believe that crime is essentially an ill to be treated, and that the circumstances of the criminal—those were my hon. Friend’s words—are more important than the event of the crime.

[Sir Robert Neill]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

Now we will hear some more about the circumstances of the criminal.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I hope that my right hon. Friend will gently withdraw the incorrect attribution. What I said was that, as part of the balancing exercise, the sentencer must take into account both the nature of the offence and the circumstances of the offender, which is wholly different.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend did indeed say that, and it is the argument that I have heard repeatedly over decades—that if only we could understand more about the circumstances of the offender, we could dig down to why they ended up like this, and perhaps we could make the world a better place. It is a lovely idea and we can see the sentiments that drive it, which are probably quite noble in many ways.

Frankly, however, these are the arguments that have permeated the debate since the Children and Young Persons Act 1969—my hon. Friend will remember that, but it was before my time—when intermediate treatment orders were introduced. Remember those? The Government then said that, because the circumstances of the offender were of such concern—because these people had had such shabby and difficult lives—they would impose an intermediate treatment order, which is a community sentence in the modern idiom. So young thugs, vandals and villains were sent off on holiday in the Brecon Beacons and such places, while their contemporaries who were law-abiding and just as poorly off—working-class fellows who had done nothing wrong—were lucky if they got a weekend at Margate. That is the kind of thinking that, unfortunately, has punctuated the debate on criminal justice for far too long.

Crime is not an illness to be treated; it is a malevolent choice to be punished, and that is what the public expect. In the paper on this subject by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, to which he drew the House’s attention a few moments ago, he makes this very clear on page 33:

“Lord Burnett of Maldon, Lord Chief Justice between 2017 and 2023, speaking in December 2020, said:

‘To my mind, there has been a perceptible hardening of the public and political attitude to crime, particularly sexual and violent offending, which has resulted in a general shift in the balance between culpability and harm when determining sentence.’”

In other words, to put it in a nutshell, people want those who do harm, damage lives and spoil others’ chances to be treated more severely, not less severely. Frankly, I do not think the Bill meets that test. I do not think that the emphasis on recidivism at the heart of this Bill—as I have said, it is understandable and perhaps even noble—will be welcomed by the vast majority of people, whose position has hardened in precisely the way my hon. Friend’s Committee’s report suggests.

My perspective on the people who commit these crimes is as follows. Let us look at what crimes most commonly attract sentences of 12 months or less. The most common is theft from shops. We have an explosion in shoplifting, as has been highlighted by Members on both sides of the House. It is something we should take seriously and act upon. That is about 13% of short sentences. Then there is common assault and battery. Yes, I agree that it is not grievous bodily harm, as the Secretary of State rightly said, but I suspect most people would feel that common assault and battery should result in a custodial sentence. That is 9% of sentences of 12 months or less. Then there is assault of an emergency worker. Can we think of anything more appalling than that—a fireman or ambulance crew turns up at an emergency and is assaulted by someone? My goodness! That is about 3%. Breaching a restraining order is 7% and possession of an article with a blade or point—in other words, a knife—is 6%. That is the list of sentences that most commonly attract 12 months or less in prison, which is the kind that are now to be suspended.

This proposal neither passes the test necessary to fulfil the key functions of the criminal justice system, nor passes the still more fundamental test of being likely to restore—I say “restore” rather than “maintain”, because I think it is a matter of restoration—public confidence in law and order. If we want once again, as we should in this place, to reflect and give life to public sentiment, frankly, this Bill will have to be amended very significantly indeed.

Disraeli said that

“justice is truth in action.”—[Official Report, 11 February 1851; Vol. 114, c. 412.]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is a deductive thinker: he likes to look at the evidence and deduce an outcome. I am more of an inductive thinker: I believe in arguing from first principles, so the truth really matters to me. On that basis, I say to Ministers, “Let us amend this Bill. Let us take the best parts of it, and change those things that will not pass either of the tests I have set out.” I therefore reserve my right to oppose it on Third Reading, but knowing this new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), and knowing our excellent Secretary of State, I rather suspect that they have heard those arguments and taken careful note of them—for I know too that they are the kind of politicians who want to do the right thing, rather than the easy thing.