Sentencing Bill

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

I will be relatively brief. As a member of the magistracy who spends time sentencing—in fact, I was sentencing last week on a whole range of issues that come before the Merseyside bench—I am acutely aware that the British public, including my constituents, want to ensure that the criminal justice system is fair and proportionate and fair to victims as a principal concern. Today we are debating a Bill that will strengthen those principles by making sure that the most serious offenders receive tougher sentences that reflect the severity of their crimes. The Bill will remove from society those who pose the greatest danger to the public while also reducing the rate of reoffending by lower-risk criminals.

Too often, I see familiar faces in the courtroom and I want the Government to do much more to take steps to break the cycle of reoffending. That is not just a matter for the criminal justice system; it is for every part of the Government, in particular the Departments for Work and Pensions and for Education. We can do much more to break the cycle.

The Bill introduces a presumption that sentences under 12 months will be suspended, punishing and rehabilitating offenders by using technology to deliver and enforce tough curfews and work in the community, where they can begin to repay their debt to society. Of all the announced measures, the presumption against an immediate short-term custodial sentence in favour of a suspended sentence or community order is particularly relevant in magistrates courts. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) said just a moment ago, that is essentially the approach that we already take in the magistrates court, where, even if the custody threshold for an offence is exceeded, the practice is for magistrates to consider in the first instance whether a suspended sentence or community order would be far more appropriate.

Magistrates consider a range of facts and sentencing, and they do not sentence in an isolated form. The first thing they do is look at the antecedents of the criminal before them. If that criminal has a long list of previous convictions, they are more likely to go back to prison because that is the way magistrates operate in their courts. Magistrates follow very detailed sentencing guidelines. They work tirelessly to ensure that there is consistency across all courts and to consider the statutory aggravating and mitigating factors, and they look carefully to ensure that the punishment fits the crime. However, it is important that magistrates retain the discretion for immediate custody if neither a suspended sentence nor a community order is suitable. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor is aware of that.

I will conclude by touching on two other brief points. First, on prison capacity, I recognise the importance of extending the prison estate, and the Minister has very kindly notified me that Thorn Cross Prison in my constituency is likely to see an increase of 76 prisoners as a result of the increased use of rapid deployment cells once planning permission has been granted. Can the Minister confirm that an appropriate increase in staffing will follow? That prison has had significant issues with drugs being delivered into it. When the Lord Chancellor was prisons Minister, he spent time meeting my constituents to consider that particular area. Can the Department confirm that the relevant experienced prison officers will come alongside the additional prisoners?

Can the Minister also confirm that there will be no change in the type of prisoners that are held there? There had been discussions about holding sex offenders who are coming to the end of their sentences, but it was then decided that that would not happen. The prison is in very close proximity to a school, so I would be very grateful if the Minister ensured that that does not happen.

I welcome the provisions in the Bill, which will put public protection at the heart of sentencing. The Government are taking an evidence-based, long-term approach to sentencing to ensure that we are tough on violent crime, committed to reducing reoffending, and doing what is needed to keep the public safe.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Opposition Front Bencher.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)]

As this is the first time I have faced the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) across the Dispatch Box, I would like to start on a point of agreement. I agree with him that this has been a strong and thoughtful debate, and I am grateful to all those who have spoken.

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor said when he opened the debate, the Bill builds on our record of cutting crime, and it will protect the public and cut crime even further. The most dangerous offenders will remain behind bars for longer, and we will take action to prevent those who have committed low-level offences from falling further into lives of crime. Right hon. and hon. Members have raised a wide range of points and questions. Unfortunately, in the time I have I will not be able to respond to all of them, but I am of course happy to engage with Members individually later—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. There are a lot of Members entering the Chamber, for reasons that are apparent, who have not taken part in or heard this debate. I hope the House will do the Minister the courtesy of listening to his winding-up speech.

[Gareth Bacon]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will respond to Members I do not mention individually either in writing or in person, especially on any points that I miss.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), who opened the debate for the Opposition, started her remarks by saying that the Government are doing nothing to address prison places. It is true that the prison population has risen under this Government, and that is because more people are going to prison for longer under this Government. It is not true to say that the Government are doing nothing about prison places. We have set about the largest prison building programme since the Victorian era. We have set about building 20,000 new prison places, backed by £4 billion of investment, and we have delivered 5,500 of those places already, with a further 2,000 coming on line later this year. By the end of 2025, we will have delivered over 10,000 places in total. We are building six new prisons. HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way have opened in the last two years. HMP Millsike is under construction in York, and three further prisons in Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire and Lancashire are going through the planning process.

The hon. Member went on to attack us over probation. She is right that some prison capacity measures will increase the demand for probation, but we are committed to ensuring that probation has the resource it needs to meet demand. This year we have already increased funding for the probation service by £155 million, to recruit staff, bring down case loads and better deliver the supervision of offenders in the community. We continue to focus on recruitment and retention, and we have accelerated the recruitment of trainee probation officers to increase staffing levels, particularly in areas with the most significant staffing challenges. As a result, we have increased staffing in the probation service by over 4,000 people since 2020.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood finished her speech with the claim that Labour is in favour of tough sentences, but the fact of the matter is that Labour has opposed every single measure this Government have introduced since entering office. It was Labour that introduced the halfway release point for serious offenders under section 244 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and it was Labour that voted against us when we toughened sentences for serious offenders.

Labour voted against our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, preferring to keep dangerous criminals on our streets rather than behind bars. That Act introduced whole-life orders for child killers and life sentences for drivers who kill while intoxicated, ended the automatic release of dangerous and violent sexual offenders, and gave the Secretary of State the power to refer to the Parole Board high-risk offenders who would otherwise be automatically released. Labour voted against all of that, so we will take no lessons from them.

The hon. Member for Cardiff West ran through the list of speakers. I will not do the same, but I will pick out a few. The Chairman of the Justice Committee and my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), gave a characteristically knowledgeable, thoughtful and balanced speech, substantially supported by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler). He set out the statutory purpose of prison, and he suggested that we should have smarter sentencing—we will look at that. He also made the sensible point that short sentences disrupt community ties, relationships, jobs and home life, and that the loss of these can lead to greater reoffending.

On short sentences, I make it clear that we are not abolishing sentences of immediate custody. There is no proposed ban. The courts will retain wide discretion to impose immediate custody in many circumstances, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) correctly observed. Where a sentence is suspended, the courts have a range of robust powers to ensure that offenders are effectively managed, including electronic monitoring to ensure that curfews of up to 20 hours a day are observed, and exclusion zones so that they stay out of areas where they are most likely to get into trouble. There are also various high-tech solutions, such as alcohol tags that are so sophisticated they can take a reading of an offender’s sweat every 30 minutes to make sure they are confronting the issues with alcohol that landed them in trouble in the first place.

It is also true that more than 50% of those who are sentenced to less than 12 months will go on to commit another offence within one year of their release. When offenders are given suspended sentences in the community, with conditions, the reoffending rate is much lower at around 24%. The Ministry of Justice’s own robust evidence suggests that similar offenders, given community sentences or suspended sentence orders, are four percentage points less likely to reoffend than those sentenced to short custodial sentences. That might not sound like a great deal, but it could mean that up to 21,000 fewer offences are committed, meaning that fewer of our constituents become victims of crime.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) rightly mentioned remand and how the significant rise in remand is contributing to prison demand. There are various reasons for the increase in remand, but the court backlog driven by the pandemic and the subsequent Bar strike are substantial reasons. We are doing everything in our power to bring down the backlog, but he will understand that the judiciary is fully independent. It is not within our gift to dictate which cases are taken to court. Nothing in this Bill diminishes our efforts to reduce the backlog and reduce demand pressure. I will be happy to meet him to discuss this further.

Protecting the public from crime is our top priority. The most effective way to do that is to reduce the amount of crime being committed, which is why we are introducing the presumption to suspend short sentences. The Government are taking resolute, evidence-based action to ensure that low-level offenders break the cycle of offending, because reoffending devastates communities and creates more victims.

The measures concerning whole-life orders were welcomed on both sides of the House. These measures will ensure that the very worst murderers will spend the rest of their lives in prison. There will be no possibility of release by the Parole Board for such offenders. By making those changes, we are sending the very clear message that for the most heinous, horrific cases, a whole-life order will be the correct sentence. That can only be prevented if the court believes that there are exceptional circumstances—and they would have to be exceptional circumstances—that would make such a sentence unjustified.

Murders of a single victim that involve sadistic or sexual conduct will also be punishable by the imposition of a whole-life order—again, unless there are exceptional circumstances. Such offending is so serious, and causes so much anguish to victims’ families and wider communities —as we have seen following the brutal killings of Zara Aleena, Sabina Nessa and others—that it is only right for such perpetrators to be locked up for the rest of their lives.

A number of Members referred to sexual offences, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). I will focus on rape. Rape is a uniquely serious crime and one that causes terrible trauma for its victims, so it is right for those found guilty of rape, and other equally serious sexual offences, to be subject to a punishment that reflects the severity of their offending. These measures will ensure that rapists serve the whole of their custodial sentences behind bars. They will no longer be subject to any automatic or discretionary early release, but will have to spend every single day of their custodial term locked up, as directed by the court. That will be followed by a robust period on licence during which such offenders will be supervised by the probation service and will be subject to a possible recall to custody if their risk cannot be safely managed in the community.

It is clear from the debate that there are strong views on the Bill, but it is the first stage of a legislative process, and we welcome engagement from Members on both sides of the House as we seek to strike the right balance in sentencing. I personally can see the merit in ideas such as reviewing some measures and perhaps even a power to switch them off, and it is right that we consider the use of these measures carefully. Having heard the points raised by several Members about knife crime, I will look closely at that issue.

Our aim is to ensure that we can keep the most dangerous offenders in prison for as long as necessary to keep the public safe from harm, while ensuring that sentences do not trap the redeemable in a revolving door of offending. I therefore commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

SENTENCING BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Sentencing Bill:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.

Proceedings in Committee, on Consideration and on Third Reading

(2) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House shall be taken in the following order: Clause 1; Schedule 1; Clauses 2 to 6; Schedule 2; Clause 7; Schedule 3; Clauses 8 to 11; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill.

(3) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion five hours after their commencement.

(4) Any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.

(5) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to proceedings on Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(6) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Aaron Bell.)

Question agreed to.