Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful for the kind remarks with which my hon. Friend began his question. It seems that he agrees with a fair number of the judiciary on the proposal for a discount for early guilty pleas, and I hope that he is equally in line with the judiciary on such matters as the abolition of indeterminate sentences. We shall all begin to make some worthwhile progress on the whole field if we collaborate.

Those who breach suspended sentences are normally punished by having to serve the suspended sentence on top of any other sentence that has been imposed. However, all such cases require a little more flexibility. All that we are adding is the possibility of flexibility in some cases. Adding a fine might be preferable to making the total sentence far too long: it might be best to find some other way of dealing with an offender.

Parliament is, of course, entitled to specify sentences, but if we do that in too much detail we will fail to deliver justice, because we will not leave enough leeway and enough options for the judges and magistrates who sit and hear about all the facts of a particular case and all the circumstances of the offender.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Is the Justice Secretary now on probation, and does he anticipate time added on or early release?

[Mr Clarke]

I think that I have been on probation for the past few decades. Sooner or later I will get the hang of it, but I am working at it. I am not going to launch into a description of reports in the newspapers. I am sure that most of my colleagues envy my ability to get into the headlines, but the truth is rather far away from all that.

The Prime Minister and I, and the Cabinet, have developed these policies together. We have moved along together—[Laughter.] Yes, we have. We were saying the same things about policy 12 months ago, and we are saying the same things about policy today. What matters is whether the policy actually works. These proposals will be judged on whether in three or four years’ time people can see that we have sorted out the appalling mess in the criminal justice system that we inherited from Labour.