Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of offenders being sentenced to a custodial sentence for a second or subsequent offence were given a concurrent custodial sentence in each of the last four years.

Whilst crime is falling, sentences are getting more severe. Under this Government fewer individuals are entering the criminal justice system for the first time but those who do offend are more likely to go to prison, and for longer.

The court has discretion as to how sentences should be served. The independent Sentencing Council issued a guideline, Offences Taken Into Consideration and Totality, which all courts must follow so that there is a consistency of approach. The guideline says that there is no inflexible rule governing whether sentences should be structured as concurrent or consecutive components but the overriding principle is that the overall sentence must be just and proportionate.

The general approach on whether sentences should be served consecutively or concurrently as it applies to determinate custodial sentences, is that concurrent sentences will ordinarily be appropriate where the offences arise out of the same incident, or where there is a series of offences of the same or similar kind. Consecutive sentences will normally be appropriate where the offences arise out of unrelated facts or incidents, the offences are of a similar kind but the overall criminality will not be sufficiently reflected by concurrent sentences, or where one or more offences qualifies for a minimum sentence and concurrent sentences would improperly undermine that minimum. The guideline deals in more detail with various circumstances including where the offender is serving an existing custodial sentence and is being sentenced to custody for another offence.

The information requested is complex and needs to be extracted from raw data, formatted and checked. This will take some time and I will therefore write to my honourable Friend as soon as it is available.