Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

No, I am answering an intervention from the hon. Gentleman's colleague. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) needs to examine two things. First, longer-term sentences work to reduce offending, but shorter-term sentences, which have always and will always exist, often have a fairly high reoffending rate, regardless of whether the sentence is 18 days longer or shorter. We are increasing the number of prison places. If he is saying that there should be no reduction for good behaviour, and no incentive for prisoners to behave themselves, and that we should return to the lunacy that the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) tried to put through the House between 1996 and 1997—he utterly failed and had to withdraw his own shambles—as the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs proposes, that would involve an increase of 60,000 places—[Interruption.] He says, ““Hear, hear.”” That is a further commitment. It would be at a cost of £8 billion in building costs and £2 billion in running costs. Let the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs spell out that that is now his party's proposal. Secondly, we should look at the experience in the United States. We have locked up about 145 per 100,000 people, which is the highest level in Europe. Proportionate to its population, the United States has five times that number locked up. The Opposition propose that this country should have 700 prisons and 400,000 people locked up, which is the consequence—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs is now laughing. That is the consequence of praying in aid the example of the United States. The United States has 2.2 million people locked up. Has it cut violent crime? Has it reduced its murder rate? No, it is still four times that in this country. We have just had another example of a mass gun killing on the streets of an otherwise peaceful community in Wisconsin. The Opposition ought to think about that before they blather away on the issue. In the case of recalls, offenders who breach the terms of their licence are recalled to prison and kept there for as long as they present a danger to the public. That will not change, but many of the 11,000 offenders who are now recalled to prison each year are not in that category. Part 2 of the Bill provides for non-dangerous offenders to be recalled for a fixed 28-day period. A fourth example of the ever-changing circumstances to which we have to respond is contained in part 2 of the Bill. The criminal law is drafted with great care, but sometimes its specific wording can trap victims and sentencers alike into facing unintended and unacceptable consequences. Right hon. and hon. Members will remember the outcry caused by the Sweeney case last year. Sweeney's was a truly horrific crime, but because of the sentencing rules, the learned judge in the case had to reduce the minimum term of 18 years to a sentence of just less than six years. No criticism can or should be made against the learned judge involved. He was applying the law in that case. Some of the reduction was due to guidance on discounts for early guilty pleas, which has now been revised by the Sentencing Guidelines Council. However, there is a broader point on discounts in such exceptional cases, which we want to address in the Bill. We propose to give judges the discretion when they believe that the offence is sufficiently serious to set the sentence that they see fit and not to have to halve the determinate sentence. In addition to that, where offenders are re-sentenced to an indeterminate sentence following an appeal by the Attorney-General, they should not as of right benefit from any sentence discount. We have already abolished discounts in respect of murder cases, but the Bill extends that to all life and indeterminate sentences.