Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I express my joy and gratitude at what the Minister has said concerning the intention that there should be a directive issued by the Sentencing Guidelines Council in relation to youth sentencing. As the Committee will well know, it is a most high-powered body presided over by the Lord Chief Justice. Under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a breach of the guidelines does not render a sentence unlawful, but it is within a whisker of that result because the clearest hint is given to the Court of Appeal that the sentence would be unsupportable. For that reason, what the Minister has said has come very near to everything that would have been achieved by the amendments we have been discussing on a declaration of custody being the last resort. In other words, I regard the Minister as being almost totally rehabilitated. I wonder whether he could give us some idea whether the publication of such a guideline would coincide roughly with Royal Assent.