Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

We now pass from issues special to children and young people to more general questions of sentencing. The remainder of Part 2 contains specific sentencing proposals, some of which were considered in Committee in another place and some of which were introduced quite late in the day inspired by the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles. If I were a more cynical person I might suggest that some of these amendments owe a great deal more to the desire to reduce the scale of the prison population than they do to their inherent merits. However, I have no doubt that the Minister will have something to say about that. The first of these matters concerns the Government’s desire to remove the power of magistrates to impose suspended sentences in summary cases. Clause 10 proposes that suspended sentences could not be ordered for summary offences although the power would remain for indictable and either-way offences. However, if two or more custodial sentences were being considered on the same occasion, one summary and one indictable, and it is intended to impose a suspended sentence for the indictable offence, a suspended sentence could then be imposed for one or more of the summary offences. As I understand it, this is the first time there has ever been a proposal which differentiates so radically in sentencing disposals between summary and either-way matters. Indeed, in many cases the distinction will almost be a distinction without a difference. For example, in matters of criminal damage, whether something is a summary matter or an either-way matter can turn on the financial scale of the cost of the damage. But the key issue that needs addressing under Clause 10 is this: when one is dealing with a suspended prison sentence, one is dealing with an offence that has passed the custody threshold. This flows from the guidelines of the Sentencing Guidelines Council. At page 24 of the guidance, the Sentencing Guidelines Council sets out the questions that the court should ask itself. First, has the custody threshold been passed? Secondly, if so, is it unavoidable that a custodial sentence be imposed? Thirdly, if so, can that sentence be suspended? So if the court concludes that a custodial sentence should be imposed and if the option of a suspended sentence is removed, as the Government so intend, it is inevitable that the person in the dock will be sent to prison. In my submission, removing the power of magistrates to use suspended sentences for summary offences will actually have the opposite effect to that the Government intend. It will increase the prison population, not reduce it. The suspended sentence provides flexibility that enables the magistrate to provide a sentencing option which will, always assuming that the individual concerned will stick to the terms of the licence, keep him out of prison. As I understand the Government’s argument from reading the relevant passages in another place, their view is that what the court would normally do, if the option to issue a suspended sentence were removed, would be to impose a community sentence. If that is the Government’s view, it flies in the face of the guidance given by the Sentencing Guidelines Council. So the Opposition believe that Clause 10 is misconceived and will have an effect contrary to the one the Government intend. We believe that the Government should think again.