Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I hope I will remember the story of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, about all splendid law reforms having been undertaken for the wrong reasons. The trouble with Clause 10 is that it is not a splendid law reform. It is going to be a rather stupid one, for the reasons that have already been identified in this short debate. What is the merit of the suspended sentence? It is surely that it enables the gravity of the offence to be marked, but at the same time offers the accused person the opportunity to avoid prison by reforming his behaviour. This is a very good thing for him and for the taxpayer. I cannot see the logic in keeping it as a sentencing tool for indictable offences, yet taking it away from the far more numerous summary-only offences. The point has already been made, but is worth alluding to again, that before a suspended sentence can become a possibility, the sentencing threshold, as defined by the Sentencing Guidelines Council, has to be passed. The consequence, then, will not be a community order sentence; it will be, in the vast majority of cases, an immediate custodial sentence. That renders this a stupid reform, and not one of those splendid ones, albeit that it will be introduced for the wrong reasons.