Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I want to make one point, to which I unashamedly admit I forgot to refer in my earlier intervention. The Government’s perfectly laudable motive is to diminish the number of persons who are sent to prison on the breach of a suspended sentence. In order to do that, they limit the area in which suspended sentences can be imposed. I suggest that it may well be worth considering this alternative path. Many people commit offences while they are the subject of suspended sentences, because there is little or no support for their position. As I understand it, the law, as it stands, is that below a certain level—is it still 12 months or is it six months?—no suspended sentence supervision order can be made. That meant that as far as magistrates were concerned there would be no such orders. To change that rule, and to bring the bar down to three months would, I appreciate, involve substantial human resources, which would have to be paid for in money and in human terms. Yet may it not be better to approach the problem along that path, by allowing the system to remain but seeing to it that there is a possibility that fewer breaches will occur? I leave that with the Minister for his consideration.