Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I hope that the Minister will agree that my opposition to Clause 10 standing part of the Bill has commanded a considerable degree of support in the Committee. The reason why the Government have got themselves into difficulties on this is that they have an ulterior motive for the clause, which is to reduce the scale of the prison population. The correct way to approach this clause is to look at it on its merits. The fact is, as many of your Lordships said, that when magistrates approach sentencing matters, their first port of call will be the Sentencing Guidelines Council. On the question of suspended sentences, as many of your Lordships again said, the guidance is about as crystal clear as it could possibly be: once the custodial threshold is passed, unless there is an option for a suspended sentence, the magistrates must imprison. It is much more likely that the magistrates will be paying attention to the Sentencing Guidelines Council than to a speech by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice. In saying that, I in no way wish to disparage his wisdom. Indeed, there are circumstances in which judges in the Crown Court and magistrates, having decided that an offence reaches or passes a custodial threshold, will nevertheless, in very specific circumstances that they will set out in great detail when they sentence, give a community disposition. In my submission, however, those circumstances are rare, particularly as nowadays the Crown Prosecution Service is quick to inform the Attorney-General if it thinks that a judge is undersentencing. The notion that a whole raft of community sentences will replace the removed suspended sentence is a chimera. Moreover, although the Government have referred to some evidence since 2005 about the likely behaviour of magistrates in the absence of a suspended sentence option, I know that the Minister will agree that the conclusions of those investigations are at best exceedingly tentative. At a late stage in the Minister’s observations, he urged the Committee to leave the clause in place for the time being. I am wondering what he meant by that. Did he mean between now and Report?