Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, on the point that he makes in this debate on Clause 12 stand part. He knows that the aim of the clause is to ensure that limited probation resources are directed where they can have most effect. This will help the Probation Service to concentrate on offenders who really need intensive supervision, either because they are dangerous or because they are at a very high risk of reoffending. Those who commit offences where the maximum penalty is a fine are unlikely to fall into this category; for them, a fine is usually the most appropriate punishment. That is why the Government believe that community orders should be available only for imprisonable offences. It seems so far in this debate that that view is shared in the Committee, as there has been no amendment to suggest that we are wrong in that thought. For offences where a fine is the maximum penalty, courts will still be able to impose a fine or discharge, as at present, plus other ancillary disposals, such as compensation, driving disqualification or football banning orders, as appropriate. Committal to prison will still be available for wilful refusal or culpable neglect to pay the fine. The new provision will apply to offenders aged 18 and over only. Examples of offences for which a fine is the maximum statutory penalty are having no vehicle insurance, minor public order offences, careless driving, TV licence evasion, simple drunkenness and firework offences. These are all offences where discharge or a fine is generally the appropriate sentence and where it is not normally necessary to involve the Probation Service by imposing community interventions. The history of all this is interesting. Before April 2005, some community sentences were available for imprisonable sentences only—for example, the community punishment order, which imposed unpaid work, and the community punishment rehabilitation order, which imposed unpaid work and supervision. Since that date, under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the community order with its 12 possible requirements has been available for all offences. For the reasons that I have given, we are now restricting its use to imprisonable offences only. I very much hope that we have the support of the Committee on that. This means that for unpaid work, for example, which is the most frequently used requirement for a community order where there is only one requirement, we are doing no more than returning to the position under the earliest legislation. The clause also updates the provision on the statute book; it is to this provision that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, refers in his argument. It allows a court to impose a community order where the offence is not serious enough to warrant such a sentence but where the offender has previously received three or more fines. This represents an exception to the restriction of the community order to imprisonable offences. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, will know, this provision has not been commenced, but is amended so that it is consistent with restricting the community order to imprisonable offences. Even without this provision in force, the law allows a court to regard persistence as an aggravating factor when deciding seriousness, so that repeat offenders will receive higher fines than would otherwise have been imposed. The noble Lord asked what happens if the three previous offences are more severe and demanded more than a simple fine. I will reply to that as best I can. This is not new. Section 151 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, although not in force, has been law for some time. The Government do not believe that it lacks logic. Where previous offences were severely dealt with by a community order because they deserved one—they reached that tariff—it would seem overburdensome, even unfair, for them to count again towards another community order. We think that, if persistent offenders keep committing offences for which a fine is the appropriate penalty, the time comes when the court needs to have the power to say, ““A fine is obviously not stopping you doing this, so you now move up a bracket and you go up to being deserving of a community order””. It is that eventuality, which has been on the statute book now for some years but has not yet been implemented, that we are replicating in Clause 12 of this Bill.