Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I hope to respond in as nuanced a way as the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, moved his amendment. Our Clause 20 is intended to provide a solution to the problem that, under the current custody-plus legislation—which, I repeat, is not in force yet, before anyone else says it—a court cannot impose more than 13 weeks’ custody for consecutive offences without exceeding limitations on what must be the licence portion of custody plus. It would enable the courts to put into practice an option which theoretically is available to them when sentencing for more than one offence: the option to impose 26 rather than 13 weeks’ custody and 26 weeks on licence in order to preserve the rehabilitative benefits of custody plus. The amendment would remove Clause 20 altogether and replace it with a new formulation. It would remove entirely the current restriction on the amount of the aggregated sentence that can be dedicated to custody. I understand that the intended effect is that the courts would not be limited at all in putting together consecutive custodial sentences and would be able to add them together until the threshold of 65 weeks had been reached, meaning that an offender could be sentenced to 65 weeks’ prison time if enough offences were sentenced together. Our difficulty with the amendment is that the new clause would pretty directly undermine the custody-plus concept. It would mean that the court could disregard entirely the need for a licence period, or could significantly reduce it. The long-term, post-custody licence is the key feature of custody plus, allowing these offenders to be supported and supervised in the community on release. That does not, as I understand it, happen for short prison sentences in any event, and is one problem with which this Committee—and beyond the Committee, if I may say so—has attempted to battle. The proposed new clause would also introduce a substantial change to our sentencing framework by increasing the magistrates’ ability to impose actual prison time, which is currently six months for consecutive offences. Under custody plus, 26 weeks will be the maximum figure, which is the same. When magistrates’ courts assess that the defendant would be likely, if convicted, to require a heavier sentence than they are empowered to give, they can direct cases to the Crown Court. As I said in response to the previous amendment, they also have the power to commit a defendant for sentence to the Crown Court. The proposed new clause would also allow these sentences to be suspended. That is unnecessary. As the law stands, consecutive sentences may be suspended anyway, but in case anyone had forgotten, we have just debated the wider issue of the offences for which sentence may be suspended. I pause briefly to pay tribute to the work of the magistrates. All Members of the Committee, on whatever side they sit, know that magistrates play a vital role. They deal with 95 per cent of all criminal cases, either in the adult court or in the youth court. My noble friend Lord Hunt mentioned the 30,000 magistrates who serve voluntarily, giving their time freely in the name of public service and with commitment and dedication. I am sure that, in paying tribute to them, I do so on behalf of the whole Committee.