Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 48: 48: Clause 10, leave out Clause 10 The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment was thoroughly debated in Committee. Therefore, I can be reasonably telegraphic in introducing it again at Report. Clause 10 proposes that suspended sentences cannot be ordered for summary offences heard in magistrates’ courts. The Government’s argument for advancing that is that if the option to issue a suspended sentence is denied the court, it will impose a community sentence, thereby assisting the Government in their well known difficulties with prison overcrowding. In our view, the inference is illusory. When one is dealing with a suspended prison sentence, as your Lordships know, one is dealing with an offence that has passed the custody threshold. This follows from guidance issued by the Sentencing Guidelines Council, as I indicated in Committee. At page 24 of the guidance, the Sentencing Guidelines Council sets out the questions that the court should ask itself. First, has the custody threshold been passed? Secondly, if so, is it unavoidable that a custodial sentence be imposed? Thirdly, if so, can that sentence be suspended? Thus, if a court concludes that a custodial sentence should be imposed and if the option of a suspended sentence is removed, as the Government so intend, prison is inevitable. Removing the power of magistrates to use suspended sentences for summary offences would have the opposite effect to that intended by the Government: it would increase the prison population, not reduce it. I beg to move.