Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, Governments of whatever colour are always extremely careful not to go beyond what they are entitled to do in terms of advising on sentencing. I do not know, I have to say, what approaches have been made to magistrates from the Government in relation to what we feel is happening. But no great criticism of magistrates is intended in anything that I have said or in what the Government intend. If I am right about the custody threshold being a greyer area than we sometimes like to think when we are debating these points, or a greyer area than what the textbooks say, it is hardly surprising that where there is a possibility of a suspended sentence, those who are able to impose one will do so just to try to give a bit more force to their sentence at the time, perhaps to frighten an offender in the best possible way. That is exactly the way that the noble Lord himself used to pass suspended sentences. But if the consequence of suspended sentences is that people come back in large proportions and have to be sent to prison—that is what should happen if a suspended sentence is broken—the problem is that the prison sentence increases, rather than decreases. I am advised that the magistrates have already received strong advice in sentencing guidelines. That has been pointed out. The statute is clear. But the figures, I am afraid, speak for themselves, and unless there is a better explanation of those figures—and no one has come up with one yet—it would seem that this particular reform of 2003 has not worked.