Coroners and Justice Bill

We now deal with the provisions on sentencing, especially on the Sentencing Council and sentencing guidelines. I support the basic idea in the Bill. It has been a long time coming and various methods and versions were proposed, but the underlying idea was always the same: we should provide for strengthened national powers for a body that includes judges and non-judges and lays down guidelines for sentencing. The underlying idea all along has been more consistency in sentencing and more understanding of the sentences that are passed. So far, so good. I believe that hon. Members of all parties accept that. The difficulty has always arisen with going beyond the simple aim of extra consistency with extra understanding. The Government have got into trouble by trying to make one of the leading goals of the Sentencing Council and sentencing guidelines simply to save money by various means, including the fairly laudable one of making the criminal justice system more predictable. The problem is that that creates an incentive to make the guidelines far too rigid, to the extent that one could end up with the position in some United States jurisdictions, where the guidelines are so rigid that there is no judicial discretion. The Government have rightly moved from the rigid model, but also have to admit that the benefits that it would have brought in financial predictability have been somewhat compromised. I am not against going beyond aiming for consistency in the sentencing guidelines. My overriding concern is not the total amount that the Government spend on sentencing, but the direction of the criminal justice system. I especially want the guidelines to help further the aim of turning the criminal justice system around so that its main purpose is to reduce reoffending by imposing sentences that work, as opposed to those that simply sound tough. I am fortified in my view by not only members of my party, but members of other parties in the House and members of the Justice Committee. Reducing reoffending should become a central aim of sentencing. Other matters cannot be ignored, but when reducing reoffending is ignored, the result is inevitably that crime is higher. There are more victims. The Government are right that victims and concern for them should be at the heart of the criminal justice system, but that must include potential victims. Only by reducing reoffending—most offending is committed by those who have done things in the past—do we genuinely put victims, especially potential victims, at the heart of the system.