Coroners and Justice Bill

As my right hon. and learned Friend says truthfully and entirely sensibly, there is absolutely no difference between what lies behind his amendments and mine. Amendment 44 deals with the resource implications of resource assessments and how they should affect the discretion of sentencers—a point brought out by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth). Let me deal briefly with the other amendments and then come back to my own. Just before doing so, however, I declare an interest in that as a recorder, I will have to be guided by the Sentencing Council, just as I am already guided by the Sentencing Guidelines Council at the moment. I have some understanding in a practical sense of the effect of these types of arrangements—[Interruption.] It looks like the hon. Member for Cambridge is laughing at one of his own jokes. I do not think that there is much difference between us about the importance of the need to reduce reoffending. Both in Committee and this evening, we have all suggested that reduction of reoffending is a highly important aim of the criminal justice system, and it has to be a priority. In our paper published last March—it was written by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and me and was entitled "Prisons with a Purpose"—we outlined our plans for the reform of the prison system and of the non-custodial sentencing system. At the heart of our paper was a section dealing with what we called "the rehabilitation revolution". We wanted to see far greater emphasis placed in the prison and non-custodial sentencing system on the rehabilitation of offenders—so that they do not reoffend. This is now largely uncontroversial—[Interruption.] The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), says that it was before; it is just a question of getting on and doing it. He and his hon. Friends have had 10 years to do their best; we look forward to having an opportunity, if the electorate so decides. I gave evidence to the investigation called by the Centre for Social Justice, which is chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), who asked Jonathan Aitken to produce a report on the current state of our prisons and what needs to be done to improve them. That report was published, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you may know, earlier this week or over the weekend. I am happy to say that a good deal of what is in the document coincides with or is drawn from my own evidence to the investigation and from our document "Prisons with a Purpose". The document produced by the Centre for Social Justice is a very big document, but it is worth reading. I am sure that both the Secretary of State and the Ministers of State have it on their reading list. [Interruption.] I am grateful to the Secretary of State. Irrespective of our party differences, there is a mine of information in it. Some of the conclusions arrived at will not surprise Ministers, but I hope that some of them perhaps will. The Conservative party's attitude to the criminal justice system has, if I may say so, taken—