Coroners and Justice Bill

The hon. Member for Cambridge says that that is not "follow", but something different. I say to him that it is "follow", but the suggested alteration to the current section 172 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 uses the verb "apply" rather than "follow". I am perfectly happy to trade "follow" for "apply" because I do not know what the difference between those words is. I believe that they amount to the same thing. First, and above all, the Government are trying to ensure respect and proper protection for the independence and autonomy of sentencers when they pass their sentences. That is critical: we need to provide considerable discretion, but we must also ensure that that discretion is exercised in a structured way that the public and other sentencers can understand. We are not fettering the judiciary, but we are saying that there should be a carefully moderated body of guidance. That guidance will be moderated by the process of drafting by the Sentencing Council and by the consideration that it will be given—not in the partisan bear pit of the House of Commons but in the more bipartisan Justice Committee. When the guidance is finally endorsed by the Sentencing Council, perhaps following amendment, it will become the framework that sentencing judges and magistrates will be expected to follow. It will give them a great deal of flexibility, although they will have to make judgments about the starting point. For example, the existing robbery matrix offers considerable flexibility. Judges and magistrates have to make judgments about additional aggravating and mitigating factors—they can decide that those factors cover the whole of the range laid down for a sentence and not just one category of case within an offence range—and they can depart from the whole thing, if they consider that to be necessary and in the interests of justice. My hope is that we shall end up with greater consistency, which would be in the interests of justice, and of the public. The right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham made an interesting point about whether victims—and, by implication and to a degree, the public— had a role in the criminal justice system. I have great respect for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who paid me the honour yesterday of supporting—