Coroners and Justice Bill

Perhaps I may offer a word of sympathy and encouragement to the noble and learned Baroness; I hope that will not alarm her. I understand the reasons she gave in her response to the previous group of amendments, when she spoke of the privilege she had—it was typical of her that she should express it like that—of talking to the families of those who have suffered bereavement at the hands of murderers. That is what you might call a "straight from the heart" reaction. I quite understand that, as must anybody who has had any ministerial responsibility. It was not particularly exhilarating of the Government, of whom I must take my share of collective responsibility, that we set aside the recommendation of the Law Commission. I understand the reason that was done. However, I suggest to the noble and learned Baroness that the straight from the heart reaction does not come solely from that source. I should like her to envisage the feelings of the family of a soldier in the conditions in Northern Ireland before there was, happily, a turn for the better—the case of Clegg has already been mentioned—when somebody fires in circumstances where it is obligatory, given the strength of the evidence, that he be prosecuted for murder and is convicted of murder. Consider the position of his family, who find that he is sentenced and has to be sentenced to the same mandatory sentence as is wholly appropriate for a terrorist who has gone onto the streets for the purpose of committing murder. The soldier goes onto the streets in those circumstances for the purpose of preventing murder. The terrorist goes onto the streets for the purpose of committing murder and yet the sentence for each is the same. The straight from the heart reaction of the families of the soldier does not need me to describe it. The great beauty—if I may put it like that—of this amendment is that it enables the public, as has already been said, through the jury, to express through a finding of extenuating circumstances the reason why a mandatory sentence need not be imposed.