Coroners and Justice Bill

I do not want to escape entirely from answering the noble Lord’s question today but we will be debating these guidelines and the form that they will take in some detail when we come to discuss other amendments. Undoubtedly the form these guidelines take will be different from what they have been in the past, but it will be very much a question of argument whether they actually change the judges’ discretion—which I know is in the back of the noble Lord’s mind—in what they are able to do. I put it guardedly because we shall see how the other amendments play out. I take the point of my noble friend Lord Borrie, who is much more supportive than I am able to be of the noble Baroness’s amendments. She said that we did not know enough about how sentencers follow guidelines. This is covered to some extent by Clause 114, which places duties on the council to monitor departures, the effect of the guidelines and consistency. Other duties in Clause 113 relate to assessing the impact of guidelines. Indeed, under our provisions the council will need to collect new data in order to discharge these duties. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, would prefer statutory purposes, but some of the matters that she raises in her amendments are, I agree, to be found in Clauses 113, 114 and 115. Although it is always tempting to follow the suggestions of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—I think that her description of them was "bold"—I am not really in a position to do so this evening and doubt that I will be even when the Bill has progressed further. It is for those reasons that I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment, not out of any deep hostility to her proposals but because, in our view, the purposes should not be statutory. I have no doubt that we will return to this matter on another occasion.