Coroners and Justice Bill

Amendment 191ZA refers to a requirement for the council to promote matters relating to sentencing, thereby encouraging greater understanding as well as information; Amendment 191ZB refers to the inclusion of the words, "custodial and non-custodial" sentences. These are all logical extensions of our previous amendments, which I have spoken to at greater length earlier. Amendment 191ZD and the provision that we wish to insert, which we originally discussed under the third purpose of the Bill, is outlined here in the briefing. The role of the council must not only be to promote awareness. The council should have a new duty to extend and develop its role to go beyond simply providing and publishing information when it sees fit. It should have a specific educational, as well as informative, role, which would involve active engagement with the public. This has real possibilities for closing the gap between the system and the public for the first time, and enormous potential for and importance in demystifying and communicating the realities of the sentencing process, as well as promoting the Government’s desire for transparency. This is much more than just producing the occasional report which is likely to be destined to lie on a shelf. It involves reaching out to the community. We have already discussed how the public are systemically misinformed about sentencing practices and believe that the courts are much more lenient than they actually are; that sentencers are too soft; that judges and magistrates are out of touch in their courtrooms; that courts are unlikely to use prison for serious crimes such as burglary, robbery, rape and so on. Inaccurate media representations of sentencing, such as I read out earlier, feed into public misconceptions. The amendment offers a real opportunity to correct these misconceptions. For this to come from the council itself would carry with it the authority that it uniquely has about what it does and how it does it. This role is not totally unique, as other councils have held it in other parts of the world, but it would be quite new to us. They key thing is the element of real engagement with the outside world, which could take a number of forms but would essentially involve representatives of the council—or council members themselves, which would be best of all—going out and about in the community and holding, for example, "Any Questions?"-style meetings, seminars or town hall events to communicate what they actually do, while getting feedback from the public. It would involve developing and implementing a public information and education strategy, targeting all sectors of the population and the mass media. It would, of course, be a challenging task, but commensurate with the importance and significance of the opportunity. I have had the experience of organising a comparable series of meetings around England between sentencers and other agencies, notably the Probation Service and other providers of programmes for offenders. This was during the course of the Rethinking Crime and Punishment initiative that I chaired for seven years. All I can tell your Lordships is that the results were like an epiphany—in this case for both the judges and those that they met and talked to. It opened their eyes—and these were largely professionals—to the realities of what was available as disposal to them in their own patch on the one hand, and gave insights into how the judges thought and worked on the other. It offered a chance to discuss the issues of common concern and did much to promote understanding and confidence all around. This proposal offers something not dissimilar for the wider public: to hear from sentencers and have their eyes opened. Another, similar programme now runs all over the country, organised by the Magistrates’ Association, in which magistrates and probation officers do regular presentations to local groups about what they do inside and outside court, using real-life examples. It is called Local Crime, Community Sentence and, for the first time, the public get a real insight into what is being done in their name and the name of justice. They are also invited to participate in the decision-making exercises. This was also started as part of my Rethinking Crime and Punishment initiative; I promise Members of the Committee that there was and is a lot of rethinking. It is now so well established that there are regular award schemes among the different areas each year, run by the Magistrates’ Association, for the best groups. It is really impressive. I have expectations that the council members would be able to do something similar and equally well. It has now become a necessity. I do not need to explain to the Committee that, with public misunderstanding so extensive and confidence in the criminal justice system as low as it is, something urgently needs to be done. The sentencing council will be uniquely well placed to start a process of communication and education for its own, as well as for the community’s, sake. I really hope that on this occasion the Government have ears to hear. I entreat them to take the amendment seriously. I beg to move.