Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, for moving the amendment. I also thank all those who have spoken in what, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, has been a good debate on a very important topic. Widespread support for the amendment has been expressed around the House and one can understand why it appears attractive. However, this is not an amendment that the Government can accept. Perhaps I may explain in a few words, because this has been a long debate, why that is so. This debate is about the effective abolition of the mandatory sentence. When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, moved an equivalent amendment in Committee, he said: ""Perhaps I may say a brief word about the mandatory sentence. I remain firmly of the view that it ought to be abolished because it is the one single factor that makes coherent reform of the law so difficult. But I accept that, as things are for the moment, its abolition is not a practical possibility, if only because it is opposed by both of the main political parties. They oppose it for reasons that I regard as specious".—[Official Report, 30/6/09; col. 151.]" He has moved the same amendment with great eloquence again today. However, if it is passed, it will in practical terms abolish the mandatory sentence. There are many commentators, both inside and outside this House, who would like the mandatory sentence abolished—I appreciate that and accept it at once. There are also others who do not think that we can take that step quite so easily as doing it through an amendment to this Bill. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, that there needs to be a full debate about whether the mandatory sentence should stay before we effectively abolish it, because that is what we would do if we voted for the amendment tonight. The mandatory sentence is not just or at all to do with trying to keep in with the popular press—my goodness, if my party was trying to keep in with the popular press, it is not making much of a job of it at the moment. It is much more to do with reflecting the seriousness of killing with an intention at least to cause the victim serious harm and, in most cases, death. Whether we like it or not, the public rightly regard murder as a particularly abhorrent crime, and the mandatory life sentence in some way reflects society’s disapproval. There may well be good arguments against a mandatory system, but we should not abolish it in this way. The law of homicide is an important and sensitive area where it is critical that we do our best to get things right. We as a Government have proceeded in a particular way with a staged reform of the law, undertaking extensive consultation with stakeholders along the way. My noble and learned friend the Attorney-General reassured the House in Committee that we will look at the commission’s other recommendations, in particular those for a new structure for homicide in due course, in the light of the effect of any changes arising from this stage of the work. In that context, the law already provides, and under our proposals will continue to provide—we shall debate that later this evening—partial defences to murder which can reduce murder to manslaughter. Murder is not reduced to another term but to another offence, manslaughter, in those tightly defined circumstances where as a society we feel that it should be open to the judge to have a wider range of sentencing options. However, the "extenuating circumstances" amendment goes much further than this. In the words of the Law Commissioner, Professor Jeremy Horder, it would, if passed, ""effect the most radical shift in the law in favour of convicted murderers since the abolition of the death penalty"." The amendment provides that in homicide cases the judge has the power to direct the jury that, when finding a defendant guilty of murder, it should be open to them to find simultaneously that there were "extenuating circumstances". In those circumstances, the judge would then be permitted to impose a sentence other than life imprisonment, which means that a sentence other than life could be passed on a person convicted of murder, which means that the mandatory sentence is dead. In Committee, it was argued that this amendment was an elegant way—and indeed, it has been argued extremely elegantly—of giving the judiciary greater discretion without removing the mandatory life sentence altogether. Personally, I prefer Law Commissioner Professor Jeremy Horder’s more frank appraisal of its effect, that, ""the new approach rips the heart out of the mandatory sentence"." That is strong language, but can anyone who has listened to this debate not think that that is what passing this amendment would do? We oppose any amendment that would do away with the concept of the mandatory life sentence, whether by the front door or by the back door. Here I risk offending, without meaning to, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, but on this proposal, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, there has been no consultation with the wide range of interested stakeholders who have been involved in the development of our proposals. In an area such as homicide, where reasonable people disagree so strongly, and where the timetable for change has been sufficient to offer every opportunity for the engagement of stakeholders, effecting such a radical change, as this would be, without due consultation, is unacceptable.