Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

No; I am afraid that I will not take interventions, as there is no time. I say that with great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, who has much experience in these matters. I am sure that he will forgive me, but there is a lot that I need to say. This is my first opportunity in 20 years to speak about criminal justice legislation from this side of the fence. I have been one of the people dealing with the reality of the impact of year after year of incontinence in legislation. Court staff, practitioners and judges have all had to deal with the baleful consequences of the avalanche of work that ill-judged reform, sponsored by, among others, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who had the brass neck to come to the House today and tell us that, under his guidance, all was well with the world. He would not allow me to intervene on him. Had I done so—I am grateful that he is here—I would have reminded him about sentences of indeterminate length for public protection and the chaos that that system caused the Government. They were warned by the Court of Appeal that the system that they had introduced was in danger of being untenable. As a result, the Government passed an Act in 2008 to amend the system, but it was still a bad system, because it was not transparent to the victims. When victims of crime went to court and heard about sentences of indeterminate length for public protection, they did not know what that meant; they did not know when the perpetrator of the crime against them was to be released. They did not understand the system. That was a failure of transparency. It was the single most important failure of the regime, which is why I will be glad after the review to see the back of the system and to see clear, long, determinate sentences with automatic release after two thirds of time is served. We have been here before; that was the system that existed before the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Sentences of longer than four years attracted automatic release after two thirds of the time was served. The merry-go-round has come around again. Opposition Members say that the Bill is imperfect. That is inevitable, because it must undo years of damage inflicted by their party. The Bill is not finished business; I accept that. It would be good to have a consolidation Act to bring sentencing provisions under one umbrella. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Blackburn for doing so in 2000 with an excellent measure, but within two years it was all upended again by some brave new policy initiative designed to assuage the populist press. It is time to end the charade in the debate on criminal justice. It is time to start talking clever rather than tough. It is time to change the ambit of the debate. The Bill gives us an opportunity to do so, which is why I will support it on Second Reading.