Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My hon. Friend's last point is perfectly fair, and I am about to make some points that should reassure the great bulk of the public. Of course we must have in place a very effective method of dealing with all those who commit the worst sexual and violent offences. No one is suggesting that we do not need an effective regime for that. For the very serious offenders, the ones who are among the worst of the likely inhabitants of Her Majesty's prisons, there will be a new mandatory life sentence. That will apply in cases in which the offender has committed, on two consecutive occasions, two very serious sexual or violent offences, when each of which has been serious enough to merit a determinate sentence of 10 years or more. I was criticised from the left in another place, and probably will be here, for introducing a new mandatory life sentence. We have only one at the moment, which is for murder, and everybody accepts it. As I have said, however, the new mandatory sentence is mainly intended to reassure those who, like my hon. Friend, are worried that the worst offenders might occasionally get out. We are talking about very serious offenders, most of whom would get a life sentence anyway if they had committed two offences meriting determinate sentences of 10 years or more. I do not think that many such people would avoid a life sentence, but as hon. Members can see, a life sentence in the new clause is subject to a caveat—the offender will receive a mandatory sentence unless their circumstances or the circumstances of the offence"““make it unjust to do so””." The most important sentence for serious offenders will be discretionary life—the ordinary life sentence—which is already the maximum sentence for the most serious crimes in the calendar. That is the right penalty when the maximum penalty is life and the offence is serious enough. The British criminal justice system has always had that indeterminate sentence and I have never quite understood why it was thought necessary to create another one parallel to it. However, as I am now agreeing with those who introduced that sentence in the first place, I will not go into it. My new clauses make no changes to discretionary life. Both I and those who advise me anticipate that once IPP sentences are no longer available, much more use will again be made of discretionary life sentences. The worst people will go back to having life sentences, which we know works perfectly effectively and well. They will be under licence for life if they are ever released, before which there will be a Parole Board process.