Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I thank the Justice Secretary."““Public safety remains our primary concern and indeterminate sentences will always be appropriate for the most serious crimes””—" not my words, although I agree with them entirely, but those of this Government's Green Paper, ““Breaking the Cycle””, which was published in December 2010. How things have changed in just 11 months: instead of what was said then, at the last minute—and after interference from No. 10 Downing street—there was suddenly no mention of indeterminate sentences when the Bill was published in June, more than four months ago. At the last possible moment—at one minute to midnight—we are presented with new clauses that propose the total abolition of indeterminate sentences. That is compounded by the ludicrous timetabling of today's proceedings, whereby, because of the earlier ministerial statement and the knife that will halt proceedings on the new clauses at 6 pm, we are left with only 73 minutes in which to debate them for the first time. This is no way to go about passing legislation that is supposed to protect the public from some of the most serious and violent offenders. Why are the Government scared of debate? The Justice Secretary should be ashamed. Of course, responsibility for these new clauses and the consequences that will flow from them lies not with the Justice Secretary; it can be placed firmly at the door of No. 10. From what we can see, the Justice Secretary is no longer in charge of his own Department. Back in June, it was the Prime Minister—without the Justice Secretary being present—who presented the Government's justice policy. I have a huge amount of respect for the Justice Secretary, but I am afraid he has become the mere puppet of a Prime Minister who appears no longer to have confidence in his abilities. I might be the shadow Justice Secretary, but he is a shadow of his former self. The new clauses appear to have been conjured up, but it is not just their timetabling that is rushed. Their incoherence smacks of rushed drafting as well. They have had no pre-legislative scrutiny. The proposals did not form part of the Second Reading debate, and they were not debated at all in Committee. Now, we have less than half an hour in which to discuss them on the Floor of the House on Report, which rides roughshod over public concerns.