Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I endorse the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) and the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). The hon. Member for Shipley, addressing the Lord Chancellor and his hon. Friends, said that the measure would lead to a number of dangerous offenders coming out of prison before it was correct to let them out. That, of course, is one of the key drivers of this policy. It is not about prison reform. The whole purpose of the measures put before the House last December was to cut the prison population by 6,500. The Lord Chancellor then ran into huge difficulties because he could not get his own side, our side or the judges to accept the 50% tariff for an early guilty plea and many other changes. I do not know the number exactly, but I do know that The Times quoted a Ministry of Justice spokesperson last Friday as saying that the changes would lead to a cut in the prison population of 2,500. The Secretary of State seemed to want to have it both ways. He damned the concept of the indeterminate sentence for public protection and suggested that it was a stain on the system. He also tried to reassure the House and the public by saying, ““Don't worry, we are going to do exactly the same thing, but it is going to be called a mandatory life sentence.””