Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I share the concerns expressed by hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House, but I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for the meeting he and his ministerial colleague held with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and I. I am also grateful for the Lord Chancellor's assurance earlier that he would still be thinking hard about the provisions as they go from this place to the House of Lords. I want again to assert briefly that the Northern Ireland experience was instructive, and if the Lord Chancellor was prepared to reflect on it, it would strengthen the flawed prospectus he has given us. The experience in Northern Ireland was based on a tragic case involving Trevor Hamilton, who murdered Attracta Harron when she was on her way home from mass in December 2003. My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) remembers the case well because he dealt with the issues too. Hamilton had been released at the halfway point of a seven-year sentence for rape, indecent assault and threats to kill. The public were outraged that such a dangerous individual could be released with no control whatever by the public authorities. The framework in Northern Ireland is based on two key principles. The first is absolute judicial discretion, with no presumptions about previous offences, such as there were in the 2003 Act—so complete judicial discretion. Secondly, judges have to go through a very clear process. Does the offence justify a life sentence? If it does, that is what the offender gets. If it does not, the judge must consider an extended sentence, which can give some degree of control over the release date, but the offender must eventually be released at the end of the extended custodial period. If that is not sufficient for public protection, only then can the judge give an indeterminate sentence. The result is instructive. The Northern Ireland Justice Minister, David Ford, has sent us a report, for which I commend him—the report should be put in the Library. There has been no significant change in the number of life sentence prisoners. There have been 68 extended sentences and eight indeterminate sentences in three and a half years. That system is in control and it offers the public protection. There are real risks with what the Lord Chancellor is proposing. If he is right and judges suddenly start to impose more life sentences, he will simply have replaced one problem with what he described as the original problem. He will have replaced indeterminate sentences with life sentences, which will bring all the issues relating to resources and parole that he faces currently. The most serious thing is that under his proposals all dangerous offenders not given a life sentence will have a definite date for release, which is a risk too far for this or any Government to take. It will leave a gap, bridged in Northern Ireland by the indeterminate sentence not as a first or a second option but as a complementary third option. I am glad that the Lord Chancellor is listening. I hope he heeds that lesson and that when he takes his legislation to the other place he will make further amendments.