Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, briefly, I support the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. I have been involved in restorative justice through a charity called Why Me? for some years. I became involved because it offered a victim-oriented strategy, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. Restorative justice offers an opportunity for the person who has been offended against to address the trauma that they have suffered, to see how and why it came about and, in that way, to achieve some sort of closure. On the other side, it has had significant effects on reoffending. As the noble and learned Baroness has pointed out, offenders will say, ““There was just a name on a charge sheet but when I see that it belongs to a person with a home and a family, which I have broken into or broken up, I begin to see some of the dreadful things that my actions have done””. Therefore, I am anxious that the Government should accept this amendment. There are only two reasons why they might not accept it that I can see. First, there might be a need to restrain public spending. I accept that there is a need for this sort of activity to be carried out by well trained people to be effective. However, there will be a net benefit. If we can continue to achieve the reduction in reoffending rates that has been achieved in the past, there will be a reduction in costs as we avoid some of the costs of reoffending. Secondly, the Government have said that this amendment is overly prescriptive but I have some difficulty in understanding why. As the noble and learned Lord pointed out in his opening remarks, this just adds to the menu of options available. Therefore, it is not prescriptive in my reading of how the amendment has been drafted. In conclusion, my concern is that if we are not careful, the idea of RJ will fall victim to what I call the Daily Mail effect. Restorative justice is not an easy thing to defend. It can appear a bit touchy-feely. One or two cases that led to difficult headlines in the newspapers could lead to the Ministry of Justice saying, ““This is a bit difficult. We had better back off from this one””. Therefore, my reason for strongly supporting the noble and learned Lord's amendment is that if we get it into the Bill, we will then have something that can be used in the future and cannot be brushed away by some unfortunate event that might lead to public opinion turning against it and putting temporary political pressure on the Government of the day.