I would be wary of doing that, but we can look at how we ensure that magistrates are doing all necessary due diligence on the nature of past exceptional hardship claims, perhaps before other benches. That was the hon. Lady’s second point that I was just coming on to. There is something in that. We need to consider how to ensure that benches take the opportunity to look carefully at what has been said to their brethren in other cases involving the same defendant, who may be running the same argument on exceptional hardship multiple times and continually avoiding disqualification. We will need to look carefully at that.
That does not mean that running the same argument cannot necessarily amount to exceptional hardship more than once—again, that is a matter for each bench to determine—but they should do so, as she says, with their eyes open and in possession of all the relevant facts. We will look at whether there are ways in which we can ensure that they do more to get those facts. However, it is not the case that they do not have access to those facts now. The DVLA already retains the information on whether an exceptional hardship claim has been made by the same defendant in a previous case. It is there to be looked at, but further inquiries may then be necessary to find out exactly what was said in the making of that exceptional hardship claim. We will take that away and look at it. As I have already said, there is a good case for including in the review the hon. Lady’s point about multiple points on a licence and the totting-up offences.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) made a number of points around the vulnerability of cyclists, with which, of course, I agree. We must always be conscious of that, not just in the Ministry of Justice but in other Departments too, as I know colleagues in the Department for Transport in particular are. He is right to say that this is not simply about sanctions, but also about changing behaviour. He will recognise that in the Ministry of Justice we are pretty much all about sanctions, so there is a limited amount that can be done by this Department, but certainly in conjunction with other Departments there may be a great deal more that can be done. He will understand, too, that the review will be into the penalties available to the judiciary under the criminal law. It will not, of course, sensibly be able to reach wider than that, although he will wish to take advantage of his opportunities to make submissions to it none the less.
My hon. Friend will recognise that new clause 10 deals with the starting point for decisions on the appropriate tariff for a life sentence. We think it appropriate for the reasons that I set out earlier that the starting point for murders of police officers and prison officers should be
a whole life tariff, but sentencing judges can move up or down from that starting point as they think fit, and that applies in both directions. If one starts with the murder of a police officer and believes for particular reasons that it is appropriate to go below a whole life tariff, the sentencing judge can do that, and will want to set out why they choose to do that. I anticipate, following this change, that that will be very much the exception, and that as a matter of course, those who are sentenced for murder of a police or prison officer in the performance of their duties should expect to receive a whole life tariff. That is the purpose of this change. But the reason I say that it operates in both directions is that if somebody were to be convicted of murder, not necessarily of a police or prison officer attracting a whole life tariff starting point but a lower starting point, that may still result in a whole life tariff if the judge thought it appropriate to revise that sentence upwards from the starting point. I hope that is helpful to my hon. Friend. With those remarks, again I invite the House to support the Government new clauses, and not the Opposition’s new clause.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 14 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.