My Lords, in my contribution I cannot lay claim to the same expertise that other noble Lords have brought from acting on the Bench as judges and magistrates, but I am familiar with some of these aspects. It may surprise the Minister to know that I am not riding to his rescue this evening; in fact, I find a lot of the contributions that have been made up to this point extremely persuasive.
For my part, I make it plain that I support the appropriate use of community sentencing, and in that sense I support the move by the Government. I may be remembered, along with my colleague Mr Blunkett, for introducing indeterminate sentences, which was for the element of protection, not punishment. In their wisdom, the present Government have taken a different view, which they are entitled to.
The one time when I got into real trouble was when I reminded the judiciary that the introduction of indeterminate sentences for those from whom the public needed protection, in our view, was supposed to be balanced by the ending of custodial sentences for those who should not have been in prison—in other words, for exhorting the appropriate use of community sentencing. I did so at the invitation of the Lord Chief Justice, but I was attacked by every judge in Britain except the Lord Chief Justice for reminding them of the original thinking behind the balance of indeterminate and community sentences. I am for community sentences. I am also very supportive of restorative justice, if for no other reason than that it appears to work from the point of view of the victim and for the rehabilitation of offenders.
On community sentencing, I am puzzled about why it is felt necessary to introduce the requirement that the purpose of punishment be explicitly recorded—I am careful not to use the word “mandated”—as one of a range of requirements upon the judiciary. I am therefore left to work on the basis of formal and informal press briefings. I recognise from my experience that the press do not always reflect accurately the reality of a Minister’s thinking, so I do not want to assume they are 100% accurate, but we are led to believe that it is necessary because this is what the public demand. I am not sure that that is the main concern of the public about community sentences. I think the main concern of the public is that they do not quite know what they involve or that people are being required to do things that they would not normally do.
We put in a lot of effort to highlight the nature of community sentences. Some of the manners in which we did that were not popular or acceptable. We had among a range of practical suggestions one which included people involved wearing particular coloured vests. At the level of operations, some people may have objected to that, but noble Lords will understand that the reason behind it was that we recognised the appropriateness of community sentencing, but we also recognised that there was unawareness among the public of what good was coming from it and what those who were thus sentenced were actually doing to recompense the community and victims for the effects of their crime.
If the Government wish to reassure the public about the nature of community sentencing, this clause is a pretty blunt and crude way of doing it. The problem is that this will backfire. I have no problem with Governments who take a strong line on law and order. They are always accused of playing to the Gallery, but when the Bill uses this particular expression and requires this particular reaction in community sentencing—which would be taken into account anyway by the judiciary because of the criteria that inform our sentencing policy, as the noble Baroness pointed out earlier, which derive from 2005, I think from memory—it is seen as a gratuitous attempt to play to the Gallery and, however sincere the Government are, they are weakened.
I support community sentencing where it is appropriate. There are many people in prison who should never be there and who will not be mended in their ways, rehabilitated or make recompense to society. In supporting restorative justice, I hope that the Government will look again at this clause and rely on the wisdom of the judiciary. In community sentencing, that has not been the problem; the real problem has been that we need to do more to illustrate to local communities the effect of what is being done for their good as recompense and as part of rehabilitation.
5.30 pm