My Lords, I support entirely the sentiments behind the amendment moved so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I support verbatim the comments that were made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and share the concerns expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, about the use of the word “exceptional” in these provisions.
These proposals ignore what happens every day of the week in court rooms up and down the country. There is a substantial class of cases—or there are classes of cases—which are not particularly common but fall far short of being exceptional. I am the last person here who should attempt to explain to this House in the presence of members of the judiciary who have already spoken what the term “exceptional” means, but usually it means roughly what the dictionary definition says that it means. These are not the common class of cases; they are truly exceptional.
I mention one group of cases that I have experienced as a practitioner and sitting as a recorder and that causes me real concern in the context of this part of the schedule. It is a group of cases in which the defendants are usually women who have been subjected to often very severe domestic violence and sometimes sexual violence. They have done something fairly serious in terms of criminal law and have usually pleaded
guilty. They have to be sentenced by the court, but punishment is somewhere low down the list of the priorities that the judge passing sentence has in mind. The sentence can serve a useful service; there are elements in community sentences that are restorative or retributive and can help to resolve the situation that has given rise to the appearance in court. The requirement of punishment in all but exceptional cases seems to ignore the reality of a class like the one that I have mentioned. For that reason, I invite my noble friend the Minister to hearken very closely to this debate, which has had some very authoritative voices speaking in it, and think again.