I thank noble Lords for their contributions. Let us be clear: of course the five principles are intact but, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, queried earlier, why bring legislation if we do not intend to change things? We do intend to chance things. The whole thrust of what we are trying to do is to use community sentencing effectively, couple it with a real drive on rehabilitation, and also—and we think we have public support in this—use the element of punishment to drive home both the rehabilitation message and the punishment message.
Part of that has come out in our debates. There are noble Lords who believe that “exceptional” covers around a third of offenders. That is exactly the problem we are trying to address because the idea that somehow a third of offenders cannot be punished is what undermines public confidence. That is why we are making the point that exceptional circumstances apply to a very narrow group and that it is possible to put a punishment element into a much wider range of sentences while giving the court the flexibility to take account of the circumstances of the person before it. However, as I said in the earlier debate, we are going to resist those who want to amend the Bill so that there is a three-lane highway of exceptions from what we are trying to do.
Amendments 3, 3A and 8 focus on ensuring that the courts,
“have regard to the need to promote rehabilitation”,
and that punishment is not imposed at the expense of rehabilitation. Amendment 9 looks at the detail of what requirements might constitute punishment for an offender, and finally, Amendment 11 looks at the impact of the changes on the purposes of sentencing as set out in Section 142 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. On the issues raised by the first three amendments in this group, I am happy to reassure the Committee that it is not the Government’s intention that any of these provisions should jeopardise the prospect of rehabilitation for offenders. In fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, I have already made the point a number of times that I am proud that the amendments we will be debating place rehabilitation so firmly on the agenda—and I keep on reinforcing what has been commended by the Prime Minister as part of this thrust of criminal justice reform.