My Lords, I am grateful to all who have spoken in this debate, to the noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Ponsonby, for their broad support for what I have suggested, and to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, for his detailed response.
When I was at school, I had a teacher who taught us about different forms of argument, one of which is entitled “argumentum ad maiorem”—argument using a greater authority. In those days, I suppose it was something like “Because Sir Winston Churchill said something, it must be right.” The Minister’s argumentum ad maiorem was about the case of Brown v the Parole Board for Scotland, which, it will not surprise your Lordships to know, I have read.
I do not propose to embark on and bore your Lordships with a legal moot about that case. I say simply that I respectfully do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, despite his eminence as a lawyer, about the effect of that case on my proposal. I believe that my proposal, because of the change of the architecture that I suggested, including the fact that the sentencing judge would clearly refer to the potential extension provisions at the time of sentence, would come within the judgment of Brown v the Parole Board for Scotland.
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I listened to the reassurance that the Minister sought to give us about the processes in place. The noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Ponsonby, referred to the opportunity that we were generously given to participate in an expert panel in a meeting a few days ago. I was present at that meeting. I may be in a minority, but I emerged from that meeting feeling deeply unreassured about the processes that were being used by those who described them to us. It seemed to me that what is required with prisoners who have served sentences for such serious offences and who may present a grave danger to the public is an evidence-based, preferably adversarial, justiciable, appealable procedure, and the place for that procedure, plainly, is the Parole Board.
I do not accept the argument that a cliff-edge would be created either. Maybe it would if my amendment, the imperfections of which I have admitted, were amended a little further. I believe that licence conditions
could be applied in a similar way to those applied at present at the end of a sentence after the procedure that I have suggested.
Finally, I am disappointed that there has been no formal consultation with the Parole Board, particularly with the chair and deputy chair. If there was such formal consultation, I have a shrewd suspicion that they would have something very constructive to say. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that a consultation of a formal kind with the Parole Board’s senior officers is necessary as well as desirable to see what they feel they could do to improve this situation. With those remarks, I do not propose to test the opinion of the House on my amendment, but I hope that we can continue to discuss it to improve the provisions in the Bill.