Member

Amendment 2 concerns those in the community. I am not sure that the wording of the amendment is quite right, because it must depend on the happenchance of whether you have been recalled, but that is a lawyer’s technical point that can be put right. Let me turn to the substance of the problem. It is very important to appreciate, when dealing with this option, the sheer injustice of the licence regime. We all accept that if you let someone out of prison before the end of his determinate sentence from the court, or if the person is subject to life imprisonment for murder—as a result of the bargain Parliament made to abolish the death sentence—then that person is still being punished and the regime may be appropriate for that. However, this recall regime subjects people to further preventive detention; it is completely different. Therefore, the safeguards in respect of this need to be much greater. If those cannot be put in place then plainly we should terminate the licence provisions—which would not be a good idea—or allow the court to change them.