Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)

My Lords, I too add to the welcome that has been given to David Gauke’s review and the Government’s response to it. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Baker, when he said, “Let us try to approach this in a non-political manner”, but I fear that is probably pie in the sky. I shall put it in a slightly different way: can we try to approach this by seeing what works? Do these long prison sentences work? My own view is that they do not. As important to these reforms will be making sure that the substitute, of people spending more time in the community, works. Here, money is critical. I very much hope that the Government will be prepared to submit their detailed costings for critical examination, because we cannot afford to get this wrong. There are three areas that concern me. First, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that in this electronic age, tagging should be efficient. I do not want to say much about the companies that have been used, but they have a fairly dubious history in some respects. Secondly, we ought to be very careful in how we deal with people who offend. When we tried this 20 years ago, that was the problem: if someone broke the conditions, we were too slow at doing anything about it; therefore, that needs funds. Thirdly, can we ensure that there is proper money for the Probation Service, and that that is examined critically? All of those are critical to the point that has been made—how do we have confidence in the community? I remember going up north as a youngish judge and being told, when I advocated community sentence, “Young man,”—I was, I think, relatively young then— “we don’t believe in it up here”. We have to make them believe in it.