Member

The Bill is about guidelines and not directly about the pre-sentence report, so I will welcome the Minister’s confirmation that the pre-sentence report and sentence can take account of, or possibly even be framed by, personal characteristics. I am not alone in thinking that the terms “personal characteristics” and “personal circumstances” are difficult, when one looks at them together. We have had the ministerial letter, to which the noble and learned Lord referred, distinguishing what is intrinsic from what is external and done to you. Pregnancy and maternity are regarded as both “characteristics” and “circumstances” by some, and indeed at the meeting last week, for which I thank the Minister, we heard from the MoJ that there are some factors—can I call them that?—which can be both characteristics and circumstances. It is a cheap laugh to say that pregnancy is a circumstance, but certainly, as regards maternity, a lot of people would say that it can be a circumstance, but it can be a characteristic. There is a lot of discussion about how maternity affects one as a person.