Contribution
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 54 in the name of my noble friend the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson. I begin by thanking noble Lords for their careful and detailed scrutiny of Clauses 18 and 19. I and my noble friend the Minister are particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble and learned Lords, Lord Keen, Lord Thomas and Lord Burnett, for their further engagement in the meetings we have had since Committee.
In Committee, I promised your Lordships that the Government would reflect carefully on our current approach. Amendments 54 to 57, in the name of my noble friend the Minister, are the product of those considerations and reconsiderations. I must first note for the record that we shared the amendments in draft with the Lady Chief Justice and the Sentencing Council before tabling. I stress that, in keeping with convention, they were not invited to express a view on the merits of our proposed approach, nor did they do so.
The Government remain of the view that providing for approval of the Sentencing Council’s business plans and guidelines is the best way of maintaining public confidence in the council and its work. That said, we recognise that it would help to clarify what is expected from the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice when considering any requests from the council. Our amendments seek to add important safeguards to both processes and to increase their transparency. We are particularly grateful to your Lordships’ Constitution Committee for the recommendation concerning Clause 18, which has informed and inspired the Government’s approach through these amendments.
I first turn to the concerns raised about the consequences for the council if the Lord Chancellor were to reject a request to approve a proposed business plan. As I explained in Committee, Clause 18 provides the Lord Chancellor with the opportunity to review a business plan before it is finalised. This ensures that the council has appropriately considered priorities from the Government and Parliament in developing the business plan. This should help to give the council a greater understanding of the Lord Chancellor’s priorities and help minimise the risk of disagreement later on during guideline development. If the Lord Chancellor decided not to approve a business plan, Amendment 55 requires them to notify the council and, as soon as practicable, lay a document before Parliament stating their reasons for that decision. Amendments 56 and 57 make similar provision in respect of sentencing guidelines.
Taken together, the Government’s amendments will ensure that any reasons for rejecting a business plan or guideline are publicly available and drawn to the attention of Parliament. This is an important commitment to accountability that will increase the transparency of both approval processes. Since this is a point that was raised in Committee, I confirm that nothing in this clause is intended to prevent the council from carrying out its statutory functions in the event that a business plan was to be questioned or rejected.
I will now address the concerns arising from Clause 19’s requirement that the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice must each individually approve definitive sentencing guidelines before the council can publish them. We want to make it clear in the Bill that a very high bar must be met for any guidelines to be rejected.
Amendments 56 and 57 therefore provide that guidelines can be rejected only in instances necessary to maintain public confidence in the justice system. Our intention is that a rejection will occur in only very rare cases, when it is truly necessary to maintain public confidence in the justice system; it is absolutely not our intention for guidelines to be rejected arbitrarily. It is with that in mind that we have put these safeguards in place.
I hope noble Lords will recognise that this approach represents a significant constraint on any involvement in the guidelines and will help safeguard against guidelines being rejected without proper justification. By requiring approval from both the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice, it is the Government’s intention for there to be close collaboration between the two on any approval requests from the council. In drafting this measure, we have also had regard to their existing joint responsibilities for the council, including, for example, the appointment of its members. We are keen to ensure parity between them in respect of the approval of guidelines.
Finally, we are also keen to provide assurance that the council’s work will not be subject to unnecessary delays, which, again, was a concern raised in Committee. Through Amendments 54, 56 and 57, we therefore propose that any approval requests from the council are to be considered by the Lord Chancellor and, in the case of the guidelines, the Lady Chief Justice, as soon as practicable.
I stress that we remain very grateful to the council for its continued work in bringing greater consistency, transparency and public understanding to the sentencing process. We look forward, from the Government’s perspective, to working closely with the council in the months ahead. I beg to move.