Member

The safeguards now in the clauses are certainly sufficient to dissuade us from attempting to remove the clauses altogether at this stage. But I will say just that, if it were to turn out that the independence and functioning of the Sentencing Council were to be seriously compromised by the fetters now put on its power, that would be extremely worrying. I repeat what I have said before: the Sentencing Council does extremely important work. It performs its functions with creditable independence and is a very significant body indeed. I hope nothing will happen as a result of these clauses to curb that independence or the effectiveness of the Sentencing Council.