Member

More importantly, there are many in this country—and no doubt a number in this Committee—who would wish the Government to pursue a more enlightened penal policy. I have said on many occasions that it would be a great blessing here in England if we stopped sending so many people to prison. As my two predecessors as Lord Chief Justice—who are with us still—and Sir Brian Leveson argued, we should go back to levels of punishment and imprisonment that we enjoyed 20 or 30 years ago, because that is the only way we will ever have sufficient money to deal with probation.