Lord Sandhurst (Con)

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie. We on these Benches welcome the underlying principle of Clauses 13 to 16, which relate to new community order requirements that can be imposed on offenders as part of their suspended sentences and community orders that can be imposed on offenders as part of their sentences. However, as I asked at Second Reading, the big question is: how are these going to be made a practical reality? There is a commendable aim here: to equip the courts with additional tools that will both enhance public protection and steer offenders towards genuine rehabilitation. It may surprise noble Lords to hear that we on these Benches do not oppose suspended sentences as a concept or in application. It has been abundantly clear, I hope, that we take issue with Clauses 1 and 2 as they are currently drafted because we believe that there should not be such an indiscriminate provision for criminals to serve their sentences in the community. However, for those offenders who should serve their sentences on a suspended basis, these clauses are a welcome measure. They will improve the regime—or, at least, they have the potential to improve the regime, if properly drafted. Many noble Lords have spoken of their support for suspended sentences in favour of short-term custodial ones, arguing that the short-term benefits of serving such sentences in prison are largely outweighed, if not entirely negated, by the effects of custody. Although we recognise this argument and, in many cases, agree with it, I would respectfully point out that this is just one side of the coin. Of course, the outcomes for prisoners themselves are an important consideration in this debate—because, if successful, the Bill will prevent or reduce the rate of recidivism—but we must recognise the wider public. They also have an interest in recidivism—namely, that it does not occur—as well as a legitimate interest in seeing the right people be positively punished. If we are to give support to the broader aim of this Bill, it will hinge entirely on the Government’s ability to ensure—in fact, to guarantee—that those on suspended sentences will be managed in a manner that drives towards public safety, not just the term of the sentence. If it cannot be shown that those being released into the community cannot be managed in a safe and effective way, we will fail the public by allowing this Bill to pass into statute. Noble Lords may wish to point to statistics that claim that reoffending rates are lower for those on suspended sentences, but the reality is that the statistic is not nothing. If we are to allow offenders on to the streets, we must do so in a way that does not increase the danger to citizens going about their lives and does not increase the crime rate. A higher number will receive suspended sentences than do at the moment. It must be common sense that, when imposing suspended sentences, judges have striven, at least to date, to impose them on those for whom they think there is a lower risk of breach. But if it is to be, in effect, for everybody, inevitably there will be those for whom there is a higher risk of breach. On day one in Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, spoke in opposition to exemptions we suggested from the suspended sentence provision in Clause 1. She said she had thought: “If there is a real danger to the general public, we probably wouldn’t be looking at a sentence of less than 12 months”.—[Official Report, 26/11/25; col. 1342.] The reality is that there is a range of crimes for which offenders are routinely sentenced to immediate custodial terms of 12 months or less. It is a matter of fact that certain sex offenders come within that category. The noble Baroness may not consider such people a real danger to the public, but we on these Benches do. Further, the Minister has confirmed that, in reality, this presumption will extend to sentences up to 18 months once guilty pleas are accounted for; in other words, 18 months discounted to 12 because of a prompt and early guilty plea, and then suspended. We must be very clear about this: sentences of up to 18 months’ imprisonment apply to categories of people who are certainly violent and certainly dangerous. They may not be dangerous to a particular identified individual, meaning that the exemptions in the statute will not apply. Instead, we are at the mercy of court orders to keep the public safe. The amendment proposed on day one to exempt those involved in terrorist or associated offences from the suspended sentence provision was also met with resistance. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked: “If an offender commits a terrorist act, is he looking at 12 months or less?”.—[Official Report, 26/11/25; col. 1350.] Under the Terrorism Act 2000, a person who wears an item of clothing or displays an article related to a proscribed organisation will be sentenced to a term of imprisonment “not exceeding six months”. This means that an offender wishing to fly an al-Qaeda or a Nazi flag on the street will, in this case, now receive a suspended sentence. They are not putting a particular individual at significant risk of harm, but I am sure noble Lords will agree that they are a risk to the public and the behaviour of the public generally. Such behaviour winds people up. Yet will they not be exempt from this presumption, as currently drafted? We will never support this measure, but if we must resign ourselves to the possibility that this will soon be the reality, we on these Benches will strive to do everything we can to lessen the risk to the public. That is why the amendments in this group have been tabled, and I will now briefly outline the practical aims of each. Amendments 59, 64, 69 and 72 would add a general practicality condition to the imposition of the new community order requirements. This has been suggested to ensure that they may be imposed only where compliance with such requirements can realistically be monitored. Imposing these new orders will be meaningless if we cannot ensure that they can and will be enforced in practice. It is of no practical benefit to ban an offender from a particular type of public event if there is no meaningful way of ensuring that he or she will in fact not attend such events when released into the community. Likewise, there is little value in placing a driving prohibition on an offender who feels no deterrent from getting back on the road as a result of an order that he knows is fruitless in practice. These amendments touch on a point of the utmost importance. If the Government oppose them, they are saying that they are willing to allow the courts to impose orders which they know will not be upheld in practice. This was the exact justification for the removal of the rehabilitative activity days in Clause 12; namely, that the maximum thresholds are rarely upheld in practice and so they needed reform. Will the Government follow the same logic for the new powers they are giving the courts, or will they allow conditions of suspended sentence to be given out in the full knowledge that they are just token gestures? We make this point not only to expose the inconsistent arguments that the Government have set out in the Bill. This is not simply a matter of an ineffective law that is likely to waste the already stretched resources of our judiciary; failure to get this right will lead to more crime. It will result in more sexual offences, assaults, thefts and knives on our streets. If offenders cannot be practically managed under the new community requirement conditions, they should not be allowed to return straight to society.