Contribution
My Lords, it is a great honour to have the opportunity to speak for the Government in Committee on the Sentencing Bill. As noble Lords know, I have devoted much of my life and career to criminal justice reform, in particular the question of how to reduce reoffending. Therefore, I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the amendments on short sentences, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. While I am grateful to noble Lords for their constructive and thoughtful input on this Bill, inside and outside the Chamber, I remain convinced that the position of the Bill is the right one. I appreciate the words from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Beith, along those lines.
Let me be clear at the outset: we are not abolishing short sentences. Judges will still have discretion to send offenders to prison where there is a significant risk of physical or psychological harm to an individual, where they have breached a court order or in exceptional circumstances. However, the evidence shows that those given a community order or suspended sentence reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. That is a key driver behind the presumption to suspend short sentences and why it must continue to apply to sentences of 12 months or less.
We are following the evidence to reduce crime, leading to fewer victims and safer communities, and we are also following the lead of the previous Conservative Government who originally introduced this measure during the last Parliament, without the additional amendments we are debating today.
Given the clear evidence on short sentences, the Government do not agree with introducing further exemptions. To do so could increase reoffending and so create more victims. I came into this job to build a criminal justice system that leads to fewer victims, not more.
I will now turn to the specific points that noble Lords have raised in this debate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, have both raised important points on early guilty pleas through Amendments 2 and 13. I can assure noble Lords that I have reflected on these amendments and considered them at length and with great care, but it has long been the practice of the courts to give a reduction in sentence where a defendant pleads guilty. This avoids the need for a trial, enables cases to be dealt with quickly, and shortens the gap between charge and sentence. Moreover, it can save victims and witnesses from the concern about having to give evidence. This is particularly important in traumatic cases.
Furthermore, the amendments proposed would create inconsistencies. The presumption would not apply where an early guilty plea mitigation brought the sentence down to 12 months or less, whereas it could still apply where the court applied any other mitigation that had the same effect. For these reasons, the Government do not support these amendments.
Through Amendments 3 and 14, noble Lords have also proposed requiring courts to impose suspended sentence orders with a maximum operational period of two years. This would not be appropriate for every suspended sentence order without consideration of the particular facts of the case, and would place additional burden on the Probation Service. The evidence shows that those given a community order or suspended sentence reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. We are following the evidence to reduce crime, leading to fewer victims and safer communities.
It is absolutely clear that the last Government left our Probation Service under immense pressure. Fourteen years of austerity came alongside a botched privatisation. The scars are still there, and we are fixing it. Sentencing must always be proportionate to the offence committed, taking into account all the circumstances of each case. It is right for the judiciary to retain discretion to consider this and make the sentencing decision. This amendment would remove that discretion.
I thank the noble Lords again for their amendments and the opportunity to debate them. I hope I have sufficiently explained why our approach of following the evidence is the right one to take. With that in mind, I ask them not to press their amendments.