Contribution
My Lords, I am obliged for all the contributions from across the Committee and for the response from the Minister. Everybody appreciates that Clause 1 is not prohibiting anything. Nevertheless, a number of noble Lords, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, talked eloquently and correctly about the discretion of our judges and the trust that we should place in our judges. But that is not what Clause 1 is doing. Clause 1 is saying they must apply a presumption. They are not being trusted with it; they are being told they must apply it. That is one of the issues that we need to address.
A number of specific exceptions were tabled in the amendments, but I take on board the point made by my noble friend Lord Hailsham about it being far more straightforward to produce some generic description in this regard. Indeed, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, pointed out, it may even be something that should be left to the Sentencing Council at the end of the day. But that is another issue. I read this quotation:
“Even when criminals are found guilty, the sentences they receive often do not make sense either to victims or the wider public”.
That is from the Labour manifesto. My fear is that Clause 1 is simply going to reinforce that perception, and that is one of the concerns that we have with it.
I appreciate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about the potential for a suspended sentence to lead to support and rehabilitation. The problem is that those facilities are simply not available at the present time and, in any event, we do not know what period of suspension might or might not be imposed by the courts. It may well be one or two years, but, as the Bill is framed, it may be much less and leave no sensible opportunity for either support or rehabilitation.
There is also the matter of statistics. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, alluded to some well-known statistics about the fact that those who are in custody for short sentences are much more likely to repeat offences when they come out of prison than those who have been given a suspended sentence. But one must bear in mind that those who have been given a suspended sentence have generally committed a far less serious offence than those who have been given a custodial sentence, and that those who are given custodial sentences for relatively minor offences are given those custodial sentences because they are repeat offenders. One must bear in mind Disraeli’s observation that there are lies, there are damned lies and there are statistics and, therefore, we have to approach them with a degree of care. I understand and appreciate that there is more generic evidence to suggest that suspended sentences, when properly applied, controlled and maintained, can have beneficial effects—nobody doubts that for a moment—but there is a very real need here to address, among other things, the whole scourge of repeat offenders.
This arises particularly in the context of Amendment 8 from my noble friend Lord Jackson, which highlights burglary as a particular offence. Burglary is an intensely intrusive crime that leaves victims traumatised, and it is inclined to attract repeat offenders. Its social damage is considerable. There are particular crimes of that nature, given their impact on society as a whole, that should attract something more than a suspended sentence, given the fear is that somebody will simply repeat them. Similar observations can be made on knife crime as well.
I fully understand that there is a need to revisit Clause 1 and its implications. We have sought to do so by identifying particular or specific exceptions to it. There is, as I indicated, and as outlined by my noble friend Lord Hailsham, potentially a better route to that conclusion. Indeed, to echo the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, there is hopefully a simpler route to that conclusion. For present purposes, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.