Offensive Weapons Bill — House of Lords, 2019-02-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, in moving Amendment 5 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Paddick, I shall speak also to Amendments 6, 7, 20, 21, 22, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and 34 For most of us in society, the idea of going to prison for even a short amount of time, with the loss of liberty that that entails, is a real deterrent. But that thinking fails to get into the mindset of many of today’s criminals, who may be reckless or who may not fear prison because they have friends and family who have done time. Perhaps their lives are so chaotic that, in the scheme of things, prison does not seem so bad. That is true of no group more than those serving the shortest sentences. It was recently said: "In the last five years, just over a quarter of a million custodial sentences have been given to offenders for six months or less; over 300,000 sentences were for 12 months or less. But nearly two thirds of those offenders go on to commit a further crime within a year of being released. 27% of all reoffending is committed by people who have served short sentences of 12 months or less. For the offenders completing these short sentences whose lives are destabilised, and for society which incurs a heavy financial and social cost, prison simply isn’t working" By now noble Lords may have recognised the source of this quotation. The speaker went on to say that, "there is a very strong case to abolish sentences of six months or less altogether, with some closely defined exceptions, and put in their place a robust community order regime. Let’s be honest. The public will always want to prioritise schools or hospitals over the criminal justice system when it comes to public spending. But where we do spend on the criminal justice system, we must spend on what works. Why would we spend taxpayers’ money doing what we know doesn’t work, and indeed, makes us less safe? We shouldn’t" Thank you, Justice Secretary, for putting the case so well. I commented at the last stage of this Bill that, not so long ago, the Home Office and the MoJ were a single department. It was too big, but it is a great pity that thinking has moved so far apart that one department is now legislating for a sanction which the other considers unproductive These amendments would remove the sanction of short-term imprisonment for up to 51 weeks—the same points apply as those made by Mr Gauke in his speech a few days ago. We are dealing with various offences: the sale of corrosives to under-18s, the delivery of corrosives to residential premises and having the corrosive in a public place. We would have preferred to focus on robust community sentences, but we learned during the last stage that they can be applied only as an alternative to a custodial sentence. In my view, that needs updating—but that is for another day. I hope that the Government might address this: otherwise, we will do so at a suitable opportunity In Committee, it was said, understandably, that victims feel let down because community sentences do not have the same weight and are ineffective. That is an important issue, which should be addressed by the robustness of community sentences. I have heard over the years that a tough community sentence is much harder than custody The offences in question are rather difficult. The first two that I mentioned are likely to be committed by adults. Being found to have committed a criminal offence and being fined, which is what our amendments would achieve, would have a serious impact on the offender as an employee—or possibly, in the circumstances, as an ex-employee. The third offence may be committed by an adult but also by a child. The arguments about custodial sentences being rather good at fitting someone for a life of crime particularly apply The Minister in Committee talked about the significant harm that corrosive products can cause if misused. The offences in question, which are the subject of these amendments, are not about the use of corrosives as a weapon. We are not seeking to minimise or make light of the harm that corrosives can cause; that is not the point. The Minister will also say that the court has discretion as to disposal, which is of course true up to a point That takes me to Clauses 8 and 9—the subject of the last two amendments in this group—which we would leave out. They require particular, mandatory sentences. Clause 8 applies to, among others, children over 16 who have one previous relevant conviction. We are concerned about the age threshold, for reasons that we went into fairly extensively at the last stage and which, I suspect, other noble Lords may raise today. I say in advance that I will probably agree with them. We have an in-principle objection to mandatory sentences. The Minister described them as providing the appropriate custodial sentence. But is not "appropriate" something that the court should determine? We may have criticisms of pre-sentence reports and so on, but the court is looking at both the offence and the offender; those taken together will lead the court to take a view on what is appropriate. In Committee, we explained our opposition to the application to under-18s—I felt then, and still feel, that Clause 8(4) is inadequate. It is, if I may put it this way, the legislative equivalent of lip service that, "the court must have regard to its duty under section 44 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933" The text refers back to Clause 8(2), which tells the court that if it is, "of the opinion that there are particular circumstances", it can take a different course. But the circumstances here are that the person is under 18. So how does having regard to the welfare of the child or young person actually work? Does it mean that one child is more resilient than another, that one offence is less serious than another, or that the circumstances make custody "unjust"? This is what discretion in sentencing is about, and these Benches prefer judicial discretion to executive sentencing. I beg to move.