Violent Crime Reduction Bill

moved Amendment No. 117G:"Page 26, line 42, leave out subsections (4) to (8)." The noble Lord said: I indicated to the Committee that we supported the new offence of using someone to mind a weapon, but we cannot support the mandatory minimum sentences in Clause 24. It is a matter of very serious principle. Mandatory minimum sentences prevent the court taking full account of the individual circumstances of a case. They can result in disproportionate sentences in contravention of Article 49.3 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which provides that the severity of penalties must not be disproportionate to the criminal offence. They distort the sentencing process. It is a tragedy that, over the nine years of the new Labour Government, a tendency has been shown to mistrust the judges. It has now got to the point where the Prime Minister has criticised a judge in the case involving Afghan refugees—in which I declare an interest because I was involved—which the Government intend to appeal. That is an absolutely disgraceful state of affairs. This is just another reflection of the lack of trust shown in judges. The reality is that the independent judiciary does not lack any motivation in passing sentences. It pays heed to the Sentencing Guidelines Council that was set up by the Government to give guidance and direction about the appropriate sentence in a particular case. The Sentencing Guidelines Council has the job of looking at sentences across the board, so that an offence of a particular gravity will be punished by a sentence which is the same as for another offence of the same gravity. Here we have a situation where it is perfectly possible to imagine that an under-18 year-old, for example, will be handed a firearm by some criminal just as the premises are raided by the police and find that they are caught by this clause. A minimum sentence of three years would then be passed under subsection (5). If they were over 18, the minimum sentence would be five years. It is quite unnecessary. The arbitrary nature of the sentence is only qualified at all by the use of the words,"““unless it is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances relating to the offence or to the offender which justify””," passing a lesser sentence. That phrase, which is the same as in Section 51 of the Firearms Act 1968, was considered in the case of Rehman recently. The Court of Appeal held that exceptional circumstances exist if to impose five years’ imprisonment would result in an arbitrary and disproportionate sentence. For a sentence to be called arbitrary and disproportionate requires a high threshold indeed. I fail to understand why this Government, having introduced the Sentencing Guidelines Council and endeavoured to reach parity of sentencing across the board, should mistrust their judges not to carry out the recommendations of the Sentencing Guidelines Council. It is quite unnecessary. It is for those reasons that I beg to move.