Violent Crime Reduction Bill

moved Amendment No. 117H:"Page 27, line 5, at end insert—" ““(   )   In relation to times before the commencement of paragraph 180 of Schedule 7 to the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 (c. 43), the reference in subsection (4) to a sentence of imprisonment, in relation to an offender aged under 21 at the time of conviction, is to be read as a reference to a sentence of detention in a young offender institution.”” The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 117H has become desirable following a recent Court of Appeal judgment concerning minimum sentence provisions introduced into the Firearms Act 1968 by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Clause 24 closely follows those provisions and is affected in the same way. The minimum sentence is a tough measure aimed at combating gun crime. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, courts must impose a minimum sentence of three years’ detention for 16 to 17 year-olds or five years’ imprisonment for offenders aged 18 and above. In the recent Court of Appeal case, the court judged that the minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment cannot be imposed on 18 to 20 year-olds as to do so would conflict with other general sentencing provisions requiring that offenders aged under 21 should not receive sentences of imprisonment. The Home Office view, and the government view for that matter, is that this situation is already catered for by Section 96 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, which converts sentences of imprisonment into sentences of detention in the case of 18 to 20 year-olds. We are currently exploring the options for challenging the court’s decision through a future case and, if necessary, we can amend the existing provisions in the Firearms Act through an order-making power contained in Section 333 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Unfortunately, that order-making power cannot be used to amend the provisions in this Bill, so we have concluded that it would be helpful to make this amendment now to put the matter beyond doubt. The situation will be resolved completely when the relevant parts of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 are implemented to abolish detention in young offender institutions, but no firm timescale has been set for this as yet. Amendment No. 118 corrects a mistake in Clause 24, which sets out the penalties for the offence of using someone to mind a weapon in Clause 23. We have identified that there was a minor drafting defect in subsection (10)(a), and as a consequence we are making a technical amendment so that the legislation refers to ““an offence under Section 23”” rather than ““an offence under this Section””. That is necessary because it is Clause 23 that contains the offence of using someone to mind a weapon, while Clause 24 only sets out the penalties for that offence. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to.