Police and Justice Bill

moved Amendment No. 93: Page 9, leave out lines 13 and 14. The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 93 I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 95 and 96. We now return to the issue that we broached briefly on Tuesday evening, a subject which the Government refer to as an extension of summary justice, whereas what is happening in practice is an extension of administrative punishment. The Secretary of State has the power to increase by secondary legislation the level of maximum penalty that may be imposed when a conditional caution is applied. At present the maximum of community punishment is 20 hours. The maximum fine is either one-quarter of the amount of the maximum that could be imposed in the court—that is, a quarter of £5,000 for the greatest offence involved—or a maximum of £500, whichever of the two sums is the lower. That is the position which the Government have provided for in the Bill as drafted. My Amendment No. 93 would remove the Secretary of State’s power to change the 20 hours by order. Amendment No. 95 would remove the power to change the financial maximum by order, and Amendment No. 96 is consequential. The noble and learned Lord will be aware of the concerns that have been expressed about the potential expansion of the power to impose punishment without the involvement of a court. The Magistrates’ Association has said this about the breadth of the powers currently proposed: "““We are very alarmed that the Secretary of State should be given powers to increase these potential penalties in the future. It opens up the possibility of more serious offences, rather than the extremely low level ones, being dealt with outside a court””." When this matter was debated in another place the Minister sought to assure the Committee there that conditional cautions would not be used in the context of more serious crime. The Minister said: "““There is clear guidance from the Director of Public Prosecutions about the kind of offences that should be subject to conditional cautions. Because the conditions are set lower than the fines and punishments that magistrates courts can impose, it clearly is not appropriate to stray into that serious crime area””.—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee D, 23/03/06; col. 167.]" But the Director of Public Prosecutions’ guidance on conditional cautions does not provide the assurance against punitive conditional cautions being used to deal with more serious offences. On the contrary, it states: "““there will be indictable only offences, [i.e. offences which are so serious they may only be tried in the Crown Court], in which a caution is appropriate because of the offence or the offender””." That is quoted from the CPS website, section 3. I note that Norman Brennan, the director of the Victims of Crime Trust, has described the idea of extending punitive conditional cautions as ““nonsense””. He is quoted in the Daily Mail of 25 June as saying: "““What sort of deterrent is this? The Government talks about the need for common sense, and that is certainly what the public wants, but this is the opposite””." It is important that we should listen to views expressed in those terms. As the Minister in another place identified, the most realistic safeguard against the use of conditional cautions to deal with serious offences is a restriction upon the severity of the punitive condition that may be imposed. It is exactly for that reason that our amendment proposes that the Bill should prevent secondary legislation being used to allow more serious penalties being imposed and should contain an exhaustive list of conditions which may be included. I shall be interested to hear from the noble and learned Lord what the Government propose to do in response to the recommendation at paragraph 27 of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report. However, my concerns go far deeper than just whether or not the statutory instrument should be dealt with by the affirmative or negative resolution procedure. Here we are addressing the very real issue of the potential future expansion of administrative punishment at the decision of the Secretary of State, and especially being expanded by secondary legislation. We consider that this should be undertaken only when it is proved to be necessary, effective and fair. So far I am not persuaded that the drafting of Clause 15 fulfils that requirement, hence the series of groups of amendments that we have tabled—this being the first. I beg to move.