Police and Justice Bill

Certainly I cannot imagine that the noble and learned Lord would do anything other than that. We are dealing with two matters here. The noble and learned Lord is absolutely right to say that any existing guidance cannot deal with levels of punishment because punishment is the novelty of this Bill—and, as the Government have already said, a significant development. But the difficulty is that, unless we know what guidance there is from the Government to deal with the proper and fair allocation of financial punishment, we will not know how fair and effective this new provision will be. So we are in a cart and horse situation here. My concern is that we will be asked to agree to a provision when we do not know how people's ability to pay will be taken into account. Furthermore, if the Government come forward with their guidance in time for us to consider it and they say, ““This is how the CPS is going to be told to apply the offer of a conditional caution. This is how it is going to look at the finances of the person, and it will reflect the ways in which a magistrates’ court operates and takes things into account””, they know full well that we are likely to come back and say, ““Ah, but of course the Government are trying to supersede the role of a court””, and they could find themselves in a cleft stick situation. The noble and learned Lord shakes his head, but there is a fundamental question here of how far courts’ functions could be encroached upon. Of course, I am delighted that the noble and learned Lord has made it clear that there will be guidance to ensure that the imposition of a fine will be proportionate. Underlying it all, the difficulty is that if there is not a proper way of judging what the financial penalty should be, we will still end up with a situation where a person has a real choice in the matter only if they can afford to pay. We can go no further forward on this rather narrow amendment at this stage, so I beg leave to withdraw it. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 95 and 96 not moved.] On Question, Whether Clause 15 shall stand part of the Bill?