Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I am absolutely not going to shy away from that, and will come to it. It may be at the heart of the issue rather more than the point of work. It is important that noble Lords understand—which is why I take the liberty of explaining it—that the removal of this clause does not just deal with the fine element, but the sort of example I have given: that you cannot ask someone to clear up a piece of graffiti without being clear that he is responsible for it. Where somebody has been drunk and disorderly, causing a nuisance in the community—goodness knows, I am afraid that happens a great deal—one might think that to say, ““Right, you should help clear up the street on a Sunday morning, perhaps the street littered with beer cans from the night before””, would be an appropriate response. It would be a good way of bringing his offending behaviour home to him, and a good thing for the community. You cannot impose that under the current conditions. Nor can magistrates impose it, because they have a lower limit of 40 hours for community service, and cannot impose it unless it is of a sufficient degree of seriousness, which this would not be. We are missing a whole range of response. I shall give an example of where the fine is appropriate. We currently have a system under which fixed-penalty notices can be imposed by the police not just for driving offences or the sort of thing the noble and learned Lord referred to, but also, under schemes approved by Parliament, for things like drunkenness and public disorder offences. Let us take the example of someone who, on a Saturday night or whenever, drinks too much, comes out of the pub and starts with very bad behaviour. If he kicks in a door, you can invite him to repair the door if the owner of that property wants him to. Some owners of property will say, ““We don’t want that person repairing our door. We don’t want him anywhere near our house””. You can suggest to him that he should go on a course to deal with his alcohol or attend self-help groups to deal with anger management. The police could impose a fine without going to court at all. It is important to recognise that, and, contrary to what the noble and learned Lord says, they have discretion—not on the amount, I accept—whether to impose a fine. What you cannot do at the moment is to say, ““What this really needs is your agreement to deal with your problem by going on some sort of course, but you also need to recognise the wrongness of your behaviour by paying a relatively modest financial penalty””. You cannot at the moment do both. The prosecution could give a conditional caution to deal with alcohol management or anger management and the police could impose a penalty. Both those things could happen outside court, but you cannot do both. This provision would enable both to be done. What are the safeguards? This is important because the first point raised by the noble Lord was a constitutional concern that punishment should be imposed by the courts. I am a little surprised that no noble Lord who has spoken has referred to the fact that this is not an imposition at all. It remains for the courts because no offender will be required to accept a conditional caution. It cannot be imposed on him against his will. He will have free legal advice on whether to accept the condition. If he does not accept the condition, he can simply say, ““I will go to court. I will plead not guilty in court””, or, ““I will plead guilty in court and I would rather have the court deal with it””. It is not a case of giving the prosecutors the power to punish because it is for the court ultimately to do that. A condition is being offered which differs from fixed penalties, which are a punishment imposed not by the prosecutor but by the police. I give way to the noble and learned Lord.