The Bill is a very welcome culmination of the Law Commission’s four-year-long project to clear up and consolidate sentencing legislation. It acts as a clean sweep that has the potential to make the window to our sentencing law much clearer not only for judges but for those going through the criminal justice system and those who wish to hold the justice system to account for its failures. It cannot be right that the Law Commission’s survey found that more than one third of sentences are handed down against the statutes of our Parliament. Passing the Bill, along with the upcoming Sentencing Bill, makes those errors in our justice system easier to stop and spot.
I remind Ministers, and Members hoping to become Ministers, of how we ended up here and why the Bill is necessary in the first place. On Second Reading in the other House, Lord Falconer drew attention to the fact that there had been substantial changes to sentencing in no less than 16 years since 1990. It is little wonder, with such regular reform, that our sentencing statutes had become so cluttered. As we saw earlier this year, new legislation on sentencing is of course necessary, but this clean sweep does not in itself stop future legislation rendering the window to our justice system opaque once again.
When the Sentencing Bill comes in, I urge Ministers not to lose track of the importance of this measure. In the other House, Lord Falconer outlined four principles: any changes should be made by changing the terms of the sentencing code; any changes due to come into force after Royal Assent should be put into schedule 22 of the Sentencing Bill; any new arrangements should maintain the principle of the clean sweep; and any commencement information should be included in this Bill. Those guidelines are sensible and easy to follow and they maintain the clarity that we wish to create. Will the Minister commit to following those guidelines? If not, will he inform the House of any other plans going forward?
I finish by paying tribute to the Law Commission for its hard work in getting the Bill to this stage today.
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