My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. As he said, the current position is that an offence has to be so serious that a custodial sentence is imposed, but his amendment would put in place a presumption in favour of a community sentence. The additional part of his amendment is that special reasons have to be given in open court. My question to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, if it is appropriate to ask him, is: what might those reasons be? Would a breach of previous community orders be a special reason for it to be announced in open court that a custodial sentence will be passed? While I am sympathetic to the objectives of the amendment, I am open-minded about how it will be applied in court.
The Government’s impact statement highlighted the potential risk of increasing custodial sentences of less than 12 months because the sentencers themselves know that there will be a licence followed by a supervision period, which might be attractive to them. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, referred to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, making that same point in an earlier debate. My experience is that magistrates and
district judges are always reluctant to commit an offender to prison and understand very well the current wording of the guidelines that an offence has to be so serious that only custody will do.
Nevertheless, it is an interesting amendment, which, as I said, I support. It will be for the practicalities of the Government to see whether there is a change in sentencing behaviour if the Bill goes through unamended. I am doubtful whether sentencers will change their behaviour; there will not be more custodial sentences because of the additional supervision period. Can the noble Lord, Lord Marks, give an example of the special reasons, to which he alluded, that might be appropriate for a custodial sentence?
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