My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee is one of the signatories to these amendments. Sadly, she cannot be in her place but she, too, is a member of the JCHR, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, already referred, as he did to the letter to the department from the chairman of that committee. As the noble and learned Lord eloquently explained, the letter from Harriet Harman makes it very clear that we are talking about two sets of offences. One is the offence of a serious breach, the other is an ancillary offence—or, indeed, even an ancillary to an ancillary offence. These amendments clearly suggest that, in the light of the differences between them, there should be two sets of maximum penalties accorded to them. That has been very clearly laid down.
My only point is to ask a further question of the Minister that follows on from the letter that Harriet Harman sent, which says:
“Moreover, with an unusual offence of this kind, we would also ask whether the Government plans to request that the Sentencing Council issue guidelines (and if not, why not?)”.
The House would be interested in the Minister’s response to that query from Harriet Harman.