My Lords, I have a feeling I am going to be in a minority in this Committee. As much as I like and admire the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken, I disagree with at least two of his amendments. I disagree with Amendment 195 on the minimum sentence for rape, partly because of the general point that I have made about judicial discretion already, which I am not going to repeat, and partly because—I draw now on my own experience as a criminal barrister; perhaps not a very distinguished one, but I was a genuine lawyer for quite a long time —rape is a broad spectrum of offence, from ones which one can comprehend to the truly awful. There is a spectrum here, and it is wrong to fetter the judicial discretion to the point envisaged by this amendment.
The other amendment I do not agree with would make the murder cases of the class described by the noble and learned Lord in Amendment 197 a whole life offence. I personally shrink from whole life sentences if they are mandatory. There are many cases where they are proper, but I would leave it to the judge. I very much dislike the concept of sending lots of people to mandatory whole life sentences with no prospect of rehabilitation.