My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate and precede, I think, the noble Lord over there. I just want to say, it all may have been said, but not by me. None the less, I will be brief because—it is not often I feel like saying this—it has been an absolute privilege to listen to today’s debate. Every point of morality, sensible practice and detail on this compelling menu of amendments has been made.
I want to make the briefest of pleas to the Minister, who has been a distinguished commercial barrister for many years; I, by contrast, have been a humble student of the miserable world of justice and home affairs. I also want to make a political point, of all things, in a debate that has been so rarely elevated above politics. I believe that today presents the beginning of an historic opportunity in our politics in this country. For most of my adult life—indeed, pretty much all of it—we have been embroiled in an arms race, particularly around incarceration, that has put us on a path which is more like the American one than a sensible path from anywhere else, let alone the path we might be on. How often do you hear someone of the stature of my noble friend Lord Blunkett say, “This was a mistake. Hands up; it is a fair cop. I am offering a bipartisan hand to help set this right”? I have not heard anything like that in justice and home affairs in my time as a student of these issues.
What is more, this is about rectifying a mistake that the Minister’s party already accepts was a mistake; that is why these sentences are no longer available to new offenders. The Minister, his party and his Government ought to be half way—indeed, three-quarters of the way—there already, in rectifying what my friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, called “the great stain”. We are so close. The Minister has an historic opportunity to begin to put this right. How often does an opportunity like that come about? The point about this stain is that it is wrong in itself, and it is terrible for all those hopeless people whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and other noble Lords mentioned. It is also a symbol of both injustice and the arms race I mentioned. That is why this opportunity is so precious and important.
It is ever harder to justify an unelected second Chamber—your Lordships’ House—nearly a quarter of the way into the 21st century but, if the Minister listens to the debate and does not slam the door closed to reason, today might just be enough for the moment.