Q
37Mr.
Boswell: That is really helpful and leads on to my final
question. Within the terms of the Bill, can you confirm whether what
might be termed the transfer of cases will be easier? That is in
relation partly—and I hope primarily—to the wishes and
convenience of the
next of kin. I presume that it will be part of the chief
coroner’s remit to look at the distribution of resources. In a
hypothetical situation, if a coroner in an adjacent county was
relatively idle—in Oxfordshire vis-Ã -vis my own county of
Northamptonshire, for example, or Wiltshire—could the case be
transferred? At the moment, my experience has been that coroners are,
perhaps justly, jealous and proud of their own jurisdictions. Perhaps
it will be easier in the future to move things
around.
Bridget
Prentice: That is absolutely
right.
Q
38Mr.
Boswell: Will the chief coroner broker that, so that
representations can be made if the family or the local authority do not
want that?
Bridget
Prentice: Exactly. It would be for the chief coroner
to make those directions.
Q
39Mr.
Bellingham: Briefly, I want to ask the Minister about
clauses 11 and 12. This is the most controversial section of this part
of the Bill and we will debate it at length in Committee. Existing
powers are in place to prevent the disclosure of harmful material:
there are public interest immunity certificates, reporting restrictions
and so on, and we are talking about only very few inquests where this
will apply. Do Ministers—Mrs. Prentice, in
particular—feel that damage will be done to the credibility of
the coronial service if these clauses become sections in the new Act?
Does she feel that the damage done will be worth it for the benefits
that accrue? We are talking about so few inquests, and powers are there
already to prevent harmful material from being made
available.
Bridget
Prentice: No, I do not agree. It is right to say that
this will affect only a tiny number of inquests, and not some of those
that have been mooted in the media—it will not affect military
inquests, for example. At the moment, where sensitive material has to
go before an inquest, it can be redacted. However, in cases of
extremely sensitive material relating to the security services, it
might be that the coroner would need to see the evidence. The family
can be involved in all other parts of the inquest. This would apply
only when dealing with extraordinarily sensitive material. That is why
clause 11 is necessary.
The
Chairman: Mr Howarth, as the last inquisitor on this
section, may I ask that once you have spent your rounds on this
particular target, you adjust your sights and concentrate on the
section on sentencing?
Q
40Mr.
George Howarth (Knowsley, North and Sefton, East) (Lab): I
will try to comply with that target-shooting analogy, Mr.
Cook. I have a brief point on the coroners provisions. I have read them
and the notes on clauses. On Second Reading, I highlighted the
difficulties that bereaved families experienced in the
Hillsborough inquest. It is not clear to me how the reforms will apply
in a case where, for example, instead of there being an inquest about
one particular death, there is a series of mini-inquests about deaths
that took place within a wider disaster. I suspect that asking the
Minister to speculate on how that will work would be asking rather too
much. She may not be able to do that. Will she consider preparing a
memorandum on how she sees the reforms working in that sort of
case?
Bridget
Prentice: I will happily do that. I will not
speculate too much, except to say that under the reformed system there
will be proper training for coroners in dealing with multiple deaths
and therefore with a wide variety of families and
kinships.
Q
41Mr.
Howarth: If I may interrupt, I am not talking about the
conduct of coroners, but about the
process. Bridget
Prentice: I will come back with a memorandum on how
we envisage the process taking
place.
Q
42Mr.
Howarth: I am grateful. I will move on to sentencing as
you requested, Mr. Cook. I have three, hopefully, quick
points. I should declare an interest in that I sat on the Gage working
party, which considered the Carter report that led to some of these
provisions. First,
there has been speculation about the role of the Lord Chief Justice in
the new enhanced sentencing commission. The Gage working party took the
view that it would be asking too much of him to chair the commission.
However, there must be a role for him. What does the Minister think
that role might
be? Secondly,
on the balancing of correctional resources with sentencing, on Second
Reading the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr.
Grieve) said effectively that to try to do that would be to undermine
the principles of our criminal justice system. I think that he
misunderstood slightly what is being proposed. Will the Minister say
how there can be judicial independence while forecasting what
correctional resources are necessary to deal with the totality of
sentencing over a given
period? Finally,
will the Minister comment on any role that Parliament might have in
dealing with sentencing guidelines that come from the new enhanced
sentencing
commission? Maria
Eagle: First, may I say how useful it will be for the
Committee to have you present, Mr. Howarth, when we get to
this part of the
Bill?
Maria
Eagle: You will certainly keep me on my
toes—not that other Committee members will not. It will be
helpful to have the experience you bring from having sat on the Gage
working
group. On
the role of the Lord Chief Justice, the new council will have a
judicial majority and a judicial chair. The Lord Chief Justice will
appoint those members in consultation with the Lord Chancellor.
Similarly, he will be consulted by the Lord Chancellor, who will
appoint the non-judicial members of the council. He will certainly have
an important role to play in the composition of the individuals who sit
on the council. As head of the judiciary, he has an important general
role. It is probably correct that he is too busy and has too many other
important things to do to take a day-to-day part in the
council’s
activities. The
intention of establishing the council is not to produce a fetter to
wrap around individual judicial office holders in doing their jobs,
whether they be magistrates or judges. The Gage working group made it
clear that it did not think that “correctional
resources”—I hate to use that horrible
phrase—should be tied to the work that was part of what the
council took into
account when producing its guidelines. That is not the intention. The
Government agree with the recommendation from the Gage working group
that they should not be tied together. I can make it clear that there
will be no connection between individual sentencing decisions and
correctional resources. No obligation will be placed on a sentencer in
a case to take resourcing into account when making his or her judgment
and dispensing justice as judges and magistrates do. There will be
a big improvement in the system of data collection and analysis
provided by the council, which will be able to predict the impact of
its guidelines on correctional resources and will give policy makers
and those responsible for finding the money—Ministers and
officials in the Department—much better and clearer information
about the implications of sentencing practice. That is the intention. I
hope that I can provide substantial reassurance to Committee members
and those in the wider world who fear that the purpose of the
sentencing council is to tie sentencing decisions in individual cases
to the available resources for prison places. That is neither the
intention nor what the Bill will do, if enacted in its current
form. On
the role of Parliament, the Justice Committee already has a role in
considering such matters. We hope to ensure a continuing role for the
Committee, and we will be happy to hear from its Chairman, who is not
with us today—he is not on the Bill Committee—about what
he believes is the best way to proceed. We do not anticipate Parliament
having the capacity by regulation to implement the sentencing
guidelines, but we expect it to take its usual interest in such
matters. We will consider ways in which to achieve
that.
Q
43Mr.
Garnier: I, too, must declare an interest. If this Bill
becomes an Act, as a sentencer, I shall have to comply with the
Sentencing Guidelines Council’s directions. Can you give us an
example of how the point about correctional resources will affect a
particular sentence? Sitting as a sentencer, will the judge or
magistrate look at guidance and read, “The guideline sentence
for such and such a crime is x number of years”, with an
addition reading, “but we are a bit short of prison places this
week”? Can you explain it in practical
terms? Maria
Eagle: No, there will be no such addition to the
guidelines for individual
sentences.
Q
44Mr.
Garnier: What is the practical difference? Apart from the
duty to follow, which is new, what is the real difference between what
is currently in place and what is
proposed? Maria
Eagle: There will be a duty to follow,
as you put it, subject to an interests of justice test. It will always
be for the sentencer to decide, on the basis of the facts, and the
aggravation and mitigation in front of him or her, what happens in an
individual case. Although there will be an enhanced duty to follow the
guidelines, there will be ranges and the capacity for the sentencer to
depart from the guidelines, in the interests of justice. It is for the
sentencer to decide what is in the interests of justice. There is no
fettering of discretion. The real difference is that there will be much
more information and monitoring of what is happening, and of the impact
of the guidelines and the sentences.
Q
45Mr.
Garnier: Will that information be for the use of Ministers
and public policy makers, or for the use of sentencers? What is the
point of collecting the information if it is not to influence
sentencers? Maria
Eagle: It ought to be useful for all, but there will
not be an obligation on the individual sentencer in an individual case
to take into account available resources, such as the local prisons.
That is not what we seek to do. There will be more monitoring and
information about the impact of sentences on rehabilitation and
punishment, and there will be more information about the variation in
sentencing practice from area to area. There will be more and better
information, and more monitoring, which will be available for both
policy makers and sentencers. There will be no commensurate obligation
for a sentencer on an individual case to take into account available
resources, such as what prison places are like
locally.
Q
46Mr.
Garnier: Is not the more intellectually honest position to
take this: we—the Ministry of Justice—will collect this
information, and based on that information, we will advise judges to
alter their sentences according to the resources that are available in
any particular aspect of the correctional system?
Maria
Eagle: No, Ministers will not be doing
that.
Q
47Mr.
Garnier: Will you not be placing on the judiciary an
additional factor? Beyond the facts of the case, judges will also be
influenced by the information that is pouring down from the Ministry of
Justice, which will have been drawn up by the information-gathering
system that you have just been talking about, otherwise there is no
point in
it. Maria
Eagle: With respect, I think that there is a point to
these changes because they will ensure that there is better monitoring
of what currently happens, and that better information is available
both to policy makers and sentencers, none of which will impact on the
individual sentencing discretion of either the magistrate or the judge
in a particular case to do justice. Judges will not be fettered in any
way by the provisions in the legislation.
Q
48Mr.
Garnier: But clause 107(1)(a) says that every court must
“follow any sentencing guidelines.” Those sentencing
guidelines will be informed by the resource information that someone
has gathered.
The
Chairman: Mr. Garnier, you pose the questions
and then express dissatisfaction with the
answers.
Mr.
Garnier: I am just testing the answers with further
questions.
The
Chairman: Just a moment, we can always test them in
Divisions at a later date. I am afraid that you must live with your
dissatisfaction for the time
being.
Q
49Alun
Michael: I want to raise three points. Again, I am
conscious that our time is limited, so if you want to give a headline
and expand afterwards, I will be happy with that.
First, in the
information that you have given to the Committee on the assessment of
the impact of the Bill, I was rather concerned to see, in the reference
to the sentencing council, a lot of emphasis on closer adherence to
sentencing ranges. As a member of the Justice Committee—you are
right to think that that Committee could be of great assistance to
Ministers and officials if that opportunity is taken—I ask
whether it is not in the interests of effectiveness to reduce
reoffending? It is the effectiveness of sentencing that should be
emphasised rather than narrowing ranges. That seems to go against what
you have been saying to us.
Maria
Eagle: It is correct that the more information that
sentencers have about the efficacy of sentences that might be available
to them, the better positioned they are to make their judgments in
individual cases. That will not be tied into saying in this particular
instance that only a certain type of sentence will be available
according to available correctional
resources.
Q
50Alun
Michael: I would be a lot happier if that were visible in
what the Department is saying about the intentions. I support the idea
of the sentencing council. Clearly, the use of data to ensure that
sentencing is effective is the whole point. Again, we have a majority
of judges, to which we have already referred. I cannot say that that
reassured me. In fact, it had the opposite effect. We need people who
will be critically examining the evidence on what works within the
sentencing system. In a recent Justice Committee, we heard from the
previous Lord Chief Justice about the lack of confidence of judges in
community sentences. We have also heard about some recent research on
the lack of knowledge of community sentencing. That might explain why
we have a lot of ineffective
sentencing. Maria
Eagle: I hope that the extra availability of
information and monitoring will make the effectiveness of sentences
much clearer, more transparent and more open to sentencers to
see.
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