Clause 1 - Offences leading to penalties on the spot
Criminal Justice and Police Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
That is an important point. We have already established that some of the offences with which we are dealing are serious. Some of them are liable to level 5 fines, which is the highest level applicable in the magistrate's court. Some of them involve imprisonment as the maximum sentence. In those circumstances, there is a genuine concern that the offences should not be trivialised or downgraded. I accept that they remain offences and so they are still ``criminal'' but a point we will come to in a later debate is, what exactly is the effect of a fixed penalty notice being issued? It clearly is not a conviction and there are issues that surround that.
The Government talk about being tough on law and order and tough on crime, but in this part of the Bill they seem to suggest that one can deal with serious offences almost as though they were fairly minor motoring or parking offences. If that is the case, it is difficult to see how this is a war on yob culture.