Schedule 4 - Qualifying offences for purposes of part 10
Criminal Justice Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I am personally very sympathetic towards including rape. I am on the record as saying that, for example in the earlier Westminster Hall debate. Others take the view that we should limit the offences to those that the Law Commission has recommended, but I do not feel bound to hold that view. The other categories that I want to be included are rape and attempted rape offences.
I am conscious that, in that grouping, four of the 29 offences are sexual offences. The others referred to are intercourse with a girl under 13, and incest with a girl aged under 13. I am sympathetic to including those offences, as well. To be blunt and honest, apart from the general proposition that we should consider all
offences for which there is life imprisonment by statute, I have never seen any proposition in favour of the two offences in the list that trouble me: the wounding offence under the Offences against the Person Act 1861; and No. 15 in the list, which covers robbery offences under the Theft Act 1968, and the Firearms Act 1968. The reason that I am most nervous about those is the huge number of such offences that are tried every year.