Clause 11
Fraud Bill [Lords]
5:15 pm
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General & Shadow Spokesman On Community Cohesion, Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I listened carefully to what the Solicitor-General said. I would simply make one point to him, of which he may already be aware. The fact that the average sentence is of six months’ imprisonment comes as no surprise to me, but I am not sure that it is the central issue to the argument. On the whole, the sort of offence and the reasons why such offences tend to be charged is because they are of a rather low-grade kind. There are instances where, as I indicated in my opening remarks, substantial services of substantial value can be obtained. It is in such instances that I raise the question as to whether five years is necessarily sufficient. Rather than looking at the average of the sentences passed for this type of offence, that would require looking at whether there were instances where judges had been imposing the maximum and may even in their sentencing remarks been making suggestions that the sentence does not entirely meet the gravity of the offence, as the Solicitor-General will be only too aware.
Because of the nature of the discount that a person attracts for pleading guilty, as an example, often in such cases—and my experience is that they often end in guilty pleas—that will already be substantially shortening any sentence that is going to be served, because it will start with five years as the maximum and then have to discount it against that. I respectfully suggest to the Solicitor-General that that is a more fertile area to look at than the average sentence passed. That said, and mindful and grateful that it will be looked at again, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.