Clause 10 - Conditions of licence
Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
2:00 pm
Laurence Robertson (Shadow Minister, Northern Ireland; Tewkesbury, Conservative)
Clause 10 deals with the conditions to which the licence is subject. Subsection (2)(b) refers to:
“in the case of a sentence of life imprisonment, the condition that he does not become a danger to the public”
Amendment No. 135 would omit the words
“in the case of a sentence of life imprisonment”,
so that the provision would apply if the person became a danger to the public, regardless of whether was a life sentence. That is sensible. We cannot understand why that should be a licence condition if one has received a life sentence, but not if one has not. Surely, the critical point is whether the person is likely to be a danger to the public. To reject the amendment would be to say, “It’s okay if they are a danger to the public.” That cannot be the Minister’s intention.
We tried to introduce a similar condition in clause 3, but we did not manage to get the amendment made. We are not certain yet whether people returning to the jurisdiction will have to face court—indeed, there will not be a court, but a tribunal—or whether they will have to spend any time in prison. Surely we can expect that they do not become a danger to the public, having been given the get-out-of-jail-free card. That should be a minimum requirement.
Amendment No. 137 would add a further condition to ensure that the individual in question has never been convicted of a crime carrying a prison sentence of five years or more.