Clause 24
Offender Management Bill
11:00 am
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister (Home Affairs), Home Affairs; Harborough, Conservative)
Allegedly. It is a very valuable compendium of sentencing powers and the forms of words that judges are recommended to speak when sentencing an individual. I do not want to go through all of that. I simply want to point out to the Minister that the whole sentencing regime, as created by this Government over the past 10 years, is incredibly complicated. It does not make clear to the defendant the sentence they will get and it does not make it clear to the public, and more particularly the victim of the offence, what the defendant is about to receive.
Let us look at several headings which relate to sentences for defendants aged under 18 on conviction. For custodial sentences, we have detention and training orders. We have detention under section 91 of the Powers of the Criminal Court Sentencing Act 2000 for less than 12 months or for 12 months or more. We have a required minimum sentence of detention under the Firearms Act 1968. We have an extended sentence of detention under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. We have detention for public protection under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and we have detention for life under the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
Under non-custodial sentences, we have youth community orders of a general nature. There are curfew orders, exclusion orders, attendance centre orders, supervision orders, action plan orders, community rehabilitation orders, community punishment orders, community punishment and rehabilitation orders and drug treatment and testing orders. That is as of January 2006. No doubt it has changed several times since then. Do not worry—I am sure that I will be on a Judicial Studies Board course to correct any mistakes that I have made before very long.
The detention orders early release aspect of this is complicated. It is complicated even more by the context in which one has to understand it. The purpose of my amendment is to get the Minister publicly to explain precisely what is intended by clause 24 and how it fits into common sense and honesty in sentencing.