Clause 10
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
11:00 am
David Hanson (Minister of State, Ministry of Justice; Delyn, Labour)
I am, as ever, grateful for the hon. and learned Gentleman’s intervention. It goes to the heart of the potential difference between us. I believe that he and his hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate wish to see greater use of community sentences and people avoiding custody. My judgment, and that of the Lord Chancellor and his predecessor my noble Friend Lord Falconer, is that this will result not in up-tariffing to custody but in down-tariffing to more community sentences. That is the heart of the disagreement between us on this.
That is a judgment that we have made and it is a judgment that will ultimately be examined by the test of time. But that judgment is one that we have come to. I believe it will result in stronger use of community sentences rather than going to automatic custody for the reasons Lord Phillips laid out in his lecture last week. There is an element of discretion for those sentences which allows a judgment to be made which, based on the exercise of the cases we have looked at to date, will result in down-tariffing to community sentences rather than custody.