Results 1-20 of 242 for speaker:Baroness Linklater of Butterstone

Coroners and Justice Bill: Report (3rd Day) (28 Oct 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, I feel that I must speak, not only because my hero has just spoken but to defend myself against some accusations of inconsistency between Second Reading and Committee. I hope that I can defend myself adequately. With so many distinguished legal eagles speaking with such passion, knowledge and experience, to engage in this debate at all is at best presumptuous but, having spoken, I...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Report (3rd Day) (28 Oct 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I thank those noble Lords who have taken part in this brief debate, not least my hero, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. With regard to the membership of the council, I am not entirely surprised by the Government's response, except to say that I understand about the essential need for data but, as I have pointed out, there will be an academic listed in this membership, the stuff of...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Report (3rd Day) (28 Oct 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 80B, 89ZA and 89BA, all of which are grouped with Amendment 80A. We have reached Part 4 which covers sentencing. When we discussed the composition of the Sentencing Council in Committee, I was delighted that the Minister agreed with the proposal of my noble friend Lord Dholakia that the lay membership of the council should include someone with...

National Criminal Justice Board — Question (21 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, can the Minister explain, however, why the post of director of the National Probation Service was abolished? I am well aware of the expertise of Phil Wheatley, but, as the right reverend Prelate just said, a very important voice has been removed from the hierarchy of NOMS. After all, one of the chief aims of the board is to remove barriers to joint working. This seems to be going...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (Continued) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I thank the Minister for his reply which fills me with great disappointment. I feel that he has not understood and appreciated what I have been trying to suggest, and he has quite significantly misunderstood the complications about compromising council members. I gave two illustrations of members of the judiciary and the magistracy engaging with the public and explaining their work. That was...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (Continued) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I thank the Minister for his replies. I am glad that he is able to accept one element. In the mean time, I will not be moving my amendments.

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (Continued) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: Amendment 191ZA refers to a requirement for the council to promote matters relating to sentencing, thereby encouraging greater understanding as well as information; Amendment 191ZB refers to the inclusion of the words, "custodial and non-custodial" sentences. These are all logical extensions of our previous amendments, which I have spoken to at greater length earlier. Amendment 191ZD and the...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (Continued) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I shall speak to other amendments in the group, Amendments 191ZE to 191ZG. Amendments 191ZE and 191ZG are essentially probing amendments. We wondered why "demand" was used in relation to prison places and "resources required" in relation to probation provision and youth justice services. The former sounds more imperious and as if it is more likely to be provided. Indeed, that is the...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I stand by what I said. Indeed, I stand shoulder to shoulder with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, on this. The caveat was the very important underlying part of the framework. We have a serious problem with regard to an upward drift in sentencing to custody. Therefore, I stand by what I said.

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. When I referred back to the Government's amendment on the impact of sentencing decisions, I wanted not to change anything in the Bill but to draw out in discussion a very positive implication. I was with the Government on that. Clearly there is not a lot of support for separating effectiveness and cost. I shall think about it and...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: This amendment has in a sense already been spoken to by the Government but it is next in the grouping. I add a comment in support of the previous government amendment, because I want to have on the record an important implication of it. Amendment 188CB was to do with, "the impact of sentencing decisions on victims of offences". It goes without saying that as part of the sentencing guidelines...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: If I may respond, I know we have a secondary rewriting of this amendment, but I thought I might add something to this discussion. The Minister says that he is in favour of consistency, but in reading the amendment, he will understand what I mean when I say that it is a lawyers' amendment and misses the point about the value and importance of a framework such as the council would be expected...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: The other noble Lords are the noble Lord, Lord Henley, and I. Would the noble Lord, Lord Henley, like to go first?

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: It is with a heavy heart that I say that I did not necessarily expect the Government to accept my amendments, but I wish that they had ears to hear. The fact that my amendment is supported by, of all people, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, should not be ignored by the Government. Moreover, the support of the former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf,...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (8th Day) (15 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I rise to follow my noble friend Lord Dholakia and also make some suggestions on the composition of the sentencing council. Some of these suggestions may be modest but the membership of the council will to a large extent determine not only what sort of council it will be but also whether the purposes of the council, which we discussed earlier on sentencing, are likely to be fully realised. We...

Probation Service Officers — Question (14 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, in the light of the rapidly increasing caseloads for probation officers and probation service officers, what investment have the Government put into training probation officers in the past three years? More importantly, what investment do they plan for the future in the light of the current situation?

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (7th Day) (Continued) (13 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I thank the noble Lord for his very kind opening remarks, which I greatly appreciate. I thank other noble Lords as well for their extraordinarily interesting and important contributions. I still want to stick to my basic premise, which is that we have an overarching sense of priorities, and that reducing reoffending and the effectiveness of sentencing are key. All the other elements that the...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (7th Day) (Continued) (13 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: Having not yet spoken on this Bill and not having been present earlier due to my flight being delayed, I hope that the Committee will bear with my saying for the record how desperately sad and sorry we are at the loss of Lord Kingsland. He is a huge loss to this House. I admired him hugely for his expertise, knowledge and skill. I will also miss him very much as a friend. We have reached Part...

Coroners and Justice Bill: Committee (7th Day) (Continued) (13 Jul 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: The noble Lord makes a very fair point. I feel that there are recurring themes. Rather like doing a piece of knitting, you come back to the same stitch; you do a kind of backstitch and there it is again. The amendment may not add very much more but I think that it makes the argument coherent at this point.

Prisons — Question (9 Jun 2009)

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, can the Minister clarify whether PSOs cover secure training centres, which come under the Prison Service and take children as young as 12? Several reports have shown an inordinate and unacceptable amount of restraint being used in those centres. There is a Prison Service order, PSO 4950, which covers juveniles, but I am not aware of one covering secure training centres.