Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Treasury – in the House of Commons at 3:32 pm on 21 June 2011.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Kenneth Clarke Kenneth Clarke The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice 3:32, 21 June 2011

I think there will be an automatic increase in the number of life sentences when we get rid of IPPs. When indeterminate sentences were introduced, some of the people who were given IPPs were in really dangerous categories and had been convicted of offences for which life imprisonment was already the maximum offence. When we change it, judges will put such people back on life sentences. The whole IPP experiment was a mistake. We have indeterminate sentences in this country—they are called life sentences. They are better managed and are the proper way to deal with the most serious offenders. I think that some of the most serious offenders who get IPPs now will in the future get life sentences, just as judges always gave them before.