I beg to move amendment No. 40, in

clause 17, page 7, line 21, leave out '7' and insert '14'.

This amendment deals with a much more difficult area, one in which what I believe to be my general reputation in Committees on criminal justice Bills for trying to temper the fierceness of the criminal law will be reversed. Therefore, I should try to explain why I have come up with the suggestion that the maximum penalty should be raised from seven to 14 years.

I accept the argument that, normally, we must make a clear differentiation between a merely preparatory offence and a full offence. Generally speaking, if it was the defendant's good fortune that he was stopped from doing something before he actually did it, even though the intention that he wished to do it is clear, the courts recognise in sentencing that he benefits from not having been able to carry out the full details of his criminal intention.

That said, we face particular problems in respect of sexual offences. The most obvious, which was brought home to us at the briefing, is that paedophile behaviour is particularly intractable, despite punishment. Unless some of the psychological causes of the behaviour can be addressed—that is not always easy or possible—the dreadful truth, according to the evidence, is that individuals who have a propensity to commit paedophile offences will continue to do so over and over again. Indeed, it appears to be something that is almost beyond their control. That is a serious problem.

Increasingly, when I visit prisons—I have no doubt that the Minister who will reply to the debate has had the same experience—I come across paedophile offenders who are subject to life sentences. The sentences are discretionary; nevertheless, the prisoner may be in prison for a very long time. In some cases, the prison governor takes one aside and says that the

prisoner has been in prison for X number of years and probably will never be released, which, if one wishes to temper the criminal law, is a terrible thing to happen to an individual. However, we recognise that the safety of children must come first.

Let us think for a moment of likely examples of an offence of the kind that we are creating in clause 17. At one end of the scale will be someone who has no previous track record of paedophile behaviour. I dare say that the sentence will be relatively short in such circumstances, although the court may be worried that the defendant will go on to offend again unless the underlying causes of the behaviour are addressed. Indeed, one of the most telling things said by the officer was that what mattered was not so much the length of the sentence but whether something could be done with the defendant during the course of his incarceration. As I said, very often that is not possible.

Another situation that I can easily foresee may involve an individual who has committed two serious paedophile offences but, because of past changes in the rules, may on each occasion have received a determinate sentence of considerable length. However, determinate sentences come to an end. He may have spent a large part of the previous 20 years in prison. Nevertheless, he is out. He may be on the sex offenders register. He is a great worry to the police. He is found to be communicating by e-mail and there is no doubt, from the surrounding circumstances, about the criminality of his intention. He has impersonated someone else and groomed the child. When he is arrested on his way to the rendezvous with the child, all the apparatus and paraphernalia for committing an appalling child sex offence is found in the back of his car. It is all there. He is charged, and can only be charged, with meeting a child following sexual grooming. The reports produced by the probation service and the Court Service clearly show his propensity, his long history of committing such offences and the fact that he has been unamenable to treatment. It is clear that he intended to commit a very serious offence. The court says, ''Well, the maximum sentence that we can pass is one of seven years' imprisonment, which means, in practice, that he will be released three and a half years later.'' The public will consider that we have provided them with insufficient protection.