Part of Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:15 pm on 16 October 2007.
One of the things that the Government appear to be fearful of is that, for good reasons or bad, they seem to be losing control of the numbers of people in prison when there are not enough places to put them in. They are looking for ways to reduce the number of people being sent to prison by people within your association and from the Crown court. Do you think that the abolition of your power to give a suspended custodial sentence will have any bearing on the number of people that magistrates send to prison?