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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, two years equates to a headline sentence of four years. That is the position. If there is a difficulty with the way in which this is expressed, I am happy to follow it up in writing to the noble Lord, but my understanding is that that is what is intended by this provision. The answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, is really the one that I gave earlier, which may not have satisfied him. We think that a four-year sentence is about right. It would be unusual to receive a four-year sentence for a trivial offence. We are attempting to strike a balance between ruling out cases that are simply not serious enough to be considered in this light and allowing the courts, as I said, to detain very worrying offenders, even if their immediate offence is not so serious as to deserve an extremely weighty sentence. I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, went on to describe the potential problems that he saw with persons sentenced under those provisions given the pressures on the Prison Service. I understand that, but the Government have taken, and are taking, steps, as I described earlier, to increase the resources and the priority that are given to the programmes that need to be established to enable these prisoners to satisfy the requirements of the Parole Board. That is in addition to the more general expansion in prison places in line with the Carter recommendations. We think that the figures add up, given the provisions being introduced under the Bill. The answer is twofold. First, we think that a headline sentence of four years is about right. Secondly, given that and the other measures to reduce certain sections of the prison population—as the Bill does in a number of ways—and the increase in the resources and the priority that are given to the appropriate offender management programmes, we will be able to meet our aims.