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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, as one always is. But surely the purpose is not just to exclude trivial offences from the ambit of indeterminate sentences, as the noble Lord said. We must go further than that if we are serious about reducing prison overpopulation. Nothing less than a four-year measure will do that, whether it be four years as the tariff or two years as the tariff—I entirely agree that there is confusion about that. I have tried to work out what the two-year measure actually means: whether it is the equivalent of four years less a 50 per cent reduction—because, as we know, all sentences of a certain kind are reduced by 50 per cent—or whether it means two years literally. We must come back to that. I am afraid that I am not satisfied that merely excluding trivial offenders will make any difference at all to the present problem. I was slightly taken by surprise when the noble Lord, Lord Bach, moved to adjourn. It would have been more sensible if we had taken a decision on this question immediately after the other decision that was taken, but we did not. In those circumstances, I will bring the matter back at Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Schedule 5 [Offences specified for the purposes of sections 225(3A) and 227(2A) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003]: