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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I shall look at the case to which he has referred. It is important for the House to appreciate that the courts have been passing life sentences for the protection of the public for as long as I can remember. They have never needed any statutory authority to make an assessment of dangerousness. Clearly established in all the textbooks is the fact that a life sentence for the protection of the public can be, and always has been, capable of being passed on three conditions: first, that the offence was one which of itself carried the maximum sentence of life imprisonment; secondly, that the particular offence was itself sufficiently grave to justify a very long sentence; and, thirdly, necessarily, that the court had to be satisfied from the offender’s criminal record, from his past history or from any relevant medical evidence that he was a grave danger to the public. No statutory authority was required for that. That is what the courts have always done. That is why I suggest that Clause 17 now serves no conceivable purpose other than stating what the courts already do, but I shall certainly look at the case that has been referred to.