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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has produced the most marvellous comment on the Bill. He said that he wishes that Clause 10 had not been put in the Bill. He half agrees with the Government’s amendment but says that Clause 10 should not be brought in anyway because the Secretary of State has the power to do so later. If he does bring it in, he then has the power to take it away again afterwards. With respect, that is a dotty way to produce legislation. It is not dithering; it is ducking, diving, weaving, wobbling all over the place and playing a bending-pole race. That is not how legislation should be handled. I wish to say one other thing en passant. The Government say that the number of people being given suspended sentences is very much higher than it was before. I understood from the noble Lord, Lord Bach, that the Government’s contention was that magistrates are being a bit iffy over the threshold. Let us assume for the sake of argument that they get 50 per cent of the thresholds right and not, as could be assumed, 100 per cent. That would still produce an enormous increase in the number of people being sent to prison if the ability to give suspended sentences was taken away. We have far too many people in prison. It must be more sensible for there to be a power to give suspended sentences and for the magistrates to do it. It seems to me a very weak excuse to say that magistrates have not taken any notice of the threshold test. I think that we must assume at the very least that they have at least 50 per cent of the thresholds right and, if that is the case, there will be an enormous increase in the number of people going to prison for relatively small offences. That cannot be the right thing to do.