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Remand on Bail (Disapplication of Credit Period) Rules 2008

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for the approach that they have taken to this. In my best Dr Jekyll mood—he was the nice one—I shall say in the nicest possible way that there is no inadequacy in the Act at all. The order-making power was made clear in the primary legislation. The rules are entirely consistent with the remand rules created in 2005. We have always said that it would be at the discretion of the sentencer whether credit would be given and we have pointed out three situations in which credit cannot be given. That is all that we have done in these short but necessary rules. The purpose of the draft rules is to set out the specific circumstances in which the court must not grant credit against a custodial sentence for time spent on bail subject to an electronically monitored curfew. The rules are entirely consistent with the equivalent rules made by the Secretary of State in relation to crediting periods of remand in custody. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, asked how many of those tagged breach their bail. No data are held centrally on defendants’ return to court as a result of breach of bail conditions, including tagged curfews. Of course, individual courts take account of whether there has been a breach in deciding whether and how much credit should be given against custodial sentences. Data provided by the electronic monitoring contractors say that the number reported to the police as having breached is as high as 64 per cent—16,000 cases out of about 25,000. However, there are caveats to that: tight rules are applied and, if you are not at home within 15 minutes of the time when your curfew begins, there is a duty on the monitoring company to tell the police. Those are the occasions on which the police have been told, but it does not follow that each of those occasions is a breach demanding an immediate removal of bail or any punishment on its own. People can legitimately be late home. It would be dangerous to suggest that that 64 per cent somehow represents extra criminality. It does not. I hope that that is a clear answer to the noble Lord’s question. As for whether this is a robust system, it was given a clean bill of health in 2006, when it was audited. It is a useful tool in the armoury to deal with those on bail. Again, I am grateful to both noble Lords for what they have said. On Question, Motion agreed to.