---

Coroners and Justice Bill

My right hon. and learned Friend is entirely right. What he has said is doubtless based on his experience both as a Home Office Minister and as a practising member of the criminal Bar. We all know from what happens in our constituencies, be they urban or rural, that certain crimes become fashionable from time to time. There may be an epidemic of house burglaries, of car crime or of drug retailing on the streets. The courts need to be able to deal with that in the way that is most appropriate to the locality concerned. The advantage of the administration of local justice through magistrates courts and Crown courts is that those courts can respond directly and immediately to local circumstances. It seems to me that, while the Sentencing Guidelines Council—and the Sentencing Council, as it will become following the Bill's enactment—have a role to play, they should not be allowed to overplay it, and to inhibit the sort of activities that my right hon. and learned Friend has described.