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Coroners and Justice Bill

I support this amendment for all the reasons that have been given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and by so many other noble Lords. It is striking indeed that so many lawyers should agree about anything. I would add one further argument in favour of the amendment. We all know that there are occasions when the jury is reluctant to convict, despite compelling evidence that the defendant is guilty of murder. The jury is reluctant to convict because of its concern that on the facts of the case a mandatory life sentence is simply inappropriate. One of the great attractions of the amendment is that it would involve the jury in the assessment of whether there are extenuating circumstances. The amendment would serve the very valuable purpose of mitigating the absurdities of the mandatory life sentence for all cases of murder. The Attorney-General suggested earlier, in answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, that it is necessary to maintain public confidence, which may require the retention of the mandatory life sentence. I ask the Attorney-General to explain to us how it maintains public confidence for us to retain the mandatory life sentence when the trial judge, immediately after passing the sentence, tells the defendant, the victim’s family and everyone concerned that this sentence means that the defendant will therefore serve a tariff of a defined number of years and will thereafter be released if and when it is safe to do so. Surely that serves only to undermine public confidence in the law. Unless and until the Government come forward with a systematic reform of the law of murder, this amendment would be a substantial improvement on what we have now and will serve only to strengthen public confidence in this area of the law.