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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, we too have added our support to the first two amendments in this group, along with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. For us, these are the key amendments. I echo much of what the noble and learned Lord has just said. Once again, we are greatly indebted to him for the initiative that he has taken in bringing forward this exceedingly important issue. As has been pointed out, the drafting of the Bill instructs the court to follow any sentencing guidelines unless it is satisfied that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so. We are strongly of the opinion, already voiced, that the appropriate words should remain "have regard to" any relevant guidelines. It really is not right for the Government to seek to tie the hands of sentencers in this way. I recall the debate in Committee. The Minister rather struggled to defend the change in emphasis from the position one would expect the courts to be in—of having to have regard to guidelines—to one where they must follow those guidelines. I think the Committee was of the view that the Minister had been unable to identify any real advantage in the Government’s approach. The Government have completely underestimated the strength of feeling on all sides of the House about their proposals. The Minister’s claim that judges’ independence would not be infringed by the wording being changed in the way that he proposed was not warmly received by noble Lords. I know now, thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that the Magistrates’ Association is also up in arms over the wording of Clause 115. We should pay careful attention to that view. At the conclusion of the debate in Committee, we suggested to the Government that they might wish to take advantage of the long Summer Recess to reflect on what noble Lords had said and come forward with their own proposals to ameliorate these two sentences in the Bill, which, to summarise, are widely seen as an assault on the independence of the judiciary. Sadly, they have not done so. We strongly believe that Amendments 83 and 84 ought to be adopted in place of the restrictive language for which the Government are presently opting.