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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate and an extremely difficult issue has been discussed. The Government are seeking to make a change to existing judicial practice in sentencing. I should be greatly helped if the Minister were to say with great particularity what, if anything, in current judicial sentencing practice they have found to be less than satisfactory, and what they seek to secure by making this change in established wording. I approach the question with an instinctive dislike of anything that seeks or appears to seek to limit judicial discretion. The present Government have not been diffident in coming forward in recent years with proposals to do that in one respect or another. Do they expect there to be some limiting of judicial discretion by this proposed change of wording? If not, what do they expect to be achieved? As we have heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, there are conflicting and opposing interpretations of this new wording. Which do the Government favour? Will it narrow or widen the discretion of the judges?