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Justice: Reform of Punishment, Rehabilitation, Sentencing and Legal Aid

My Lords, today we have committed to a review of indeterminate sentencing, which we hope will be concluded by the autumn. We will then bring forward proposals on what happens next. On the question of what we are doing with the people who are already on IPPs, each individual prisoner will continue to be assessed on a case-by-case basis by the Parole Board. The review will look at all the ways in which these assessments operate, to ensure that the real work is done to reform offenders when they are in prison. When my noble friend sees the full proposals, I think that he will also see that we are taking a lot more care to try to address the rehabilitation of these long-term offenders while they are in prison. I take my noble friend’s point about judges’ discretion. The longer I have been in this job, the more convinced I have been that we should rely on the discretion of a well informed judge, rather than on Parliament second-guessing the judiciary at long distance by too-restrictive legislation. We will see how this unfolds, because one idea that is certainly being brought forward is the use of mandatory life sentences for serious repeat offenders. I have to point out that this Bill will go through both Houses and I am quite sure that I will hear more of the argument that my noble friend deployed when the Bill comes before this House later in the year. On clinical negligence, legal aid is currently available to those who have suffered negligent medical treatment and qualify financially to seek damages against any type of public or private medical practitioner. While these claims are for money compensation, we consider that they often raise serious issues, especially where the damages are required to meet future needs, and some litigants will be vulnerable because of disabilities resulting from the negligent treatment. However, although the issues raised are likely to be very important, we consider that there is a viable source of alternative funding to legal aid in conditional fee arrangements, which are more readily available in such cases than they are for other claims. We therefore consider that legal aid is not justified in these cases and that our limited funding would be better targeted on other priority areas. I take the point that my noble friend makes about solicitors. One of the good things about them is that they are increasingly branching out into offering mediation services—something that we very much support.