HC Deb 15 July 1948 vol 453 c1622

Lords Amendment: In page 53, line 36, leave out Clause 58.

Mr. Ede

I beg to move, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

Clause 58, which provides for the removal to Broadmoor institutions of certain persons serving life sentences is consequential upon Clause 1, which provided for sentences of penal servitude for life in all cases of murder. It is necessary to retain this Clause in order to deal with some of the more limited class of cases in which, under the amended Clause 1, the sentence for murder will be penal servitude for life. The cases in question are those where, although the offender is not certifiably insane, there is an element of mental instability or a particular psychological kink which would make it unsafe to contemplate the prisoner's release for an exceedingly long time, perhaps as long as his natural life; and the Clause will allow of such persons being confined in the more appropriate conditions of Broadmoor instead of in prison.