HL Deb 13 February 1963 vol 246 cc979-81

2.45 p.m.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, pending their consideration of the recommendation by the Home Office Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders that preventive detention should be abolished, they will take such steps as are open to them to ensure that convicted persons are dealt with in ways other than by sentences of preventive detention.]

THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (EARL JELLICOE)

My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have not yet reached a decision on the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders that preventive detention should be abolished. Legislation would, in any event, be required to implement both this recommendation and the Council's accompanying recommendation that the powers of the courts to deal with persistent offenders by long sentences of ordinary imprisonment should be strengthened. In the meantime, my right honourable friend has no authority to restrict the powers of the courts under Section 21 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, to impose sentences of preventive detention, and it would not be proper for him to seek to intervene in the exercise of their discretion in this matter.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, while acknowledging the difficulty referred to by the noble Earl in the last part of his Answer, may I ask whether he is aware that, despite the practical direction issued by the Lord Chief Justice a year ago that too much use is being made of the power to impose preventive detention and that it should be given only as a last resort, nevertheless there has been little diminution in such sentences, and that they recently included one where a man was given eight years' imprisonment for the theft of an empty sack worth 2s.? Would he not agree, therefore, that it is highly desirable that the most speedy action and decision should be taken in this matter in order that the very reasonable recommendations of the Council should be implemented?

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, first of all I should like to remind the noble Lord that the Government have already decided to give effect to the most important of the Council's interim recommendations—namely, that in future all preventive detainees shall, subject to good conduct, be eligible for release after serving two-thirds of their sentence That has already been decided. But I think that so far as the main recommendations of the Council are concerned, my right honourable friend will inevitably and rightly wish to give them the full and careful consideration which they require, and will also wish to take into account the views on them which may be expressed inside or outside Parliament. Having said that, I would grant that this is not a matter on which a decision should be delayed unduly.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I gratefully acknowledge the interim decision of the Government, and that decision is acknowledged more than gratefully by the men principally concerned. But will the noble Earl bear in mind that only 5 out of 215 men sentenced to preventive detention in 1961 had committed crimes against the person, that for all other crimes, as the Lord Chief Justice points out, there exist suitable ordinary terms of imprisonment, and that the reconviction rate in P.D. is no greater than that for ordinary sentences? These considerations, I should have thought, must bear weight in ensuring that we do not uselessly fill our prisons with men who have committed only minor crimes.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I think my right honourable friend will wish to bear those considerations in mind in the general context of the study which he is giving to this matter, but there are, of course, a number of other considerations that are fully covered in the Council's Report which he will also wish to bear in mind.