§ LORD STONHAMMy 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 they will now state their decision regarding the recommendation by the Sub-Committee of the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders, that preventive detention should be abolished.]
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD DERWENT)My Lords, the Advisory Council recommended the abolition of preventive detention and its replacement by a power to pass sentence of up to ten years' imprisonment on persistent offenders convicted of offences ordinarily punishable with imprisonment for five years or more. The issues involved are important and difficult. Persistent offending raises intractable social and penal problems, and the Government are deeply concerned to find ways of dealing with these which give the essential protection to society and are constructive in relation to the offenders themselves. The Advisory Council's recommendations, which would require legislation, have been receiving close consideration from this viewpoint, but my right honourable friend is not yet in a position to announce the Government's conclusions.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Advisory Council's recommendation was made nearly twelve months ago; and, despite the "intractable nature", as he described it, of these problems, is this not an inordinately long time for the Home Secretary to take to decide about recommendations of his own distinguished sub-Committee? Is he further aware that in the meantime many men have been sentenced to long sentences of imprisonment for trivial offences, despite the practice direction by the Lord Chief Justice to the contrary which was made 802 in 1962? Can he say, therefore, when a decision on the recommendation will be reached?
§ LORD DERWENTMy Lords, the first supplementary question was really: Why were the Government taking so long to make up their minds? It is because, as I have indicated, the problems raised by persistent offenders are of exceptional difficulty and the Government have thought it right to make the most thorough examination of the Advisory Council's proposals so as to be absolutely sure that any change is for the better. The Government cannot overlook the lesson that the abolition of preventive detention is being recommended only a comparatively few years after it was introduced in 1948.
The second question was, I think: Will the Government meanwhile take steps to see that preventive detention is no longer awarded?—that is what it came to—in view of what the Lord Chief Justice has said. As my predecessor the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, told the noble Lord in reply to a question on February 13, my right honourable friend has no authority to restrict the powers of the courts to impose preventive detention; and it would not be proper for him to seek to influence them in the exercise of their discretion. The third supplementary was: When shall we be able to make a statement? I cannot commit myself to a date. We are fully aware of the interest in this subject. We are pressing on with the study of it; but may I repeat what I said in answer to the first Question: we must be quite certain that anything we put in its place is better.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that very full and helpful reply, may I remind him that in the practice direction the Lord Chief Justice advises his colleagues that in most of these cases a sentence of ordinary imprisonment appropriate to the particular crime committed should be the one awarded. Therefore I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware, for example, that last October a man who was sentenced to seven years' preventive detention for stealing £5 had been released only in July on completion of an eight years' preventive sentence.
§ LORD STONHAMTherefore I ask him what steps the Government can take, by consultation with the Law Officers or otherwise, to prevent the infliction of further sentences of this kind for trivial crimes when obviously the Lord Chief Justice, the Minister's sub-Committee and everyone else is utterly opposed to it.
§ LORD DERWENTMy Lords, I am quite aware of what the Lord Chief Justice has said. I would repeat that we are not in a position to seek to influence Her Majesty's Judges in any sentences they choose to impose.
§ THE EARL OF LONGFORDMy Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to submit respectfully that one of the arguments used is the kind of thing that shocks everyone interested in penal reform? Would he allow me to say that I hope it will never be said that 15 years is too short a time in which to study an experiment —
§ THE EARL OF LONGFORDI will give way to the noble Lord.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHHe thinks you are out of order.
§ THE EARL OF LONGFORDThe noble Lord, I am glad to say, has restrained himself. May I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, that it is a most shocking argument to say that 15 years is not enough to study an experiment. If that argument is used, 16 years would not be much better.
§ LORD DERWENTMy Lords I cannot see that that has anything to do with the original Question.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware—and I am sorry he was unable to answer my second supplementary—that most of the men sentenced to these terms of imprisonment are socially inadequate? Would he not agree that the Judge in the case I quoted in my earlier supplementary must also have been extremely inadequate?
§ LORD DERWENTMy Lords, the question of preventive detention and the method of sentencing is one that the noble Lord fully knows depends on past record. That argument has nothing to do with the Question on the Order Paper.