HL Deb 19 July 1965 vol 268 cc456-76

2.58 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is an extremely simple Bill and it will require very little exposition. I think I may take it that the substance of it is already familiar to every Member of your Lordships' House. The main effect of this Bill is to provide that an automatic sentence of life imprisonment shall follow upon any conviction for murder. The later clauses of the Bill provide that murders committed by members of the Armed Forces shall be in like case with those committed by civilians; and that, as at present, in the event of a murder being committed by a young person under 18, that person shall be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure in such place and for such time as the Secretary of State shall determine. The final clause of the Bill provides that the Bill shall remain in operation for only five years unless an Affirmative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament shall otherwise determine. Those are all the observations that I think I need to make in explanation of the contents of the Bill.

Before I deal with the main arguments in support of the Bill, there are one or two things I would say by way of preliminary observations. I would say first that I am very well aware that there are grave moral issues involved in the principle of this Bill, and if I say very little about the moral issues it is not because I underestimate their force but because I hope that in the subsequent debate there are those whose views on moral questions will command greater respect than I would venture to claim in this House for my own. I wish also to make a certain assumption. I wish to assume—I am sure that your Lordships will endorse the assumption—that there is no civilised person (and that must include every Member of your Lordships' House) who can contemplate taking the life of another human being in cold blood without deep repugnance. I shall assume that we are all united in our respect for life, and in our desire to preserve the sanctity of life; and that the only thing that can possibly divide us to-day is a difference of opinion as to how best this may be achieved—as to whether the protection of the life and lives of the public may demand that, on occasion, some individual life should be deliberately sacrificed. If that assumption is not justified, I am sure that I shall be made well aware of the fact; but I think I may take it that that is an extremely unlikely contingency.

Thirdly, I should like to remind the House that notwithstanding the Title of this Bill, and notwithstanding the fact that during this debate we shall be concerned, I am sure, almost exclusively with the efficacy of the death penalty, this is not a Bill for the abolition of the death penalty. This is a Bill for the abolition of those exceptions to the rule that the sentence for murder is life imprisonment. It is a Bill for the abolition of those exceptions which were contained in the Homicide Act 1957.

It is, I think, not without significance that the opening words of this Bill and the opening words of the relevant section of the Homicide Act read much the same. This Bill opens with the words: No person shall suffer death for murder ". Section 7 of the Homicide Act opens with the words: No person shall be liable to suffer death for murder in any case not falling within the subsequent sections. Your Lordships will remember what those exceptions are. Capital murder at present is murder committed in furtherance of theft; capital murder is murder committed when resisting arrest, or resisting the assistance of some person who is helping in arrest; capital murder consists in the murder of a police officer or the murder of a prison officer; and capital murder is also any second or repeated murder. Theft, shooting, resisting arrest, murder of a police officer, murder of a prison officer and repeated murders are the exceptions with which your Lordships are concerned to-day.

The Act of 1957 came as a compromise, and your Lordships will be aware of the history in this matter. This is the third occasion since the end of the war on which a Bill or a measure either suspending or totally abolishing the death penalty has come before your Lordships' House after having been passed in another place; and it has been passed in another place, as your Lordships will recall, always on a free vote, and on occasions when the predominant political colour of that place has been different from today's. It has been passed when the predominant political colour has been Conservative and also when the predominant political colour has been Labour. I repeat, this is the third occasion on which the question of total abolition or suspension has been before your Lordships' House. On each of the previous occasions your Lordships have rejected the measure, just as you rejected an earlier compromise before the 1957 Act.

That action is, after all, part of a longstanding tradition. For more than a hundred years now your Lordships have been wont to cry, "Woe, woe!" on every occasion when it has been proposed to remove the death penalty for serious crimes. Between 1800 and 1818 your Lordships rejected six times a Bill for the abolition of the death penalty for the crime of shoplifting. There is a great deal of shoplifting now. Whether there is more or less than there was in the second decade of the 19th century I should not like to say; but I venture to suggest that your Lordships would be extremely reluctant to give even a hearing to a measure for re-enacting the death penalty for shoplifting in this day and age. But I think that there are signs that the Cassandra-like rôle that your Lordships have so long favoured is now felt by many of you to be altogether unbecoming, and that there is a quite definite change of mood. The new rôle is to consider whether the prophecies of woe which have so long been uttered on every measure for the reduction of penalties for crime, have been justified.

I think one may say that the particular compromise which was adopted in 1957 has been a disastrous failure. It has produced not justice but anomalies. If a man sets out to bludgeon his wife to death and does the job ineffectively, and then goes for a gun and shoots her to finish the job, the murder becomes capital. Indeed, it might even be said that the 1957 Homicide Act in principle reenacted the death penalty for theft, for if a man commits a murder and, having killed his victim, takes 6d. from his pocket, the murder is changed from one not liable to the death penalty to one which is in fact capital. The Homicide Act does not enact the death penalty for the poisoner, for the sex murderer, for the murderer who attacks small children. It is confined to the peculiar list of exceptions to which I directed your Lordships' attention just now.

I think it is quite clear that the intention in those exceptions was to secure that the professional criminal, particularly the professional robber, would be the person whose crime would attract the death penalty. But, in point of fact, what has happened has been that many of those who have suffered death as a result of this Act have been men who could not possibly have been described as professional criminals. No one, of course, can say how many professional criminals have, by fear of the death penalty, been deterred from using firearms in the course of their robberies. But what we do know is a good deal about many of the people who have in fact been put to death in this attempt to deter the professional criminal.

It has led to the hanging of the college lecturer, aged 33, who murdered a girl and her boy friend in a passion of sexual jealousy. He could not possibly have been called a professional; he had one previous conviction, nine years earlier, for a homosexual offence. It has led to the putting to death of a man of 32 who became involved in a gang fight in rather dubious circumstances, a man who was not a professional criminal, as is evidenced by the fact that he had one finding of guilt for larceny at the age of 14. It has led to the putting to death of a man of 20 who found himself suddenly short of money, went and did a bur glary, his first burglary, panicked, and beat his victim to death. He had one previous conviction for larceny and forgery. None of these could possibly be described as professional criminals. I have the names of these and other cases, but I do not like to quote names in your Lordships' House, though I will gladly give them to any noble Lord who would like to have them. As it seems to me, what we have done is to hang one class of murderer in order to deter a quite different class. I can only say that, in my view, that comes dangerously near to human sacrifice.

I think that it will be common ground among many that the compromise has not worked. Indeed, it was the considered view of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment in 1953 that no compromise could be worked out which would not produce similar injustices and anomalies. Let me quote to the House what the Royal Commission said—and they started, as they said, with a great determination to find that compromise was possible: We began our inquiry with a determination to succeed where so many have failed, and to discover some effective method of classifying murderers so as to confine the death penalty to the more heinous. … We conclude with regret that the object of our quest is chimerical and that it must be abandoned. Perhaps we could get some light on the difficult questions involved here by looking at experience in other countries. There is plenty of it, because certainly in Europe and in the British Commonwealth the death penalty has now become the exception rather than the rule. There is no death penalty in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Western Germany, Holland, Iceland, Israel, Luxembourg, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand and in ten American States. I do not think your Lordships wish me to prolong the list further, though it is not complete. I should perhaps make it quite precise that I am speaking of death penalty for murder, which is all that this Bill is concerned with.

Wherever the death penalty has been abolished evidence has been sought as to the effect of this upon the murder rate. I think that we cannot get more convincing evidence than is to be found in the United Nations Report on this subject, which was published three years ago. After an exhaustive survey of those States which had abolished the death penalty the conclusion was that … all the information available appears to confirm that removal has in fact never been followed by a notable rise in the incidence of the crime no longer punishable by death. The before-and-after argument is always very tricky because circumstances change. I think that possibly a better argument, and better evidence, is to be derived from Federal States such as the United States of America and Australia, where neighbouring States of like geographical and cultural situation have in the one case a death penalty and in the other case no death penalty.

I should like to refer your Lordships to the exhaustive inquiry which was made by Professor Sellin, referred to in the evidence which he gave to the Royal Commission. Professor Sellin studied the fluctuations of the murder rate over a number of years in neighbouring and similar States within Federations, as well as many countries of Europe, where the death penalty had been abolished in some cases and retained in others. I do not have time to survey these investigations at all fully, but I should like to quote to your Lordships sonic of the results which emerged from the latest group of Professor Sellin's investigations. One starts by comparing the State of Maine with the State of New Hampshire, Maine with no death penalty, New Hampshire with a death penalty. In Maine, where there was no death penalty, the rate of homicides per 100,000 of population was 70 per cent. higher than in New Hamsphire, where the death penalty was retained. The experience in the same year in Rhode Island as compared with that in Connecticut was the same—59 per cent. higher where there was no death penalty. Your Lordships will begin to draw the conclusion that it is very dangerous to abolish capital punishment. But immediately one goes further and finds the reverse situation in even higher degree in a number of other neighbouring or culturally similar States.

In Wisconsin, with no death penalty, one finds that the rate was 55 per cent. lower than in Iowa which then had the death penalty—though it has since abolished it. Michigan, as compared with Ohio, a no-death-penalty State, has an advantage of 30 per cent. In Minnesota without a death penalty the advantage is double that of Indiana where the death penalty was retained. And in the two States of North Dakota and South Dakota the death-penalty State has twice the homicide rate of the no-death-penalty State. These are admittedly only figures for a single year, but the investigations on which they were based were averaged over very long periods, and they dealt with States which had abolished the death penalty at different dates. All those investigations show that there are short-term fluctuations in the homicide rate, but that it is impossible to relate them to the presence or absence of a death penalty. Professor Sellin himself concluded that it is impossible to draw any inferences that there is any visible, tangible relationship between a large number of executions, a small number of executions, continuous executions, no executions at all and what happens to the murder rate.

We shall be told, of course, that the public is not ready for this, and that the public is still strongly in favour of the retention of capital punishment. It is, I think, a very unusual argument in your Lordships' House that your Lordships' decision should be governed by the Gallup Poll. But leaving that on one side, it is relevant to remember that there are many things that the public do not apparently appreciate. The public certainly do not visualise the whole hideous business that is involved in the actual process of execution. It may be that, if your Lordships wished to retain the death penalty for certain offences, it would be wise to reintroduce the performance of this act in public, so that the public might know exactly what it is for which they are said to be asking.

The public certainly does not appreciate the very large number of murders for which the present law prohibits the use of the death penalty, nor is the public well appraised of the fact that the capital murderer is often a less dangerous person in his whole life than the non-capital murderer. It is, I think, a very interesting fact, which your Lordships will find in the Home Office pamphlet, Murder, that the non-capital murderers have, on the average, a higher proportion of persons with previous convictions for sex or violence than have the capital murderers. The public certainly does not realise that the average number of men who have been hanged each year since the passing of the Homicide Act is four, that in 1963 two men were hanged, and in 1962 two men were hanged; and that the chance of any given murderer being hanged is now under 1½ per cent. That, surely, cannot be an effective deterrent.

My Lords, of course we run risks. One cannot avoid risks in this world. We know that risks are inherent in the work of the police officer and the prison officer, and we are all profoundly grateful for the courage with which the members of those services face those risks—a courage which on occasions seems almost to pass the bounds of credibility. We know that old ladies like myself living in isolated circumstances run risks, and they are risks which we are well prepared to take, knowing that as yet we still live in a community with a small minority of dangerously unbalanced and irresponsible people. In one sense, your Lordships are being asked to take a very large step, because anything that is concerned even with a single human life is a large step. In another sense, you are being asked to take a very small step: you are being asked to reduce the chance that a murderer will be hanged, from a rate of something of the order of 1½ per cent. to zero. There is reason to hope that in this very small step the additional risks that are to be taken will be minimal. And I have already called attention to the fact that capital murderers are by no means necessarily more dangerous, and indeed are often less dangerous, than non-capital murderers.

Most dangerous of all, very often, are those people whose mentality is so grossly disordered that they are not sentenced either to life imprisonment or to death, but are ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure in Broadmoor or a similar institution. The risks which we now fear will be imposed upon prison officers if the death penalty is abolished are, after all, risks which are run every day by the staff of Broadmoor and similar institutions. I think that the experience of those institutions suggests that some of the fears about those risks are exaggerated, and that very potent safe guards can be taken against them. There are, moreover, risks on the other side. There is the appalling risk, human beings being fallible, that we may hang an innocent man, and in the minds of many of us is a very grave doubt—certainly in two cases in the last twenty years; possibly in more—that this very thing may have happened.

The final argument, and to me perhaps the most convincing of all, is the fact that no one can tell what the life might have been of the man whose days are cut short by the execution of the death penalty. Just as it must lie heavy on our consciences that we may have executed the innocent, so I think it lies heavy on our consciences that we may have deprived another human being of the opportunity of expressing his remorse in the subsequent years of his life. Today I cannot but remember an American friend of mine—he is now a man in his fifties. When he was a youth of 19 he took part in a hideous and motiveless murder of a child. For this he was all but executed. He served thereafter 33 years in prison, and he spent those years in placing his very considerable gifts at the service of the prison authorities, in order that he might express his remorse by helping those less well endowed or less well educated than himself. He offered himself as a guinea-pig for medical experiments. He now lives as a free man and he works as a technical assistant in medical research.

Let us remember, my Lords, that the story of this man is not necessarily a unique story, even if it is an unusual one. None of us can tell how many times it might have been repeated in lives which have been brought to a premature end by execution. Let us not forget that if we hang even two or three men each year we may be depriving a fellow human being of the opportunity to live out his remorse in such a life as this. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Baroness Wootton of Abinger.)

3.27 p.m.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, has moved the Second Reading of this Bill with a speech which, with commendable brevity but extremely effectively and clearly, stated its effect. She made out the case for this Bill and she spoke quite clearly, with very great sincerity; and I do not doubt that those who follow her and speak also in support of this Bill will also speak most sincerely. I hope that they, in their turn, will recognise that those who oppose this Bill do so with equal sincerity and out of strong convictions.

I am glad that the noble Baroness did not assert, as was asserted in another place by the sponsor of the Bill, that the question whether we ought to abolish or preserve the death penalty for murder has already been decided. It has not. It will be decided if this Bill is enacted, but to suggest that it was decided by the passing of the Homicide Act 1957, is, in my belief, to misrepresent the position. As I had something to do with the passing of that Act, I should like, if I may, to remind your Lordships of the reasons why it retained the death penalty for certain categories of murder.

The Second Reading of that Bill was moved in another place by my noble friend Lord Tenby, who was then Home Secretary, and I should like to quote two passages from the speech that he made on that occasion. He said: We propose to take out of the category of murder those homicides about which opinion has long been uneasy; homicides which are murder only by virtue of the doctrine of constructive malice; homicides by people who, though not insane, are gravely abnormal; homicides under severe provocation by words alone; and homicides in pursuance of a suicide pact. He went on to say: We propose to confine capital punishment, broadly speaking, to murder by professional criminals; murder of the agents of law and order. … murder by shooting or causing an explosion, methods which are peculiarly dangerous and indiscriminate and are associated with gang warfare and political terrorism; and murder by the man who makes a practice of murder."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 560, col. 1148, November 15, 1956.] What this Bill seeks to do, of course, is to make these categories of murder non-capital offences, and we have to consider and decide whether a case has been made out for doing that.

The noble Baroness criticised the Homicide Act 1957—and it has been much criticised. There are some, I know, who take the view that the law should not be left as it is, and that, rather than leave it as it is, it would be better to have complete abolition. The main ground advanced for this is, I think, that put forward by the noble Baroness; the fact that a particular murder in the non-capital class may be far more heinous than a particular murder in the capital category, and that it is wrong, and not justice, that the non-capital murderer should suffer life imprisonment and the capital murderer be sentenced to death. The noble Lady referred to some cases of persons convicted of capital murder who she says have been executed. I do not propose to refer to any individual cases; but, of course, there is the fact that, even if there is a conviction and sentence to death for capital murder, the Royal prerogative still remains and can be exercised in appropriate cases.

But I come back to this criticism. I do not myself think that that criticism of the existing law leads to the conclusion that the right change to make now would be complete abolition, for that might well prove to be a change for the worse; and it would be a change for the worse if it led to more people being murdered. The noble Lady concluded her speech by a moving passage about the effect of the termination of life by execution, the consequences of bringing a man's life to a premature end by execution. My Lords, those consequences flow every time a murderer commits a murder; and it would be, I submit, a change for the worse if the change were made and led to more people being deprived of their lives.

The noble Lady said that the additional risks of that happening would be minimal. I do not know on what authority she bases that proposition. I do not myself consider that even if only four or five lives are lost as a consequence of this Bill being passed, that loss can be considered minimal.

BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER

My Lords, will the noble and learned Viscount forgive me for interrupting him? He says that he does not know on what evidence I base this conclusion. I base it on the facts and experience of other countries which I mentioned.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE

I am glad the noble Lady has made that point clear. I did not appreciate that she was basing her statement on the figures she had given from other countries—and I will of course come to them in a moment.

I put this point seriously to your Lordships. Rather than do something which might lead to more loss of innocent lives, might it not be better that the anomaly in sentence in particular cases should be accepted? But, if the law should not be left as it is, it can be argued that the right change to make would be to make non-capital murders capital and to improve the machinery for granting reprieves. That, I believe, was the view of the late Lord Samuel; and it may be that if that course had been taken in 1957 it would have been better. But we are not considering that question to-day. What we have to consider is whether the death sentence should be abolished in the six categories where it is now retained; and the retention of the death penalty in these cases must, as I see it, depend on the penalty being an effective and a unique deterrent. It is a terrible thing to deprive a man of his life by the act of the State: it is equally terrible for any man to take another's life, to commit murder. In my view, the retention of the death penalty for these categories can be justified only if that penalty is effective in deterring people from committing these murders and if no other deterrent is likely to be nearly as effective. If it is a unique and effective deterrent, then I do not think that it is a valid ground for removing it that a particular non-capital murder is more heinous than a particular capital one.

The Homicide Act kept these murders as capital because the Government of the day, in the light of the advice they had received, reached the conclusion that, in relation to these murders, this deterrent was, if I may again quote the words used by the noble Lord, Lord Tenby, "most needed and most effective". I do not think that anything has happened since then which shows that the view taken at that time is wrong, and I would ask: have the present Government received different advice? If so, I hope that we shall be told. I am somewhat astonished at the readiness of some advocates of abolition to discount, if not to disregard, the opinions of those in the battle-line of the war against crime. We pay great attention to the medical advice we receive, and the views of experts (who do not always agree) are treated with respect. But when it comes to the opinions of the police on a matter of this kind, those opinions of people well qualified to speak with authority do not always, it seems to me, have the attention paid to them which is their due. If the view of the police has changed, we ought to be told.

The noble Lady referred in the course of her speech to the small number of executions, and prayed that in aid of her argument. I think it flowed from her argument that it really would not make much real difference to the maintenance of law and order if capital punishment were abolished, since the executions are so small in number. But it seems to me that that argument really misses the point. What we should be concerned with is not the small number of executions—and the smaller the better—but whether the sentence itself, and the possibility of its being passed, is a unique and effective deterrent. Indeed, one could argue that the smallness of the number was evidence of the effectiveness of the deterrent, and that, if the number were large, it would have shown that it was not. But I do not myself think that any such arguments are very convincing.

Nor am I really impressed by the statistics which are so frequently quoted by abolitionists, culled from other countries, to which the noble Lady referred to-day. I ask your Lordships to note that the statistics she quoted were general in character. Conditions in other countries may be very different; but what we are concerned with here is whether the effect of abolition in these six cases would lead, not to a general increase in the crime of murder, non-capital or capital, but to an increase in the number of murders which are now capital.

My Lords, having made these general observations, may I turn to consider, and ask your Lordships to consider, each of the six categories which this Bill seeks to make non-capital? First, there is the murder done in the course of or in furtherance of theft. Although, regrettably, crimes of violence have increased, I believe it is still the case, as it was in 1956, that the professional criminal is deterred by the death penalty from committing murder. It may be, of course, that someone who is not a professional criminal commits a murder which falls into the capital category, as the noble Lady pointed out. The question here is this: in relation to this category, is the professional criminal deterred by the death penalty from committing murder?

Robberies are all too prevalent; bank raids and wage snatches are almost a weekly occurrence. Although violence is sometimes used, it is, I think, the exception and not the rule; and it appears to stop short of murder—at least on most occasions. The professional burglar seldom uses violence. Why is this? The Home Secretary, in the course of his speech on the Third Reading of this Bill, said: If a person knew for certain that in the event of his committing a serious crime he would serve at least nine years in prison—if he thought that was a near certainty—it would be the most powerful deterrent one could think of."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 716 (No. 151), col. 388, July 13, 1965.] My Lords, I think that was a most astonishing statement. I should have thought that most people would agree that the prospect of being deprived of one's life was a much more powerful deterrent than the prospect of at least nine years in prison. Indeed, it would seem that the prospect of a life sentence fails to deter some people from committing murder in the streets with a knife. A case of that was reported in to-day's papers; and your Lordships will doubtless remember the case of the journalist who was stabbed to death when he intervened in something going on in the streets. Yet the Home Secretary says, with all his authority, that serving nine years in prison would be the most powerful deterrent one could think of. I would ask your Lordships—

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

My Lords, may I interrupt at this point? Surely he did not say that; he did not say that nine years' imprisonment was the most powerful deterrent one could think of.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE

Indeed he did. I have the passage. I will read it again to your Lordships. It appears in column 388: If a person knew for certain that in the event of his committing a serious crime he would serve at least nine years in prison—if he thought that was a near certainty—it would be the most powerful deterrent one could think of.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

But surely, my Lords, he was talking of the certainty. He was emphasising that point as distinct from the length of the sentence.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE

My Lords, we can each read the Home Secretary's words. I think he was dealing with the certainty and the length of the sentence, with both matters. When you read his speech it becomes absolutely clear that that is so. He goes on to discuss the nine years; and I shall refer to that later.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, both the cases that the noble and learned Viscount mentioned will not have been capital crimes. Apparently the threat of hanging was not a deterrent.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE

My Lords, I am not sure I followed that intervention. To what cases does the noble Lord refer?

LORD STONHAM

The noble and learned Viscount referred to a case of stabbing; and since that was not in the course of theft that would not be a capital crime.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE

I am afraid that the noble Lord has missed the point I was making about that. I said that the prospect of a life sentence was not a deterrent to people who wished to commit that kind of murder. Those two cases are indicative of that. That is why I quoted those two cases. When the noble Lord looks at Hansard he will see that before I referred to those cases I said: "It would seem that the prospect of a life sentence fails to deter some people from committing murder in the streets with a knife." Of course I realise that those are non-capital murders. It is a life sentence—but that apparently does not deter, or has not deterred. Of course, deterrents do not always deter.

I would ask your Lordships now to consider, if you would, the case of a professional burglar with a long record of crime, or, indeed, of any criminal with a bad record who knows that the next time he is convicted he is certain to get a very long sentence. Supposing that such a burglar or criminal is interrupted in the course of his activities and that the person who comes upon him is the only person who can identify him. Is he likely to be deterred from using violence, and using violence to kill, by the prospect of a sentence which will nearly certainly be of nine years' imprisonment if he is caught and convicted? Is it not likely that he will take the chance of getting away with it altogether by killing?

I hope that those who support this Bill will deal with this, for I should like to hear their arguments for saying that the certainty of nine years' imprisonment is the most powerful deterrent that one could think of for such a criminal. I believe that the death sentence is a unique and effective deterrent for such men and that there is nothing that can replace it adequately. I believe that to remove this penalty would be to increase substantially the risk that more innocent lives would be lost by murder. Those who support this Bill are prepared to run that risk. I must confess that I am not.

The second category of capital murder is murder by shooting or by causing an explosion. The use of firearms is not prevalent in this country, and murder by causing an explosion is a rarity. In this age when crimes of violence are increasing, it is, I think, significant that the use of firearms and the causing of explosions have not become more prevalent. I cannot dissociate this from the retention of the death penalty. In relation to this type, too. I think it is a unique and effective deterrent.

The next two categories of capital murder bear particularly on the maintenance of law and order: murder done to resist or avoid arrest or to effect or assist in an escape from legal custody; the murder of a police officer acting in the exercise of his duty or of a person assisting him. I have no doubt that your Lordships have received, as I have, a memorandum from the Police Federation on this matter. They urge the retention of the death penalty for these categories as a protection for the police. They, too, express the view that the professional criminal is strongly deterred by the fear of capital punishment. I will not take up your Lordships' time by referring in detail—or, indeed, any more—to their memorandum. But I commend it to your Lordships as worthy of serious attention. There are the murders of prison officers.

If you remove the death penalty, what real deterrent is there to a man already serving a sentence for life for murder or a very long sentence of imprisonment?

The final category is conviction for two or more murders. Surely there must be some deterrent to deter a man who has killed once from killing again. It is no deterrent to sentence him to life imprisonment twice. I do not like—none of us likes—capital punishment. I myself, however, do not think that in the present state of our society we can wholly dispense with it, as this Bill proposes. The time may come when we may be able to do so without running an undue risk, but in my belief that time has not yet come. If, after 1956, there had been signs of a lessening of serious crime, of crimes of violence, then I think I should have been willing to make this further step forward towards total abolition. But I cannot think it right to dispense with this deterrent now—this safeguard of the lives of innocent people, of police officers and prison warders.

What is proposed as the alternative? That the judge should be compelled to imprison for life, and that the Home Secretary should be free to decide in each case what time in prison that in fact meant. If all kinds of murder are to be made non-capital, what grounds are there for treating convictions for murder differently from convictions for attempted murder or other serious crimes? But for the advances made in medical science in recent years, it may be that many cases of attempted murder and of grievous bodily harm would have been murder cases. In all cases except murder a judge has power to pass the sentence that he considers appropriate having regard to the gravity of the crime, and the public, while it wishes criminals to be reformed, still, I believe, takes the view that criminals should be punished for their crimes. The sentence a judge passes at the end of a trial can have a very great deterrent effect on others. One instance of that is the heavy sentences passed on young men as the result of the troubles in Notting Hill.

If this Bill passes, a judge will have power to pass what sentence he thinks right, and sentences with a deterrent effect, in all cases except murder cases. I cannot see why in future the powers of a judge should be different just because the conviction is one of murder. If capital punishment is abolished, I think that a judge should have the power to pass a determinate sentence, if he thinks that right. The Home Secretary is, of course, in a better position to know how a prisoner serving a life sentence, or a long sentence, is getting on. That is true. It is equally true in relation to train robbers, spies and all who are sentenced to long terms. The fact that the Home Secretary has this knowledge is no reason for treating those convicted of murder differently from others.

My Lords, I have long been in favour of there being much wider powers to release on licence, for I think that a moment may come when it would be to the advantage of society and of the prisoner if a man could be released on licence, and if that chance is not taken reformation may become impossible. I should like to see the Home Secretary have much wider powers to release on licence than he now has. I think it wrong that he should have no power to do so until two-thirds of a determinate sentence has been served. But I do not think it would be right for such a power to be exercised by the Home Secretary just on his own responsibility. I think there should be a body to which he could refer cases for advice, and I should like this machinery to be available in the case of the long sentences, not just life sentences and for murder.

The Home Secretary, if I may quote him again, has said that he and his successors: … would keep murderers in prison as long as necessary to protect society, however long that means and however reluctant we might personally feel if faced with the necessity of keeping any human being incarcerated for a great number of years."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 716 (No. 151) col. 388.] He went on to say that the nine years is … round about the time when one may begin to get symptoms to show that the person in prison is beginning to break down." (ibid.) That is a pretty clear indication that a life sentence for murder would mean about nine years unless the man would, on release on licence, be likely to be a danger to society. Nine years for depriving a policeman of his life, or a prison warder, or the occupier of a dwelling-house. Sentences of more than nine years are given now for crimes less grave than murder. There was a case reported only last week of a sentence of twelve years passed for armed robbery. My Lords, I do not think that this will do. I do not think that this Bill provides a proper alternative to the death sentence, and I have given my reasons for thinking that this is a bad Bill.

LORD CHORLEY

My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount keeps talking about nine years. He knows perfectly well that that is not the sentence in a capital murder case.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE

I know perfectly well that the sentence passed is a sentence of life imprisonment. There has been controvery about what that means. It does not mean life, and when I kept on talking about nine years I was referring to the nine years mentioned by the Home Secretary. If the noble Lord wishes to quarrel with what I have said, I think that really he should quarrel with the Home Secretary.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, if the noble and learned Viscount will allow me to intervene, may I say that a life sentence does in fact mean life, in the sense that if a man is released he is always subject to recall, and some men are recalled.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE

I am fully aware of that and I said nothing to the contrary. I was talking of nine years in prison. That is what it means. That is what the Home Secretary was talking about. He was not talking about its meaning a sentence of nine years. It is a sentence for life. If the noble Lord will look at Hansard to-morrow, he will see that I chose my words very carefully. I argued that that means nine years' imprisonment, and I actually quoted the words of the Home Secretary.

To-morrow each of us will have to decide how to vote. For me the choice lies between voting against the Bill on Second Reading and, if the Bill is given a Second Reading, seeking to amend it. That is one possibility. The other is to allow the Bill to have a Second Reading and then try to amend it during the Committee stage. We must each decide for ourselves. I feel that if I vote for the Second Reading, or do not vote against the Bill, I shall not have done all that I could to prevent the acceptance of the principle of this Bill, that the six categories for murder to which I have referred should be made non-capital. I do not think that any of them should, and so I consider it is my duty, feeling as I do, to record my vote against the Bill.

I find some confirmation for taking this course in the fact that during the many months that this Bill was being considered in another place attempts were made, without success, to preserve the protection for prison warders and police officers. Obviously there is little prospect of the death penalty being agreed to by the Commons for any of these categories. If we reject this Private Member's Bill, it may be reintroduced next Session in the Commons, and if the same Bill is passed in the Commons it will again come to your Lordships. If we amended it then, we could not insist on our Amendments, if the Commons disagreed with them. That is as I understand the effect of the Parliament Acts. If we reject this Bill, for which no mandate can be claimed, I believe that the vast majority of people in the country will welcome our decision. I am sure they do not want police officers, prison warders and householders to be exposed to greater risks than they are at present.

The alternative course is to acquiesce in the Bill's being read a second time and then seek to amend it and, if we are successful, to insist on our Amendments. Then, again, if the same Bill were passed in the Commons next Session, we might amend it again, but then we could not insist on our Amendments. If we take this course, we shall be approving this Bill in principle, approving the principle of abolition for these categories of murder.

During the Second Reading of the Homicide Act in 1956 I said—and I hope that your Lordships will permit me to quote what I said: I do not … at present believe that any Government, of whatever complexion, having a proper regard for their duties, can acquiesce in the complete abolition of the death sentence for murder at the present time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 560, col. 1256.] My Lords, that was my view then. It has not altered, despite Mr. Silverman's assertion that this House would be acting very improperly if it interfered with this Bill now—a statement as impertinent, in seeking to lecture your Lordships, as it is incorrect. This Bill does propose the complete abolition of the death sentence, and, as I think that wrong, I feel that I should have the courage, and that indeed it is my duty, to give expression to my belief by voting against its being read a second time.