LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 27 July 1967)

§ LORD STONHAM
My Lords, I beg to move that the House doth not insist on its Amendment No. 1 to which the Commons have disagreed.

§ LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR
My Lords, this is a matter arising out of questions of bail. Clause 15 places certain restrictions on the refusal of bail, and when the Bill was earlier before your Lordships' House I said that there seemed to me to be much to be said for the general purpose to which this clause is directed. The nub of the matter is in subsection (5)(a) of Clause 15. That subsection relieves from the prohibition on the granting of bail cases where a person is charged with an offence punishable by that court by imprisonment for a term of not less than six months and it appears to the court that he has been previously sentenced to imprisonment or borstal training or detention in a detention centre.
1122 The words "or detention in a detention centre", to which the Commons have disagreed, were added in your Lordships' House, because it appeared to a majority of your Lordships that magistrates ought to have a discretion to remand a man in custody if he has already served a detention centre sentence. This was opposed by the Government on the ground that there was a fundamental difference between a detention centre and borstal or prison. I would say that to the ordinary young man both borstal and detention centre appear to be incarceration. I find it impossible to understand why discretion should be granted to the magistrates to remand somebody in custody if he has served a sentence of a month's imprisonment but should be withheld from them if he has served a sentence of three or six months in a detention centre.
As I said in the debate which led to a Division on this matter there was a sincere division of opinion between the two sides of the House. I have the support of no less an authority than the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice, who should know what he is talking about in these matters of the administration of the criminal law. Neither he nor I could see any reason why discretion should be withheld from magistrates in a case of this sort. The Commons have thought otherwise, however, and I would not advise your Lordships to stage a quarrel with another place over a matter of detail of this character. Nevertheless, I am quite clear in my mind that the Government have committed an error of judgment here, and if we agree to the Commons decision, we can do so only with great regret.

§ LORD STONHAM
My Lords, I very much regret to hear from the noble Lord that he feels that the Commons have been guilty of an error of judgment and that he would accede to this Motion only with a great deal of regret. I agree that there is a sincere difference of opinion here. But the noble Lord must be aware that there is a great difference between a detention centre and borstal. It is true that they are both places of incarceration, but in the main a detention centre sentence is for three months and a borstal sentence is for a maximum of two years; and there is a total difference in the régimes. We have too few detention centre places. Magistrates are 1123 most anxious to use them, rather than send boys for borstal training or to prison. That is evidence that they, at least, are aware of the great difference between the two régimes.
The point on which I know your Lordships are in agreement with the Government is this. We are all anxious, where it is possible, to avoid subjecting young people to the contamination of imprisonment by remanding them in custody for short periods. We are here discussing the question of the discretion of magistrates to grant or withhold bail. The clause limits their discretion. All of us deplore the fact that out of 35,000 remands in custody more than half of them are not subsequently sent to prison, and we all agree that discretion should be limited in some respect, in order to enable us to reduce that unhappy number who go to prison and are contaminated, as is subsequently proved, unnecessarily.
Not only is there a distinction between the régimes in detention centre and in borstal, but we are preserving that difference. The whole object of this is to prevent these boys, who have committed comparatively minor offences—if they have committed any more serious offence the point does not arise—from being sent to prison by, as it were, a side wind. While I regret this difference of opinion which exists between us, I am completely convinced that the Government are right in this matter and that events will prove it.