§ Mr. McCrindleasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has any plans to legislate to link court fines to the ability of offenders to pay; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. John PattenUnder section 35 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980, courts are already required to take the offenders' means into consideration when fixing the amount of a fine. We are setting up experiments to see whether means assessment can be improved so that fines can be linked more closely to the capacity of less well-off offenders to pay them.