Sentencing Review (Hansard, 21 November 2001)

§ Lord Rooker

Making Punishments Work, the report of a review of the sentencing framework undertaken by John Halliday, and known as the Halliday Report, was published on 5 July and responses were invited by 31 October. The report was sent to a large number of 140WA individuals and organisations and a series of meetings was held with members of the public and representatives of the judiciary and other bodies to encourage consideration of the report and obtain views.

In order to encourage wider public involvement in the debate, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary launched the Fairer Sentencing website which contained a quiz, a facility to e-mail views and an on-line debating provision. In addition, debate was stimulated in local, regional and national media and honourable Members were encouraged to initiate discussion in their constituencies. A number of conferences have also been convened.

The level of interest and response has been considerable. Over 120 detailed responses have been received from individuals or organisations with connections to the criminal justice system and even more from members of the public by letter or e-mail or through the debating channel. In addition, the website received 33,482 page hits, the home page was visited 5,831 times, 2,839 copies of the layman's summary of the Halliday Review were downloaded, 1,171 copies of the Home Secretary's speech on sentencing reform were downloaded and 1,226 people completed the quiz on the website. This has been a unique opportunity to hold a public consultation on the point of sentencing and many members of the public have offered their own suggestions and alternatives.

There has been almost unanimous support for the need for change to the present sentencing framework, accompanied by a strong message that the change should be done well, properly resourced and then allowed to stand the test of time. There has also been broad support for the general thrust of the proposals, in particular the need for radical changes in the approach to short prison sentences. There is widespread recognition that it is unacceptable to have no supervision for an individual leaving a short prison sentence and that there are many opportunities for improving the effectiveness of both a prison sentence and a community sentence.

There has also been considerable support for greater transparency in sentencing.

There has been mixed support for the greater involvement of the courts in the management of sentences through review hearings. Many commentators have seen the strength of the arguments in terms of principle but have expressed doubts about whether the enormous practical difficulties could be overcome sufficiently well to justify that intervention in every case.

Officials are now analysing the responses in greater detail and a summary of the responses will be published, with copies in the Library, towards the end of January 2002. We then anticipate publishing a White Paper in spring 2002.