Baroness Neville-Rolfe
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(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to support the Crown Prosecution Service in prosecuting, and the courts in sentencing, those involved in gang-related offences, illegal migration and petty offences.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
My Lords, in 2018, the Government published a serious violence strategy to take action to address serious violence. Our strategy places a new emphasis on early intervention and sets out a multiagency approach. The CPS is developing new guidance about gang culture and gang offending, which will summarise the relevant principles in case law to be applied when making charging decisions in any gang-related offence.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, over the summer, I was very pleased to hear of the Home Secretary’s new approach and of the extra funding for 20,000 police officers. Indeed, that takes me back to the time when my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne, an esteemed predecessor, took a number of determined steps and succeeded in getting crime down across the board. Does my noble and learned friend agree that the vital way to support the police, who need to be helped, is to ensure that criminals receive appropriate sentences from the courts, that they serve those sentences, and that new, secure prisons are built, so that the problems we have in these various areas are tackled?
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, clearly, sentencing decisions are a matter for the independent judiciary, which is of course under a duty to follow any relevant guidelines produced by the independent Sentencing Council. The council produces guidelines specific to particular offences or groups of offences. I entirely acknowledge the points my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe makes about the need to complement the increase in policing by ensuring that we have adequate provision in the judiciary and the prison establishment.