Sentencing Bill

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 21st October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point, although I would point out that under the last Government three prisons were built—HMP Five Wells, HMP Fosse Way and HMP Millsike—which added an extra 8,500 places. Three further prisons will also be built.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The active management of the prison service at those levels of occupation was of course hard work, but that hard work was absolutely necessary, and far preferable to simply taking a view that we will not have all those criminals in prison at all. The reality is that what we are doing now is much worse.

[Esther McVey]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. This disgrace of a Bill will not be sending people to prison, and at the same time it will be letting people out of prison.

Amendments 46, 47, 51 and 52 would change the length of sentences that qualify for the “get out of jail free” suspended sentences to those of less than 12 months and only before any credit is given for a guilty plea. Sentences of 12 months or more are obviously given for more serious offences. As the Bill stands, I understand that those for whom a sentence of 18 months would be appropriate could hit the jackpot, because the credit of a guilty plea will be taken into account. That will reduce the sentence to 12 months; therefore, those people will qualify for a suspended sentence under this Bill. Sentences of those lengths are not given for nothing, so I hope the Government will reflect on my amendments, which would reduce the maximum sentence that has to be suspended.

I did a quick scan of my local papers to see who had got an 18-month sentence, which could now become a suspended sentence. They included a lady who caused the unnecessary suffering of an animal and was in possession of a samurai sword, and a lady who glassed a pregnant friend in the face. Another sentence was for coercive and controlling behaviour, and that person also got a five-year restraining order. They could now all get suspended sentences.

The Bill currently states that the presumption in favour of a suspended sentence need not apply

“if the court is of the opinion that making the order would put a particular individual at significant risk of physical or psychological harm.”

Amendments 48 and 53 would extend that to include the public—who are, after all, a collection of individuals. They, too, deserve protecting. If the court is concerned that an offender is likely to be a danger to the public, it should absolutely have the right to ensure that that offender goes to prison, not back into the community on a suspended sentence.

Amendments 49 and 54 would change the risk level for not imposing an immediate custodial sentence by removing the word “significant”. I would have thought that any identifiable risk should be covered. We are talking about protecting people’s lives; we should not be playing a game of Russian roulette with them. Ironically, it seems that the Sentencing Council has seen things similarly, as it has previously listed this as a reason not reason to suspend a sentence.

Amendments 50 and 55 would mean that anyone not being sent to prison as a result of this change, who otherwise would have been, would have to be given the maximum length of suspended sentence. In other words, the sentence would hang over them for the longest possible time and they should not be given a shorter period, as could be the case with normal suspended prison sentences.

New clause 42 would ensure that those given the suspended sentences are electronically tagged throughout. Using a tag to monitor someone’s location out of prison could make them think twice about reoffending, and if they were to reoffend it could make detection and resentencing much easier.

Other amendments concern the type of offending that we are allowing to be included in this ridiculous prison avoidance legislation. So many offences will be covered by this exemption that is hard to know where to start. This has to be addressed, and I sincerely hope that the Government will accept my amendments. Most people will believe that we have completely lost the plot if we allow there to be some offences for which prison sentences cannot generally be handed down. New clause 44 would exclude knife crime from being one of those offences.

I cannot believe that I have to table an amendment to prevent a whole load of criminals who carry knives from being kept out of prison—yet without my amendment, that is what this Bill will do. Does no one anywhere think through what is being proposed and how it will affect public safety? It would be completely disgraceful for the Government ever to claim to be serious about tackling knife crime when, under the Bill, the presumption will be that many people carrying a knife will no longer be sent to prison. How will that help to prevent the loss of life on our streets?

--- Later in debate ---

I urge all my colleagues in the House of Commons to think long and hard about the likely consequences of this Bill and the needless victims of crime it will inevitably create. Anyone who allows the Bill to go through without amendments to protect the public will effectively have blood on their hands as soon as someone is injured or killed by a criminal who should have been in prison but was not as a direct result of this terrible new legislation. If the Bill goes ahead, we should add my new clause 62, which would insert a sunset clause, so that in two years’ time when we see what a catastrophic mess this Bill and this Government have created, we will all be glad that an end to it is in sight.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

The importance of the sunset clause is that it relieves the monstrous contradiction we have had from the Government. They have presented this legislation as an emergency measure because the prisons are too full, yet at the same time they boast about their great, expansive prison-building programme. Clearly the two are at odds with one another. Who will be put in these prisons if this legislation persists? That is why my right hon. Friend’s sunset clause is so important.

[Esther McVey]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. That is why I pointed out that the Bill is all about ideology; it is not about logic.

I mentioned the extra prisons that were started in 2020, when the previous Government gave £4 billion to expand prison capacity, and three of those prisons have been built. There was a delay and it was obviously slow—we were in lockdown for two years, which is why they are coming on board now—but another three prisons will be built.

If people are really serious about cleaning up our streets, getting crime down and supporting victims, they will not vote for this Bill. Prison places are either here or on their way. The Prisons Minister has said he thinks that only a third of prisoners should be in prison and that two thirds of them should be out on the street. That is why I say that this Bill is about ideology over logic and over the public.