Unduly Lenient Sentences

Julian Knight Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies; I apologise for arriving two or three minutes late for the debate. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) on securing this important debate and bringing his expertise to bear.

Upholding the rule of law is one of the fundamental duties of any Government. It is essential that every citizen knows that the law is on their side and that public safety is the top priority. Solihull has recently experienced a rise in crime, especially so-called acquisitive crimes such as aggravated burglaries, car crime and carjacking. Although our community is a safe and friendly one, we face a real challenge of criminals driving into Solihull from elsewhere in the west midlands. I have heard it said in many parts of my constituency there is frankly a loss of faith in the criminal justice system at this time, facing this rise in crime and also perhaps in seeing some of the sentences handed out.

An excessively lenient sentence lets down not only the victim of the original crime but everybody put at risk when somebody is left on the streets who should be behind bars. Indeed, a short sentence can be the worst of all possible worlds, exposing the convict to hardened criminals and imbuing them to a life of crime, without serving as a proper, efficient deterrent.

Of course, an independent judiciary is the foundation stone of our justice system, and rightly so, but the law is laid down by Parliament and, through Parliament, by the people. It is therefore right that mechanisms such as the unduly lenient sentence scheme exist to allow the Attorney General’s Office to intervene where sentences do not properly reflect the strength of public feeling about a particular crime.

I echo the views of hon. Members about the much wider scope. Let us take one example. One area talks about “some serious fraud”. How do we decide how much of something is serious fraud? Is it about the impact on the individual or just about the scale in monetary terms? What about an old lady who will not answer her door or answer any correspondence and becomes a recluse because of what she has suffered? She may have been through a small financial theft or fraud—perhaps a few hundred pounds—but that has a significant impact on her life. How do we decide on the seriousness in those respects? The system needs to be tidied up and based on more clarity, with better openness for the public so that they can regain and boost their confidence in the judicial system.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead suggested, the 28-day period for appeal seems arbitrary. Although I realise there has to be an end date, it should not be scuppered by reporting restrictions. It seems obtuse in many regards that we have a situation where criminals are effectively beyond the reach of the system because of something put in place potentially to protect victims.

I hope that the message from this debate is loud and clear: although the system is welcome, and the Attorney General’s work in it is to be praised, I passionately believe that we need to look at this again and see how we can amend the definitions and improve the system to bring about greater confidence. In many respects, unduly lenient sentences need to be clamped down upon as soon as they occur. That sends a message to the judiciary as well: that the public have frankly had enough of unduly lenient sentences and it needs to act.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Knight Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I met the director-general and chair of the BBC on Monday and discussed this very matter with them—ensuring that the BBC does contribute to nations and regions appropriately. The hon. Gentleman will know that the new BBC board, which has a non-executive director from each of the home nations, is incorporated such that it can ensure that those voices are properly heard.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that broadcasters, particularly those in receipt of licence fee money, should confront rather than cosy up to politically motivated websites that purvey fake news?

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I am sure it will have been heard by those he refers to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Knight Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have made some progress with on-demand services, and the broadcasters do a very good job of making sure that subtitling is available. Technology has obviously changed the way people consume video, and a lot more of it is on-demand, so we are going to introduce rules to ensure that on-demand gets the same sort of subtitling.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

In October last year, the BBC “Look North” reporter Danny Carpenter was suspended for making vile comments about the Government, relating them to a Nazi regime. I have written several letters to the BBC to find out how its investigations are coming along, but it has not given me an answer. Does the Minister agree that although we agree with diversity of opinion and views in broadcasting, the BBC should take action regarding Mr Carpenter to prevent the recurrence of such ridiculous bias?

[Matt Hancock]

We rightly do not have direct Government regulation of the BBC regarding such matters, and I think that is appropriate. Nevertheless, through the new charter we are introducing Ofcom as the regulator. That will be the case once the Digital Economy Bill becomes law, after which it will be for Ofcom to regulate the BBC, and the BBC’s board will ultimately be responsible for making sure it gets these judgments right.