Sentencing Bill [HL]

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am happy to join those who have already spoken in welcoming this Bill and paying tribute to its chief architect, Professor David Ormerod. Like almost everyone else, all I have seen so far is the online version, but that is enough for me to appreciate what a fine piece of work this is.

What impressed me most as I worked through the first 24 pages, which set out the Bill’s contents, is the clarity and simplicity of the layout. Accessibility in a Bill of this kind, which contains so much detail, is the key to its success. It is also the key to the future. The law never stands still; this is especially true of the law about sentencing. This Bill must be able to accommodate changes, as my noble and learned friend Lord Judge has pointed out. It must be a living code. I believe that its designers have done everything possible to achieve that.

In this respect its design can be compared with a consolidating measure with which I was familiar, the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. It began its life as a Bill of 309 clauses and 10 schedules. It has the same kind of layout, so it has been able to accommodate many changes over the past 25 years without losing its shape and accessibility. It now has 450 sections and 12 schedules. The Bill we are discussing today has 420 clauses and 16 schedules, so it has a bit of catching up to do. The important point is that, like the 1995 Act, its design lends itself to a steady enlargement of this kind while remaining accessible and easy to use.

As for the future—as to what happens now, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, put it—the responsibility now passes to government. The designers have done all that they could possibly to make the Bill fit for a long life. For that to happen, however, it must now be firmly understood within government that changes to the law on sentencing must always be made only by changing the code which the Bill lays down. We must not resort to their being scattered around in so many different places, as they have been until now.

Another point lies within the responsibility of government. Most of us who want to keep up with the current state of statute law have to go online to the UK statute law database. In the past, the updating of this system has sometimes been rather slow. I should be grateful if the noble and learned Lord the Minister could assure the House that it has and will continue to have the resources it needs for the prompt updating on which so many of us depend.