Downing Street Says » Sentencing

» Thursday, December 9, 2010

Sentencing

Asked if the Prime Minister had intervened to prevent minimum sentencing being scrapped, the PMS said that we were reviewing the position, but the Prime Minister’s view was that those who committed the most serious offences, deserved the toughest sentences.

Asked if that meant that the Prime Minister thought there should be minimum sentences to ensure that that happened, the PMS said that there was a review underway. We were not abolishing, for example, the mandatory life sentence for murder, nor were we proposing any reductions in minimum terms for murder.

Put that the Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, had suggested that he would scrap some of the minimum terms, the PMS said that there were a series of guidelines which effectively set a point of departure for judges in cases, i.e. they set out Parliament’s intention in terms of the appropriate tariff. In individual cases judges had discretion to move away from that if the circumstances of the case allowed for it. Kenneth Clarke had been saying earlier in the week, and what the review was saying, was that over a period of time those guidelines had become complicated, so we were reviewing them to see if we could simplify them.

Put that Kenneth Clarke had said he would get rid of the minimum term for murder, the PMS said that there were two things to bear in mind; the first was that there was a review underway to look at simplifying guidelines where possible, and secondly the Prime Minister’s view was that serious offences required serious punishments. He did not want to see a watering down of sentences for serious offences.

Asked how strongly the Prime Minister felt about this issue, the PMS said that the Prime Minister felt very strongly about this issue.

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