My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, following the IATA Annual Meeting, one United Kingdom airline wrote to the Department of Trade about air route networks and fuel savings. The department and the National Air Traffic Services are fully seized of the need to reduce fuel consumption and considerable effort is devoted to this in the United Kingdom. NATS also play a full part in Eurocontrol and the European Air Navigation Planning Group of ICAO. Eurocontrol are currently considering changes in the route network which could lead in the short-term to savings of about 2½ per cent. Further savings could emerge in the longer-term. In addition, significant savings could arise from more effective air traffic flow management. Eurocontrol's central data bank should help in this connection.

My Lords, if the noble Lord the Minister will not take it amiss, I was expecting the Secretary of State to answer my Question, and so perhaps the noble Lord opposite will pass on to him what I was going to ask.

Oh!

I am not being offensive, my Lords, and the Minister will see where I am going. I wanted to ask the Secretary of State whether he was aware that it was the question of military airspace in Europe which was holding up the shortening of air routes as much as we would have hoped. I wanted to ask whether the Secretary of State for Trade would feel able to take this up with the Council of Ministers, as only Ministers would be able to persuade Governments to give up some of this airspace.

My Lords, I will certainly pass on to my noble friend the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry. I understand that, so far as military airspace is concerned, within each member state of Eurocontrol, it is the member states of Eurocontrol who tend to take decisions, certainly about military airspace, within their own countries. But, as the noble Baroness and the House will be aware, Eurocontrol comprises both military and civil representatives.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that this morning I have received from IATA details of 10 routes within the European Economic Community which could produce considerable savings to the airlines? As the annual amount estimated to be saved on fuel alone is 27 million dollars, I wanted to know whether the Minister would feel able to refer this matter to the Council of Ministers if I gave him full information, so that the whole question could be expedited?

My Lords, I am, as always, very grateful for the noble Baroness' figures and indeed the accuracy of her representations. Certainly I shall pass on her figures to my noble friend.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that both this proposal, and indeed other proposals submitted by the noble Baroness, Lady Burton, would do a number of things? It could make air travel more safe. It would make it more comfortable and easy for people. It would make fares much cheaper. In short, it could greatly improve not merely our European air services but world air services. May I therefore ask the noble Lord to take very seriously the submissions which the noble Baroness has made and ensure that they are communicated to the Secretary of State?

Yes, my Lords.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the area covered by Eurocontrol is a comparatively small one? Is he aware that there is a growing volume of opinion that would welcome the extension of Eurocontrol over a far wider area? Will his noble friend consider publishing a short White Paper which shows quite unequivocally exactly what the policy of Her Majesty's Government is towards Eurocontrol?—because so far it seems to be a little ambivalent where it is not obscure.

My Lords, the noble Lord will be one of the few people in your Lordships' House who might feel that Eurocontrol is ambivalent and obscure or in any way ineffective. I can assure the noble Lord and your Lordships—the noble Lord shakes his head; he is an accountant as am I, but neither of us are pilots—that Eurocontrol is very highly-thought-of in world air traffic circles. The noble Lord believes that Eurocontrol covers a comparatively small area. I do not think that is necessarily the case in Europe. Indeed, co-operation and association agreements with Eurocontrol already exist for Spain, Denmark, Italy, Greece and Portugal. Indeed, Portugal will become a full member once the new convention comes into force.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I would not wish him to think me rude? It was only yesterday afternoon when I had discussions with his noble friend, who I expected to see here today, and in view of what I wanted to say, the noble Lord's appearance rather threw me.

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness that I cannot resemble my noble friend day by day. I am afraid I am not seized of the entire conversation of my noble friend and the noble Baroness. Nevertheless, I hope I have endeavoured to reply to most of her questions. I shall indeed undertake to pass on the specific points which she has asked me to pass on.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the problems to which he has referred are very well known to the Science Committee of the Council of Europe Assembly, which has now been trying for some years to get Eurocontrol to make annual reports to the Assembly committee with a view to co-ordinating all these complaints about it much more effectively and getting a more efficient and economic system? Up to now, quite contrary to what other bodies do, Eurocontrol has refused to report in this way to the Council of Europe Assembly. Would it not be a good idea and in everybody's interest, in view of what the Minister himself has said, to reopen the idea of an international assembly of this kind doing a little supervision?

My Lords, Eurocontrol, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware, is comprised of member states, and it is to their own member states that the representatives of Eurocontrol report.

My Lords, in considering this question, would the noble Lord please bear in mind the extreme importance of NATO's air forces being kept properly trained?

My Lords, I am very grateful for that question. We shall bear that very closely in mind.

My Lords, does not the noble Lord feel that it was quite unnecessary for him to apologise for appearing in a substitute capacity, because is this not another example of what we have heard described as flexible rostering?

My Lords, given the warm good wishes of the House, it appears that this form of flexible rostering, at least in our department, seems to work.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, I am advised by the Charity Commission that the trustees of the South Atlantic Fund have applied for its registration as a charity and that the application is being considered. I understand that it is not proposed to apply for charitable status for the Falklands Appeal but that its trustees have announced that any funds remaining after the immediate needs of the islanders and the cost of projects for the general benefit of the community have been met, will be paid to the United Kingdom Falkland Islands Trust which is a registered charity.

My Lords, in thanking the noble and learned Lord for that informative reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that I heard the organisers of the Falklands Appeal speaking on the radio as though it were a charity; and is he further aware that the Government stated on 25th May that the South Atlantic Appeal would not be a charity? If the Government themselves find it difficult to get it right and the public are left in some confusion, does not this lend some force to the argument which some of us have been propounding that the time has come to take a fresh look at the law on charities?

My Lords, I do not think the Government have misled the public in any way at all. The question as to whether the South Atlantic Appeal is a charity depends, first of all, upon the application to the Charity Commissioners and then on the answer that they give to the application, which is under consideration. So far as the Falklands Appeal is concerned, that is a different organisation altogether. I have here a press release which I think was not issued by the Government but which gives the objects of the Falklands Appeal, which in themselves, I should have thought, were not charitable. But I have stated the true position with regard to it. I am not sure what the noble Lord means by further consideration. I do not think there is any doubt about the situation at all.

My Lords, if the Charity Commissioners deem the South Atlantic Appeal to be charitable, may we assume that any monies already forwarded to that appeal will be treated as part of the charity?

My Lords, that is the assumption I should be inclined to make myself.

My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord whether he could explain—I realise I ought to have deduced it—exactly what the difference between the two is, why one is a charitable appeal and not the other?

My Lords, the objects of the Falklands Appeal are to benefit the islanders and the islands. The objects of the South Atlantic Fund are to benefit those who were injured in the recent conflict and their dependants, and the dependants of those who died. The aims of the Falklands Appeal were set out in a press release. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, is a patron.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, Sir Leslie Mavor has been in close touch with all county councils in England and Wales to encourage their effective use of volunteers. He has provided guidance, information on the work of voluntary organisations and agencies, and personal briefing. Sir Leslie Mavor receives regular progress reports from each county authority. The achievement by individual county councils has varied, but in general there has been significant progress in this important field.

The position in Scotland is similar. Mr. F. G. Armstrong has visited all regional councils and discussed the use of volunteers in civil defence with their emergency planning staffs.

My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend for that reply and to acknowledge the efforts made by the Air Marshal and by Mr. Armstrong, and the response which a good many local authorities have given to their approaches. But is it not about time that all local authorities prepared to deal with any emergencies that may arise in peace and war and to make full use of the many volunteers who are willing to help them in their humanitarian task?

My Lords, I should confirm that no county council has declined to carry out its minimum statutory duties—those are the duties as prescribed by planning regulations made under the Civil Defence Act 1948. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has said recently that he is considering urgently whether there is a need to amend those regulations. But I accept the point of my noble friend that we would wish that all county councils would do as much as the best are doing.

My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that authoritative and expert opinion has been moving rapidly in recent years, and even in recent months, towards the conclusion that there can be no effective civil defence against nuclear war, and is not the cancellation of the Government's Hard Rock exercise a recognition of this fact?

No, my Lords. No one can predict what might happen, but we believe that in a war there would be many millions of survivors. There would certainly be more survivors if both Government and individuals took sensible precautions.

My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend whether it is right that civil defence is not merely for the purpose of nuclear war, but for other purposes such as the massive flooding of an area and so on, where civil defence workers can do a great deal of valuable and helpful work?

Yes, my Lords, I thank my noble friend for that question. It would, of course, be used in a conventional war should there be such an occurrence as well as in civil emergencies.

My Lords, has the noble Baroness noted that the British Medical Association has set up an inquiry into the effectiveness of civil defence in view of the danger of nuclear war, and that its introductory paper by experts says that even in the deepest shelter people would be asphyxiated to death? In view of those facts, would it not be better if concentration was placed upon urging the super powers to end not only nuclear war but chemical warfare and all weapons of mass destruction?

No, my Lords. The first part of the noble Lord's question in no way invalidates what I have already said about the need to take sensible precautions. Of course, the Government are committed, along with all other Western nations, to try to get multilateral disarmament.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, civil defence is a matter of emergency planning. Such planning involves being prepared to deal with the effects of major emergencies, accidents and natural disasters in peace and war.

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for that admirable definition. Is she aware—if she was not aware five minutes ago I think that she must be aware now—that there are persons who aver that civil defence is a waste of money because it cannot provide protection against full-scale nuclear attack? Would she agree that this attitude is almost perfectly analogous to a belief or a statement that it is a waste of money to buy an umbrella because umbrellas cannot keep out thunderbolts?

My Lords, yes, I would agree with what my noble friend has said.

My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware—bringing in the definition of civil defence which she has now given—that it may be a worthy thing, whatever we think of war, to pay a tribute to organisations like the St. John Ambulance Brigade, and to ask schools to train people more than ever in first aid? Because, in view of the incidents that take place in this violent world on football fields and with bands being blown up, it may be that a life can be saved by the elementary knowledge of how to stop a damaged artery bleeding a man to death?

Yes, my Lords. In peacetime certainly voluntary organisations participate in training exercises and to some extent in planning in civil defence. This applies particularly to volunteer scientific advisers and members of the Royal Observer Corps. Established organisations such as the British Red Cross, the St. John Ambulance Brigade and the Women's Royal Voluntary Service have all made valuable contributions to civil defence planning and training in their areas, and I would like to pay tribute to all the work they do.

My Lords, would my noble friend the Leader of the House not agree, as regards those county councils who are backward because they have been misled into concentrating civil defence in the nuclear area, that it would be in the interests of the country if the Government were to emphasise to them the very definition which my noble friend gave in answer to this Question; to point out to them that they really are barking up the wrong tree, and that it is time they got away from this type of mythical position that they have adopted and became practical in the interests of all the people in the country, including their own ratepayers?

My Lords, I hope that not only this Question and Answer session, but the debate initiated by my noble friend a short time ago on civil defence, will help to draw to the attention of the country the importance of civil defence. I think that it is a matter of responsibility for all of us in public life to try to explain to people the value of civil defence and the good effects of taking sensible precautions, both by the Government and by individuals.

But, my Lords, is not the noble Baroness aware that it is the Government who are concentrating civil defence upon nuclear war and creating the reaction that has been mentioned? Can the noble Baroness say, however, whether it is scientifi- cally the case that if one raises an umbrella in a storm, one is likely to get struck by lightning?

My Lords, the metaphor of my noble friend may not have been exact. However, I really do think that if we are talking about a serious subject there is a lot to be said for encouraging individual responsibility in matters of civil defence precautions as in other matters.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the people who would rejoice most if we completely abandoned civil defence, as has been suggested, would be the men in the Kremlin?

Yes, my Lords.

My Lords, may I say that the Opposition endorse exactly what the noble Baroness has said. We believe that we must have adequate defence and we will play our part.

My Lords, I think that the whole House will be most encouraged to hear what the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has said on this matter, and I hope that he will bring his great influence to bear on some of the Labour-controlled local authorities.

My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Elton will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is to be made in another place on royalty protection.

It may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that dinner will be available at the usual time this evening.

The Report stage of the Criminal Justice Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7 p.m. for approximately one hour. During this adjournment the Third Reading of the Local Government and Planning (Scotland) Bill will be taken.

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now further considered on Report.

moved Amendment No. 45:

Insert the following new clause—

My Lords, I should like briefly to support this amendment. Of course the power to grant bail to an appellant pending appeal is sparingly used at the moment and there is no reason to suppose that it would be any the less sparingly used if this amendment were accepted. But it would be a useful, modest improvement on the present position in two respects. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, has indicated, there are each year a distressing number of cases—not a large number, but a sizeable number—where defendants have served the whole of their sentence before their appeal is heard, and their appeal is eventually allowed and they are acquitted without, as they say, a stain on their character. That is very little consolation to them, and of course they are not entitled to any sort of compensation for the period that they have spent in prison in those circumstances.

If this amendment were in existence, it would in that small number of cases give the opportunity to the Crown Court judge, if it was clear to him that there was an arguable case on appeal, to grant bail straight away instead of having to wait for the inevitable delay of three, six, nine months that it sometimes takes before the application for leave can be heard by the Court of Appeal. The other type of case in which it might be of assistance is the criminal case which turns as a matter of law on a particular point, and it is recognised by the prosecution and the defence from the beginning that on the Crown Court's adjudication of that point of law the verdict will depend. Indeed, if the judge rules one way the prosecution offer no evidence; if the judge rules the other way on the matter of law the defendant frequently then pleads guilty, having at that time of course to accept the judge's ruling on that matter of law.

In that situation, a judge sometimes feels that the point of law upon which he has to rule is a difficult one, and that it may well be that in due course it will take its way through the Court of Appeal and eventually to the Judicial Committee of your Lordships' House. He may therefore have very real doubts, although he has done his honest best to determine in his lights what the correct answer to the legal problem is. Again in those circumstances it would be only just that the Crown Court judge should be able to say that he has ruled to the best of his ability and that, having ruled, he is obliged to pass a prison sentence, but that he accepts that on the particular point he may well be wrong and therefore the matter will have to take its course through the courts, and it would be appropriate in some of those cases that he should therefore grant bail to the defendant on whom he has had to impose a prison sentence. I would regard this as a modest improvement but a real one that may help a certain number of defendants who would otherwise suffer a substantial injustice.

My Lords, my name is on this amendment mostly because of the frustration I have experienced on behalf of people who wait so long for their appeals to come before Crown Court judges when they are in custody. I must admit that if I had had any influence with the right reverend Prelate I would have asked him to include a prayer today during Prayers that the All-Party Penal Affairs Group would not divide the Government on any of their amendments. However, as I have no influence with the right reverend Prelate, I hope, despite the fact that my name is on this amendment, that we shall not divide, because it was my understanding at Committee stage that the Lord Chief Justice was going to give formal advice on this matter, and I shall wait with interest to hear what the Minister says.

My Lords, my name is also on the amendment, and I should like to say a word in support of it and to echo the view of my noble friend Lord Wigoder, that the fact that it concerns only a small number of cases does not detract in any way from the merits of the amendment. I believe that, even if it was only one individual who had suffered unjust imprisonment as a result of the lack of a power in the lower courts to give bail, your Lordships would be justified in making this amendment so as to save that person from wrongful imprisonment.

I cannot imagine anything worse happening to a person than to spend upwards of six months in prison and then to be acquitted in the appeal court, and to be left with a burning sense of injustice and resentment against the system which had caused this to happen. If any of your Lordships can imagine it happening to himself, spending such a period of imprisonment, which would certainly not leave a stain on one's character, as my noble friend said, would leave a grave sense of resentment against the system.

Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will come forward and say that he accepts the amendment. I believe there are cases that take more than the six to nine months that my noble friend mentioned. I had a case myself—I am not saying that the man was found innocent—where it took almost two years for his case to come on in the Appeal Court. It would be utterly deplorable that anybody should spend time in prison for as long as that and then subsequently be found innocent on appeal.

I cannot think of any amendment which I would sooner were passed in the remainder of this Bill than this one, which has the support of the All-Party Penal Affairs Group. Since I can think of no argument against it, really the onus is on the Government to come forward and say why it should not be passed rather than for us to show why a few people wrongfully imprisoned should be released.

My Lords, may I be allowed to support this amendment? I did so at Committee stage. I do so again. Everything that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, with meticulous clarity, as one would expect with a background of vast practical knowledge, is wholly justified, wholly accurate and wholly true. Indeed, it has been supported by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, who also has considerable practical knowledge in this matter.

It is an unsatisfactory situation as it exists today. True this power will be used sparingly, there is no doubt about that. But there are these cases where, without this power, manifest injustice will be done. I support this amendment. It is not a matter on which, if driven to a Division, I would—and I say so now; I have not made up my mind—necessarily vote against my Front Bench, but I feel strongly about it and I hope it will be considered seriously.

My Lords, I support the opinion expressed unanimously that the amendment would effect a modest and useful reform. It would also save money and time. My noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan gives me an example of what can go on. Apparently he was appearing at the Cardiff Crown Court on a certain matter where, surprisingly, he did not succeed in his submission for the accused and was unable to apply to appeal to the learned High Court judge, who was then sitting in the Crown Court, under the present rules. However, he was able to enjoy a journey to London on behalf of his client a few days later to appear before the same judge, sitting in the High Court as a High Court judge, and on that occasion he succeeded in obtaining leave to appeal. It really is a nonsense, and an expensive one at that.

It seems extraordinary that magistrates can grant bail after a conviction and sentence where the defendant indicates that he wishes to appeal, but a Crown Court judge cannot grant bail pending the determination of the appeal. And, in the case of the imposition of short sentences, there is a real risk that the sentence will have been served before the appeal can ever reach the appellate stage. I therefore hope the Minister will be able to give way on this matter. I do not want to delay the House because we have a good deal of ground yet to cover, but perhaps I have said enough to indicate what I trust has been the receipt of a hopeful missive on this issue.

My Lords, if people are imprisoned when they are innocent, are they not able to claim compensation? Might this amendment, if agreed to, save the Government paying unnecessary compensation?

My Lords, I fear that I must ask a few questions. Throughout the passage of the Bill we have had many contributions from members of the All-Party Penal Affairs Group, who appear to bring some sort of weight to our deliberations as a result of having discussed these matters prior to the rest of us. We have also had contributions from noble Lords who often earn their livelihood in the practice of the law. When they state the case to a mere magistrate like myself I do not always understand exactly what they are talking about. Indeed, I have often suffered from that while sitting on the Bench, so I must ask a few simple questions on matters which confuse me, and the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, may agree with me on that.

As has been said, when, in a magistrates' court, hail is denied, the facts are put to the Bench and it is denied because of the nature of the offence. We are here discussing people who appear in a Crown Court, a higher court, so we assume that the nature of the offence must be of a more serious character. However, nobody has said in the course of this debate what sort of offenders we are talking about. We assume that they have appeared before a higher court because of the very serious charges involved. If someone has appeared on a serious charge and bail is denied, and they must remain in custody while awaiting appeal, one wonders why that should be the case. Equally, one wonders why these individuals are then finally acquitted. Nor do we know how many such cases there are.

I have always been given to understand that we should never introduce legislation based on one or two cases. Unless we can have rather more explanation than the supporters of the amendment have given so far to show that there are a number of such cases, it is difficult to see what line to take. May we also be told the nature of the offence and why bail was denied? Do I gather that the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, is about to rise and give me the answer? We are entitled to answers to these questions.

My Lords, the noble Baroness knows only too well that there are certain cases of triviality who ask for trial by jury.

My Lords, may I offer the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, a possible explanation? It is not so much the gravity or nature of the offence but the fact that the sort of problem which could arise is this: you are sitting trying a case with a jury and you have a difficult question as to corroboration, whether you should allow it and which way you should rule. Sitting there, you know that if you have made the wrong ruling and let the evidence in, it is inevitable that he will be convicted; whereas if you rule it out, then there is no evidence and therefore he must go free. That is the very sort of ruling on which the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, said that the judge or recorder agonises. In a case such as that, it is not so much dependent—it may be, but not always—on the type of offence. There are cases where you feel that the fair thing to do—they will be rare but there are such cases—is to see whether that ruling is right before the man actually goes to prison.

My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt my noble friend, of all people, but I would remind him that this is Report stage.

My Lords, I begin by saying that I think I understand the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, aright in that his intention is to give a judge who presides at a Crown Court trial the power to grant bail pending an appeal. The new clause as drafted does not, I think, achieve that end. As I read it, it still gives the power to all Crown Court judges, not just the one who presided at the trial. The expression "court of trial" means the Crown Court, which is one court, although it sits in many divisions and in many places. That is an important technicality which must be got right. The new clause also seems to preclude the possibility of the Court of Appeal's revoking bail if it thought that was appropriate. As there might be changes in circumstances which rendered such a course appropriate, I would have thought that would be a most understandable fetter on the Court of Appeal.

However, the noble Lord's main point, which he argued with exemplary clarity and brevity, is that a trial judge should have this power once the notice of appeal has been given. I ask your Lordships to consider what in practice this would mean. A notice of appeal is a form which is usually filled in by a solicitor. It has to be accompanied by reasoned grounds of appeal, which are usually drafted by counsel. They are sent to the Registrar of Criminal Appeals. The grounds must be real and carefully considered, otherwise it would be too easy for all appellants simply to file vague or frivolous grounds, but if they have substance, then the notice of appeal is complete. All this can be done quickly, but it cannot be done instantly. The fact that the grounds must be formulated and sent to the registrar, would, even on the noble Lord's proposal, as I understand it, inevitably mean that the Crown Court could not be asked for bail immediately; it would have to be re-convened at a later date. That is not mere mechanics but a serious consideration.

Although, as I have said, the forms and procedure for initiating an appeal are relatively straightforward, your Lordships may wonder why they need to be as complicated as they are. The reason is that some 50,000 people are convicted in the Crown Court each year. Of these, at least 23,000 receive immediate custodial sentences, and 6,000 or so apply for leave to appeal, of whom only about 1,000 are in any way successful. I hope those are the figures for which the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, was asking. Thus, most applications have no hope of success. Much of the work of the court and of the Criminal Appeal Office is to weed out these hopeless cases as early as possible so that the court can concentrate on appellants who do have an arguable case. Experience has shown that the number of appeals rises sharply if convicted defendants feel that they have nothing to lose in appealing, or that there is some collateral advantage, such as bail, in doing so.

The effects of a flood of unmeritorious appeals from defendants whose real intention was not eventual acquittal but immediate bail would be administratively catastrophic. Again, this is not mere mechanics because the real losers would be the defendants whose appeals did have merit, because the Court of Appeal and Criminal Appeal Office would take far longer to deal with them than they now do.

Therefore the noble Lord's proposal seems fraught with difficulty and delay, but even if it were not, I should have to ask your Lordships to consider—and many of you can do it better than I can—whether the trial judge is necessarily the best person to decide whether bail should be granted. I am always very diffident in questioning the abilities of judges to do anything, because I stand in great awe of them, and I mean nothing in detriment to their learned and wise capacities. But on many occasions the trial judge will have had no experience of sitting in the Court of Appeal. He will not know how the judges of that court deal with these difficult matters. He will have no power to grant legal aid, or to order an expedited hearing, which a single judge of the Court of Appeal has. The trial judge will not have before him all the necessary material to make a decision. He will have no transcript of the proceedings. His recollection of the precise words that he used in his summing-up, if that is the basis of the appeal, may be imperfect, or may not agree with counsel's recollection. The grounds of appeal may relate to a point which arose days or weeks previously during the trial.

I would remind your Lordships, first, that the Crown Court judge is free to write to the Registrar of Criminal Appeals for an expeditious hearing and to recommend the grant of bail. Further, I can confirm what my noble friend suggested—that in the near future the Lord Chief Justice will issue formal guidance to judges and to the legal profession, so that all know how quickly bail can be considered, and how to set that machinery in motion more quickly. I fear that, even had the right reverend Prelate interceded in this matter, what I have said would not be regarded as an answer to his prayer, but it is the best that I can do.

My Lords, as a layman with very little understanding of the courts, to me the position seems to be that the magistrate can deal with the matter, while the Crown Court judge cannot. That seemed to me absolutely inexplicable, and nothing that the noble Lord has said has explained it to me.

My Lords, there are three points which the noble Lord the Minister has not touched upon, and in my submission each and every one of them goes to the very root of the issue. I do not say that in any spirit of criticism of the noble Lord. These are highly technical matters, and they involve the kind of consideration that comes only to someone who tends to come up against such questions very often in daily practice. First, there is what might be called the provinces point. If an application for bail is to be made on behalf of a person convicted in the provinces, it can be granted only by the Court of Appeal Criminal Division. With very few exceptions, the Court of Appeal Criminal Division sits only in London. As my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones said, with great flattery so far as my own situation was concerned, quite often an application for bail means that the advocate has to travel up to London. The application is heard by a High Court judge, sitting as a single judge, as a member of the Court of Appeal. Sometimes, as has, by coincidence, happened in my own case, the judge will be a High Court judge from the very concourse of courts in the provinces from which the advocate himself has come. They both travel up to London. Counsel appears before the judge to make the application. The judge hears the application, and then they both travel back to the city in the provinces from whence they came. In my submission, that is a nonsense, but it happens from time to time.

Secondly, a further consideration is that the judge—for example, a circuit judge—who has tried the case is entitled after the conviction to hear an application by counsel that the matter should be allowed to go to the Court of Appeal without going through the sifting process of the single judge, if it is an appeal on a point of law. If the trial judge has that power, as he has under the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, to circumvent the single judge, is there any earthly reason why the circuit judge should not be allowed to decide, on a much lower level, the question of whether or not bail should be granted? Surely the issue of bail must be regarded as being utterly ancillary to the primary consideration of whether or not there should be an appeal.

The third point mentioned by the Minister was that if there was the prospect of bail, it might encourage persons to make frivolous applications. The answer to that is that when a frivolous application is made, the Court of Appeal, when it hears the application, is entitled to say that time already served by the defendant shall not be counted towards his sentence.

In my sincere submission those are three very fundamental matters which I feel the Minister has not had the opportunity of considering. Therefore we would ask him not to come to a final conclusion on the question until he has had that opportunity.

My Lords, there seems to be considerable support in the House for the amendment. I should like to say two things. I wish to address one of the points to the noble Baroness who was so mystified by the type of people with whom we are dealing; and I seemed to notice in her observations a rather basic hostility to lawyers in general. I should like to assure her that the amendment contains no advantage to lawyers, because if it were passed, instead of the nice, long journeys to London which have been referred to, lawyers would be deprived of the privilege of a night in London, as well as a fee for applying in London for bail, all of which they could do on the fee that is marked on the one brief at the trial.

My Lords, the noble Lord is most kind to give way. With the leave of the House, I would mention that I have a number of points, but I feel that I should make only one of them, since the noble Lord is now raising it. A High Court judge on circuit can grant bail. All that is needed is liaison by telephone with the Criminal Appeal Office in London. I am sorry to deprive people of many comfortable journeys.

I should like to complete what I was saying to the noble Baroness. We are dealing with ordinary people who are being tried by a Crown Court judge. The Crown Court judge has been entitled to grant such people bail during the trial. He has made up his own mind about the seriousness of the offence, the type of offence, and the background of the defendant. From day to day, during the trial, at adjournments before the trial, or during the months which may elapse before the defendant is committed and heard, the Crown Court judge can grant bail. The judge knows all about the particular defendant. The amendment proposes that, whether or not the case is a serious one, when the trial is over, armed with all the information, the judge can continue the bail that has previously been granted. Having used his discretion in the one case, the judge would be enabled to use his discretion when the trial is over. There is no mystery about it; that is simply the situation.

The noble Lord the Minister referred to a question of technicality, and I accept that. It is simply a matter of drafting, and it can be set right quite easily. The Minister said that the whole of the amendment is fraught with dangers of delay. That is exactly what one is up against throughout the consideration of the very sensible amendments which have been put forward on a non-party basis. Over and over again the brief that the Minister reads out uses such phrases as, "fraught with dangers of delay". There is no fraughtness at all about the amendment; absolutely none. What was said by the Minister in that regard reflects the imagination of someone sitting in an office, hermetically sealed from what goes on in the real world, conjuring up objections to something that is positive, sensible, clear, and, I would submit, in every way admirable. The noble Lord the Minister is perfectly happy to accept ridiculous, cosmetic, negative amendments such as those to stop people making speeches from the dock if they feel like it because they are bored with their barrister, and so on, but is not prepared to accept sensible, positive contributions to the criminal process.

When I hear the noble Lord say that the poor judge who has sat for a week, a fortnight or a month on a case is not as suited as a High Court judge sitting in London, who knows nothing about the facts at all except for what he can glean from pieces of paper, and is not a man or woman who will understand the basis on which to grant bail because, for instance, he has not got a transcript of the proceedings which he himself has been listening to for the last few days or weeks, then, again, one despairs of this sort of reply. A man who has been conducting a trial does not have to have a transcript of the trial. He has been listening to the trial with his own ears, and making up his mind as the hours pass as to what is the basis of the matter.

As for the question of the grounds of appeal and time having to be spent by some lawyer to get them right, and the days that would have to be spent by the lawyer sitting in his chambers trying to think up some brilliant ground of appeal, the reality of the matter is that the barrister or the solicitor present during the summing-up of the case is perfectly able during the next half-hour or hour that elapses, or even while the jury is out, to formulate sensible, clear, common sense grounds of appeal which summarise the point; and once those have gone in, of course, there is time to perfect them afterwards and to add to them if necessary. In all those circumstances, I feel bound to test the feeling of the House on this important matter.

My Lords, with the leave of the House I will now repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:

"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a Statement.

"When I reported to the House on 12th July, I said I would make—as soon as I could—a further Statement about the major breach of security at Buckingham Palace on 9th July. I have now received and considered a further report from Assistant Commissioner Dellow. I thought it right to place in the Library, and make available to honourable Members in advance of this Statement, a detailed account of the incident, the background to it, the failures that occurred and the subsequent action.

"On 19th July I informed the House of the resignation of Commander Trestrail, the Queen's Police Officer, following his confession to having had over a number of years a homosexual relationship with a male prostitute. The confession raises further grave questions concerning the arrangements for the Queen's security. Accordingly I have invited Lord Bridge to investigate the appointment as Queen's Police Officer and the activities of Commander Trestrail with a view to determining whether security was breached or put at risk; to advise whether in the light of that investigation any change in security arrangements is necessary or desirable; and to report. Lord Bridge is chairman of the Security Commission, but would conduct this inquiry sitting alone. I am glad to say that he has agreed to undertake this task. I shall of course inform the House of his findings. Although I have no evidence of a connection between this matter and the incident on 9th July, I am arranging for Lord Bridge to see all the papers relating to the events on 9th July so that he can make any further inquiries he considers necessary and advise on the adequacy of the police inquiries.

"I turn now to the events of 9th July. Mr. Dellow's inquiry has revealed that although there were technical failures, the basic cause of the breakdown of security was a failure by the police to respond efficiently and urgently. Furthermore, the incident revealed slackness and weaknesses in supervision. The Commander 'A' District has resigned from the force and the Chief Inspector at the Palace has been transferred to other duties. Those were the two officers charged with the supervision of the uniformed officers at the Palace.

"Mr. Dellow has also outlined the serious errors and omissions which exposed the Queen to danger. As a result, four other police officers are subject to disciplinary inquiries. One of these officers has been suspended and two have been removed from their former duties. I am sure that the House will accept that the officers concerned have a right to a fair hearing. I must remind the House that I have an appellate responsibility in police discipline cases; and it is not proper for me to comment further on these individual cases.

"I have considered with the Commissioner what further arrangements are needed to ensure efficiency, greater professionalism and effective supervision. I have accepted his proposal that the protection of Her Majesty the Queen, other members of the Royal Family, and their residences will be the single responsibility of a deputy assistant commissioner reporting directly to the Commissioner. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Colin Smith has been appointed to this new post. He will head a new department responsible for all aspects of Royalty protection. The senior officers in the new Royalty Protection Department, including DAC Smith, will work from Buckingham Palace. This will ensure the closest supervision at senior level and also effect the most direct links with the Household and staff of the Queen and the senior officers of the Household Division, who have promised their full co-operation.

"Operational responsibility for all protection will thus be brought together. DAC Smith's first task will include a remit to make recommendations for revised arrangements for posting and training and to keep them under review. He will pay particular attention to establishing and maintaining a regime of duty which is adequately varied and testing.

"Since the incident, the number of uniformed police officers on protection duties has been increased. Some new technical security devices have been installed; some existing devices relocated; and all thoroughly tested. Mr. Speaker, Assistant Commissioner Dellow's inquiry will continue in respect of assessments of further physical security measures. In this task, I have asked Mr. Dellow to draw on all sources of available expertise, in the public and private sectors. The results of this work will enable the completion of Mr. Dellow's inquiry. The work of keeping these matters under review will then be carried forward by DAC Smith. But all physical measures depend ultimately on the people who operate them being of high quality and properly supervised. The new leadership and arrangements I have outlined are designed to ensure this.

"I have asked the chief officers of other forces in England and Wales, who have responsibilities for Royal residences, to review the arrangements they have made, and make any further recommendations beyond those measures which have already been implemented. The chief officers concerned will work closely with DAC Smith. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has done the same within his area of responsibility.

"I have decided to institute a new permanent group, comprising representatives of the Royal households, the police, the Household Division and the Property Services Agency, chaired by one of my senior officials. This group will meet regularly to examine the effectiveness of the arrangements made. It will not in any way lessen the operational responsibility of DAC Smith and the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. The group will report personally to me.

"I believe that the bringing together under a DAC of the responsibility for all protection for the Queen and members of her family, the changes in staffing, the improvements in equipment, and the monitoring of the new arrangements I have announced, constitute the best approach to improving Palace security. I have also announced the terms of Lord Bridge's inquiry. And although I have no evidence that the incident of 9th July and the resignation of Commander Trestrail were connected I have arranged for Lord Bridge to see the papers relating to the former event.

"Mr. Speaker, the shocking events of 9th July were handled by Her Majesty the Queen with great composure and resolution. But it is intolerable that Her Majesty should have been exposed to this intrusion and put at risk in this way. It is not the wish of Her Majesty, her Ministers or, I am sure, of this House, that she and other members of the Royal Family should be confined by measures of high security that deny private life and public accessibility. But the safety of the Sovereign must be paramount. There has been an appalling lapse of security and I know that the whole House—and the country—will demand that the lessons of this incident must be learned so that the protection that we give to the Queen and members of her family is the best that can be provided".

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister for repeating that Statement. We would also extend our thanks for the speed with which Assistant Commissioner John Dellow has reported. The extreme gravity of this Statement is all too plain. It reveals a deplorable and astonishing sequence of failures which amounts to a devastating indictment of security at Buckingham Palace and the Minister and the Home Secretary have been commendably forthcoming about this. Setting aside the defence of the Realm itself and all that that implies, when it comes to personal security there can be no higher priority than the protection of the Sovereign, the Head of State. We must, I think, all accept—here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elton—that it is not possible ever to safeguard against every conceivable contingency. That course would not be acceptable to the Queen and would thwart the basic aims of our free democracy.

Against that background there is one question in particular that I am bound to ask, obvious though it may be, and on which the nation will wish to be completely satisfied. While we welcome the changes announced and the separate matter of the appointment of Lord Bridge to conduct the inquiry, I would ask this. Are Her Majesty's Government satisfied that everything possible is now being done, so far as is practicable and appropriate, to ensure the safety of the Queen and the Royal Family? In asking this, I also ask the Minister to confirm that he is satisfied—and it is encouraging to see the indications in the Statement—about the proven competence of the personnel now to be involved and that all appropriate security aids which modern technology can provide are to be used. I say all this bearing in mind the lengths to which the terrorist will go, as is all too clear from yesterday's grotesque, indeed obscene, criminal acts, and that there is an even greater need for tighter security and a constant high level of vigilance. If we cannot be satisfied about the Queen's security, how can we be satisfied about other people's security?

I would ask this specific point on these matters. Can the noble Lord say whether the Home Secretary or the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis visited the Palace on any occasion to review security between the series of earlier incidents which took place since 1979? I would ask this additional question. Very serious concern has been expressed because no criminal charge is possible arising from the intrusion into the Queen's bedroom. We understand this and of course appreciate that intent has to be established by the prosecution. Can the Minister say whether either the Law Commission or the Criminal Law Revision Committee is doing any work at all in this sphere at the moment? If not, can he say whether an urgent reference could be made to whichever of them seems most appropriate to see whether there is a gap in the law which could and should be filled?

I end by expressing again—and joining with the noble Lord the Minister—the admiration of us all for the signal courage once more shown by the Queen and our sense of relief that no injury was caused to Her Majesty when that horrifying intrusion took place.

My Lords, it is indeed fortunate that it was a comparatively harmless intrusion into the Palace that has given rise to the discovery of the ludicrous laxity of the security arrangements there. I say, "comparatively harmless", because I do not think that one should ever underestimate the shock and distress that can be caused to any occupant of any premises by behaviour of the sort about which we have heard. I join in what has been said in total admiration of the self-composure that was so obviously displayed by Her Majesty at that difficult time.

The inquiry clearly has disclosed defects in the security system, not only as against the improbable risk which can sometimes be understood, but as against the probable risk, too. I do not believe that this is a moment for calling for heads to roll or for demanding political scapegoats of one sort or another. It is a moment for seeking to ensure that the arrangements are going to be wholly efficient in future. Having listened to the account which has been given by the noble Lord the Minister of the detailed arrangements which are now about to be set in force at the Palace, I do not think that any comment need be made except that clearly much will now turn upon the skill and efficiency of those who have to put these arrangements into effect. I do not think, either, that it helps to add to what might become a somewhat hysterical consideration of this topic if one proceeds to make any more wide-ranging remarks than that.

As to the rather sad postscript about the Queen's Police Officer and his private life, that is a matter that of course must be left now to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bridge. Unless and until the noble and learned Lord discovers that there was any actual or potential security risk, I suggest that that unfortunate individual should be left to live his own life in his own way.

The only other comment that I wish to make is this: I should like to ask the Minister whether he is not deeply concerned at the quite outrageous breaches of the law of contempt which have been committed by most of the newspapers and most of the broadcasting and television authorities too, to such an extent that the UK press Gazette—which is not by any means opposed to the interests of the press—referred to the prima facie contempt as being numerous and too plain to require explanation.

Is there not a real danger that in the sensational case, such as the Yorkshire Ripper or this one, the media decide that provided they all break the law they are all absolutely safe? Is it sufficient for the noble Lord's right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General to issue a mild warning a day or two too late, and is it not desirable that some action should be taken in order to establish the supremacy of the law in this matter and the right of anyone, whatever he is alleged to have done, to a fair trial?

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for the way they have taken this very important Statement and which has emphasised the fact that it lies at the heart of the concern of this nation. If I may reply to Lord Boston's first question, I think the answer must be that we shall never be satisfied that everything possible is being done; we shall always exert ourselves to find out new ways to make security more secure. But at the moment—and I think that the noble Lord will see this borne out when he reads in Hansard what I have said—we have taken a very wide range of organisational, management and technical steps to remedy the faults which were discovered on these two occasions.

The noble Lord was anxious about whether or not a criminal act had been perpetrated and whether there was a charge available on the second occasion. The Law Commission reported on offences of forcible entry and their findings were implemented in the Criminal Law Act 1977. My right honourable friend would wish to reflect on this suggestion in the light of recent events. Likewise, Parliament considered the law on contempt most recently and passed the Contempt of Court Act 1981. My right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General will no doubt take note of the comments made today and the forceful way in which the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has expressed them.

As to the question of visits to the Royal Palace, my right honourable friend has had the privilege of visiting the Palace on a number of occasions; but of course it would not be appropriate for him to involve himself directly in operational matters. That is a matter for senior police officers who have made a number of inspections. I agree with your Lordships that it is important that this should not be treated with hysteria and that the press should not develop a sort of "pack" psychology. The measured way in which the two noble Lords from their Front Benches opposite have received this Statement has done a good deal to bring this back into the serious perspective which it is owed.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us will agree with the sentiments he has just expressed, and that one of the least attractive features of this whole situation has been the relentless search for scapegoats? If I may say so, speaking as someone who is not a member of the same political party as the Home Secretary, I deplore the very venomous and, in my opinion, unjustified personal attacks which have been made on the right honourable gentleman. Secondly, is the noble Lord aware that many of us welcome the proposal to have a new permanent group headed by a senior official of the Home Office, who is going to bring together, as I understand it, all the various interests involved in guaranteeing the security of the Queen and other members of the Royal Family, including the police and officers of the Household Division and of the Property Services Agency? This seems to me an extremely sensible proposal.

Also, if I may, I should like to associate myself very warmly with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, about the quite deliberate breaches of the law of contempt by virtually every newspaper in this country. I would put it to the noble Lord that it is a serious matter when this takes place and it denies to people the right of a fair trial. I hope that the noble Lord's right honourable and learned friend will take the matter with the appropriate degree of seriousness.

Finally, is he aware that there have indeed been some serious errors committed by officers of the Metropolitan Police, quite obviously? However, as the noble Lord recognised in the Statement, there are to be disciplinary procedures and it would clearly be most unjust to make any observations which would in any way prejudice their right to a fair hearing.

My Lords, I welcome the endorsement of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, of a number of the steps that my right honourable friend has taken and I welcome also his personal endorsement of the stature of my right honourable friend, which I believe to be considerable. I will, of course, bring to the attention of my right honourable and learned friend the concern expressed by the noble Lord and by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, regarding the matter of contempt of court.

My Lords, as the Criminal Justice Bill seems unlikely to come before your Lordships for Third Reading until nearly a fortnight has passed, would it not be possible for this gap to be filled by a simple amendment to be tabled by the Government, rather than having to wait for legislation in the next Session of Parliament? Would my noble friend agree that, if that gap could be filled as soon as that, many people would sleep more quietly in their homes meanwhile?

My Lords, if such an amendment could be drafted and tabled in the time; although it would be unusual in the conventions of this House to achieve legislation in that way, it might be a useful thing. However, my right honourable friend has been considering this matter and he feels it is not really the way to legislate on such a fundamental matter at such very short notice, quite apart from the need for parliamentary consideration, and that really the patient solution is likely to be the better one, whatever our anxieties may be at the moment.

My Lords, does the noble Lord recall that when the first Statement on this matter was made a few days ago I put forward the view that it would be perhaps not futile but certainly foolish if the security measures to be undertaken were confined simply to Buckingham Palace, because the Queen and her family on numerous occasions during the year do repair to other residences? Can the Minister therefore say that we shall not wait until something happens in one or other of the royal residences before there is a security examination there? Ought not all the other royal residences to be included in this examination as well as Buckingham Palace?

My Lords, as the noble Lord will find from perusing Hansard, this work is already in hand.

My Lords, can my noble friend give an undertaking that the Government realise that it is quite intolerable for it to be legal to go in this way and sit on the end of the bed of anybody at all in this Kingdom and not to commit an offence? This appears to be what has happened; somebody has gone and sat on the end of the Sovereign's bed and has not been prosecuted. I find that a quite extraordinary state of affairs. It is an extraordinary state of the law that anybody can go and sit on someone else's bed at seven o'clock in the morning—without being invited to go there, I hasten to add; and I find this an intolerable state of affairs. Would my noble friend please make sure that we look at this matter very urgently and very rapidly, in order to make sure that it comes within the criminal law as quickly as possible?

My Lords, I can undertake that it is a matter of great urgent concern. I cannot undertake that the problem will be elucidated as quickly as the noble Earl, and indeed we ourselves, would wish it to be. However, it is not at all a simple matter to construct an offence, even if it is differently expressed from the aspirations expressed by the noble Lord in his first question.

My Lords, I suppose we have got to accept that this intruder has not committed an offence and therefore cannot be punished, but is there any way of preventing him and members of his family from making substantial sums of money from the newspapers over this?—otherwise we have a situation in which it is positively profitable for people to behave in this manner.

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord that crime must not pay, and non-crime should not pay either. I take to heart what the noble Lord says and I will put it to my right honourable friend.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Press Council issued a judgment long ago that newspapers should not glorify the life of criminals by publishing their memoirs or those of members of their families? Should not the newspapers bear this closely in mind in the present instance?

My Lords, I think it is useful for your Lordships to deplore the conduct of the press when it is not as it should be, and of course the Press Council exists also for that purpose.

My Lords, if there was no crime, I find it difficult to see how there has been contempt.

My Lords, I think we should not get too deeply into this matter but, if the noble Lord will recall, two occasions were involved and for one of them there is a remand in custody.

moved Amendment No. 46:

After Clause 28, insert the following new clause:

My Lords, we on these Benches have very considerable support for this amendment and very great sympathy for the reasons underlying it, as those have been articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. Inevitably, the passing and making of a suspended sentence involves some element of casuistry on the part of the sentencing court. The task which Parliament has placed upon the court is, indeed, a difficult one. The court, in the first instance, has to consider whether or not the offence that it is dealing with merits imprisonment. Then having decided that it does, and having decided upon the term of imprisonment, the very next second, in theory, that court has to constitute itself into a parole hoard and to ask itself "Is it necessary that that man, whom we have just sentenced to 9 months' imprisonment, should remain in custody a moment longer?" It is a difficult consideration and it is one that cannot be avoided in the context of suspended sentences, which form a very important part of the armoury of the courts.

When it comes to the question of the activation or not of a suspended sentence, in respect of which there has been a breach, again the situation is not free from casuistry, for the court is, of course, enjoined, according to the decision of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division in the case of Ithell in 1969, to consider, first, the offence that has given rise to the breach and what penalty is appropriate in respect of that, and only then, if the words of the Court of Appeal are to be taken strictly, to consider what it should do in relation to the suspended sentence. I apprehend that the noble Lord the Minister will say in reply that the amendment must be rejected, because it would be wholly wrong for the court that is dealing with the breach to constitute itself, in any way, into some type of Court of Appeal that would comment upon or adjudicate upon the earlier sentence. As a basic proposition of law, that must indeed be sound. But that is where theory and practice part company and go in different directions.

As one who spends most of his time in the criminal courts, my feeling is that in practice the courts inevitably look at the circumstances in which the earlier suspended sentence was passed. It seems to me that the Court of Appeal practically admitted that in 1971—in the case of Munday. May I quote the headnote to that report:

"Though it is not part of the function of a court considering the activation of a suspended sentence in any way to review its propriety, there are cases where justice cannot be done without fitting into the pattern of events leading to the further conviction the facts which led to the suspended sentence. To that extent, therefore, it may be necessary on the second occasion for the court to inform itself of the circumstances in which the suspended sentence was passed in order that proper assessment may be made of the overall position so as to determine the sentence which is to be passed and the grounds on which it is acting".

In practice, therefore, it is difficult for even the most clear-minded judge or magistrate to avoid completely some proper consideration of the circumstances in which the first sentence was passed.

Sometimes it is necessary to go a little further, for quite often there will be the question, in relation to the second offence, of a whole spray of offences to be taken into consideration which cover the period in time when the first sentence was passed. Because the second court will not have all the documents before it, there may be great doubt as to whether or not some, if not all, of those were taken into consideration at the earlier instance. It seems to me that the strict wording of Section 23 as it now stands technically precludes the court from that consideration.

In short, therefore, it would seem that, in practice, as the Court of Appeal admitted as long ago as 1971, sentencers do pay limited but proper regard to the circumstances in which the earlier sentence was passed. That being the situation, is it not right and proper that we should now make an honest woman, as it were, of what has existed for so long? It is on that basis that we invite support for this amendment.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said—and this is to my certain knowledge, too—that if you impose a suspended sentence on one defendant and a fine on another, the man who is given a fine thinks that he is very hard done by, while the man who receives a suspended sentence thinks that he has got off. It is very important that if a person receives a suspended sentence he should realise that it will be activated—and that there will be no two ways about it—if he breaches his suspended sentence. Therefore, I should have thought that the judge who tries the second offence ought to have the opportunity to use his mitigating powers, if he so wishes, and to take into consideration the fact that there is a suspended sentence. It would be very unwise for any court to give the impression to a defendant that a suspended sentence is not going to be implemented. It would be seen to be undermining the opportunity to impose suspended sentences. Therefore I come down against this amendment, because it is very important that suspended sentences should be not only taken into consideration but always activated.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has raised a matter of considerable significance. I am grateful to him for the opportunity he has provided by his amendment for the issue to be debated. The Act empowers a court which passes a sentence of imprisonment of not more than two years to order that the sentence shall not take effect unless during a period of not less than one year or more than two years the offender commits a further imprisonable offence.

This form of sentence was introduced originally in the Criminal Justice Act 1967 in recognition of the fact that there are many cases where the nature of the offence itself demands a sentence of imprisonment, but where the circumstances surrounding it and the situation of the offender permit it to be suspended, that suspension being contingent upon the offender's future good conduct. Its acceptance as a means of dealing with offenders, many of whom will have committed quite serious crimes, depends upon its being clearly perceived by all concerned that if the offender re-offends and if his new offence is imprisonable, then the sentence for the first offence will be enforced. If that is seen to be in any way unlikely—if the Sword of Damocles is not seen to fall—then the device, as my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve has said, will get no credence and offenders will not be deterred by it. That is why Section 23 of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973 obliges the court to activate the suspended sentence on commission of a further imprisonable offence, unless it finds justifiable reasons for imposing a lesser period, or extending the operational period, or making no order.

In practice, the suspended sentence is used pretty frequently. About 36,000 suspended sentences are passed annually. In 1980, rather fewer than one-third of them—about 10,300 in all—were dealt with for committing further imprisonable offences. Of these, 7,450 were required to serve the full term of the suspended sentence. In 350 cases, a lesser term was ordered to be served. In 560 cases, the operational period was extended, and there were 1,930 cases where no order was made.

It was the intention of Parliament that the activation of the sentence should be the normal result of a breach. Those figures also show that in many cases the use of the sentence results in there being fewer people in custody than there might otherwise be. The sentence therefore is worth preserving.

Would it be strengthened by the amendment or weakened by it? If the effect of the amendment is to multiply the number of occasions when the original sentence is not put into effect upon an offender—if it means that the Sword of Damocles falls rather less often—I fear that it may be weakened. But I have another doubt about what the noble Lord proposes, and it is this. At present, only things arising after the imposition of a sentence can be prayed in aid of a decision not to implement it by the court sitting, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, put it, more or less as a parole board. This is as it should be.

The noble Lord would have us consider also things arising before its imposition—things that were before the court when it considered the first offence. Those things should have been considered before, when the first sentence was passed. If they are things like medical reports, the medical condition of the offender will still be a matter for the court to inquire into on the second occasion.

My Lords, I wonder whether I might ask the Minister to consider the case which came the other day before my court of a man who was an alcoholic. I do not think it was realised that he was an alcoholic at the time he was given the suspended sentence. When he came before us he had taken, while drunk, a few cans of beer and run out of the pub. Everybody there knew him and he was caught immediately. This further offence would have meant activating a sentence of six months. The only way to get round it was to order another psychiatric report and a social inquiry. It seems to me to be quite wrong that one should have to get round it in that way. I wonder whether the noble Lord could take that into account in his reply.

I shall try to do so, my Lords. I take it that what the noble Baroness is saying is that the second offence was so much less grave than the first offence. If it was sufficiently less grave to be a non-imprisonable offence, then the matter would not arise, because it is imprisonable offences with which we are concerned. I take it that whatever he did when he ran out of the pub was something for which he could be imprisoned.

Yes, it had to be, my Lords.

My Lords, it is very difficult to argue particular cases off the cuff, when one has not actually seen them, but I will certainly try to digest what the noble Baroness has said. Perhaps I may return to what I was trying to say, which was that, in reverting to the original circumstances, it seems that what the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, is doing, is producing a proposal for an element of resentencing between courts of equal status. That is a dubious principle. Doubts about the first sentence should be dealt with not at the same level, but on appeal. If, on the other hand, the doubts are only about the second instance, then it is the circumstances of the second instance which ought to be taken into consideration. I would like to know whether the noble Lord really wants to press this rather doubtful principle of resentencing into the Bill.

My Lords, may I say to begin with that I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, and with the noble Lord the Minister that if a suspended sentence is passed, its effect depends very largely on the degree to which the defendant believes that it is going to be enforced in the event of him getting into further trouble. It is never possible to say to a defendant when one is imposing a suspended sentence, "If you commit a further imprionable offence, you will serve the suspended sentence". The most that anyone can say—and I believe this is the formula that most courts use—is, "You will amost inevitably have to serve the suspended sentence". The reason for that is, first, that the Act itself provides that there are other courses open in certain circumstances; secondly, that the courts have spent a little time trying to get around the situation anyway.

The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, referred to the Munday case. Otherwise, I was going to trundle up at this stage the case of Boczkei in 1970, where the Court of Appeal decided that when the sentence is ordered to run consecutively, as it must do in the ordinary way, the court must ensure that the totality is not excessive. To this end, it may adjust either the suspended sentence or the sentence in the instant case. So in both the Munday and the Boczkei case, the Court of Appeal have spent some time in trying to get around the rigours of the existing law, and in effect in accepting the Act as it would read if this amendment were introduced into it.

I am not seeking to weaken the existing Act in any way but perhaps I may simply say this: if the amendment were written into the Act, the section would still read:

"and a court shall make the order "—

that the suspended sentence shall take effect—

"unless the court is of the opinion that it would be unjust to do so in view of all the circumstances, including the facts of the subsequent offence".

It would still be almost inevitable that the suspended sentence would be activated but not quite so inevitable as it is as at the moment.

I take the noble Lord's point that some facts which would be sought to be raised on the second occasion had in fact been raised and considered on the first occasion, but there were facts that were not considered on the first occasion. When I introduced this amendment, I mentioned in particular the case where evidence has come forward about the defendant's mental history before he committed the first offence which was not available when he was dealt with the first time and of which a subsequent court, very properly, would want to take account. To that extent, there must be an element of re-sentencing. There must be in the Munday decision an element of resentencing, as there must in the Boczkei decision. It is a very moderate, limited element, but it is worth recognising, and it is worth legitimising in the present Act. Does the noble Lord, Lord Elton, wish to intervene at this point?

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, is the judge of the stage at which I might most profitably do so. Sometimes the pigeons do not fly quite fast enough. What I wanted to say was simply this: two practical considerations have been put to me with which I am not entirely familiar. I have grave doubts about the general principle. Some of the things the noble Lord has said have been extremely reasonable and anyone from the shires will know what I mean when I say that when one gets into the Monday country one has to go very carefully! That being so, and without wishing to raise any hopes in the mind of the noble Lord other than those which might already repose there, it might be a good thing if I considered this a little further before Third Reading. I am giving no undertakings other than that I will do that in the light of the material which has been brought forward. This is a lengthy introduction, and, if the noble Lord has anything else he wishes me to consider, perhaps he could bring it into his peroration.

My Lords, my peroration was going to be that I had no intention of dividing the House on this amendment. I believe completely in the power of persuasion. I was going to invite the noble Lord to reflect between now and Third Reading on whether anything had been put forward which might cause him to reconsider the matter. If he and I can reach some agreement, we will, no doubt, take the appropriate action. I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he said and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 46A:

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has put the case most admirably. I really cannot add anything to his words and I am just pleased to be associated in this particular amendment with the noble Lord. It is probably not fair of me to verbally add a further category, which of course I would not expect my noble friend the Minister to give a direct answer on now. But if one is to have this list—and lists are always invidious and can be added to—I would ask him to seriously consider adding arson as a further category. The pattern of behaviour of the arsonist has never been properly discovered; so far as I am aware through conversations with several psychiatrists there is no pattern of behaviour that follows the character of the arsonist. It is an extremely difficult offence to deal with, either legally or from the mental point of view. But, in either case it seems to me that it is worth including arson, if in the future perhaps the Minister will think about this, with the ignoble and really dastardly crime of making profit from the lives of other people.

My Lords, I only intervene because the noble Baroness has indeed raised an interesting point, as to where one goes on with this list and what one ought to delete. If one tries to restrict oneself according to the rules, this is hardly the place to do it, but I would ask, if I may with the permission of the House, that the Minister should look again at the description of "assault of any kind", bearing in mind that this does include an ordinary common assault. Would he not, on reflection between now and Third Reading, care to alter that to grievous bodily harm?

My Lords, may I agree entirely with this amendment, speaking from the few years' experience I had as a member of the Parole Board. It is very obvious, not only from the figures the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has quoted, but also from one's own knowledge, that trafficking in these very serious Class A drugs is increasing far more quickly than perhaps some of us within this House realise. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, it kills people; a very small amount can kill a great number of people. I wholeheartedly agree that it should be added to the list the noble Lord is proposing.

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister to be extremely careful of adding offences to a list. The trouble about lists of offences is that everybody always thinks of the most serious case. In the criminal law you can have the most trivial examples of serious cases. For instance, there is here rape. People do not appreciate that all rape is having sexual intercourse with someone against that person's consent, and in many cases of rape it is a very marginal question as to whether the girl agreed or did not agree. Sometimes it is only just on a matter of balance, and the judge does not send the person to prison as a result, because he takes the view that it was a very fifty-fifty situation.

Equivalently, in an offence such as mentioned by the noble Baroness, arson. Arson can be burning down a garden shed; it can be a trivial little matter, which arises often with young people who are psychologically disturbed, and may not involve imprisonment at all. It would be a thousand pities if decisions are made by descriptions of offences which keep people in prison longer than they should be.

My Lords, may I make one short comment on Lord Mishcon's point about assault, which of course is very often an extremely trivial matter. In order to come within the provisions here at all, it would have to be an assault which had merited a sentence of imprisonment of at least six months.

My Lords, I am beginning to be astonished at some of the utterances of noble Lords who have spoken. It is said it may be just a trivial assault. I recall a case in court where a boy attempted to snatch a handbag, and this is just what we were told by the counsel. Those who have ever had the experience of having another individual lurch at them, even if not actually attack them, certainly do not regard it as trivial.

I was rather astonished to hear the noble Lord say manslaughter was only one death. That is one death too many. Surely we must be very careful before we trivialise these offences. It is all too often said that there is petty crime, and particularly when talking about the minor assaults. I feel that any attack on the person should be regarded as serious whatever the end effect. While I support the amendment, I am sorry that we appear to be trivialising some very serious offences.

My Lords, perhaps I could start by putting this in context. What we are discussing is a schedule which describes those people who may not be released under the emergency provisions, where the Secretary of State is empowered to release people before the full term of their sentence has expired. We are not weighing different matters delicately in the balance of justice. We are seeing who should actually get an unexpected bonus at the end of their sentence. That said—I may repeat it in other words—the schedule was inserted into the Bill in another place to take account of the concern expressed there that prisoners convicted of violence should never be among those released under the emergency provision for the early release of prisoners set out in Clause 29—that is what I was referring to.

Problems of definition are bound to arise in drawing up such a list and I stress that we do fully accept that such an approach does not provide a definitive measure of seriousness in relation to individual offences. That is best provided by the length of sentence and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, made a very relevant indication of the importance of that. Your Lordships will recall that Clause 29 restricts the use of the early release power to those prisoners with no more than six months of their sentence left to run, and where the expedited procedure is followed, no more than one month of their sentence left to run.

The purpose of the list in Schedule 1 is to exclude prisoners convicted of violent offences completely from eligibility for early release under the scheme. Thus we deliberately confined the list in Schedule 1 to those offences where violence on the part of the offender is an inherent element of the offence. I think I am right in saying that the assault, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred as being trivial, is one that one would not expect to find imprisonable for six months. The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong. That is the reason for the present exclusion of drug trafficking. The reason is not that is does not represent a serious offence in the Government's eyes. Indeed, the Government have every sympathy with the intention behind the noble Lord's amendment. Those who traffic in hard drugs are clearly a deep menace to society and are often responsible for more deaths than the individual murderer or person who commits manslaughter.

The amendment as it stands is technically defective. But if your Lordships are content, and if the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will agree to withdraw it, I will undertake to return at Third Reading with an amendment which will give effect to what this amendment seeks to achieve and in the process I shall look with a good deal of hesitancy at what my noble friend has said about arson, because there are dangers in extending lists—

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for giving way. While accepting everything that has been said in relation to arson, would he bear in mind, however, the next offence—that is, aggravated arson, arson with intent to endanger life, which is in a rather different category?

My Lords, I think that the noble Lord will find that arson with intent to endanger life, arson endangering life, is already covered by the schedule. However, I will keep all this on board while I look at the noble Lord's amendment between this stage and the next one.

My Lords, before the Minister sits down I should like to make one point because he kindly invited me to comment on his remarks on assault. Therefore, with the leave of the House, may I just say that I cannot conceive of a case where there could be an ordinary assault and one had a term of imprisonment of six months. I was only trying to be realistic in saying that it must be a case of grievous bodily harm because otherwise the charge would be wrong.

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord the Minister; he is quite right. That offence is, in fact, included. I am sorry for wasting the time of the House.

My Lords, I am obliged to the Minister for meeting the point in this amendment and, with the leave of the House, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 47:

Before Clause 30, insert the following new clause:

My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has returned to this subject again because I think that your Lordships need to consider the situation that has arisen in the last decade when the life sentence population of our prisons has, in fact, increased enormously. I refer to the excellent Home Office Research Study No. 51, Life Sentence Prisoners, which was published in 1979, where it was shown that the life-sentence population of the prisons in England and Wales was only 133 prisoners at the beginning of 1957 and that by the end of 1977 that had increased to 1,353—more than a ten-fold interest in 21 years. As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said in his remarks, that has now gone up again to over 1,500. So this is a serious and growing problem of the number of long-term prisoners in England and Wales, and the question is whether or not any additional consideration should be given to feeding those cases into the parole system.

Just by way of preliminary, may I say that the increase to which I have referred does not have anything to do with the abolition of capital punishment, as has been suggested in some quarters. If one looks at the figures, between 1956 and 1964—the date of abolition—the number of executions did not exceed five in any one of those years, and in the last three years it did not exceed two. So we must look to other causes for the major increase in the number of long-term life-sentence prisoners, and that may be something which we should debate on another occasion.

Here, as the noble Earl has said, we are considering an extremely modest proposal for having an additional review of long-term life-sentence prisoners at the end of the first 10 years of their sentence. When the noble Lord, Lord Elton, replied to the debate on the previous occasion, he said that the system already provided a much more civilised alternative than was proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, because the first review of the life-sentence prisoner was carried out by a joint committee of the Parole Board and the Home Office within three or four years of a man being sent to prison. He said that if the joint committee does not consider that it is yet time for a date to be fixed at which the case may be referred to the LRC, then it asks for the case to be put before it main at some future date, and, as I understand it, that process continues more or less ad infinitum until the committee finally considers that the case ought to appear before the LRC or the man dies, whichever is the sooner.

I must emphasise that what the noble Earl, Lord Longford, proposes is in addition to these reviews: it is not in substitution for them. He is not suggesting—and he did not suggest on the previous occasion—that the three- to four-year process outlined by the Minister should be cancelled in favour of the 10-year process that he was suggesting, but that this is an additional consideration that would be given to the cases of the long-term prisoners at the end of 10 years.

So the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was quite wrong when he assumed that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, was trying to cancel the existing three- to four-year reviews for the sake of his argument, as he did on 1st July. In a particular case, about which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, knows, it was emphasised that fresh minds ought to be brought to bear on the consideration of parole for a particular individual. I think it reasonable and sensible that another opinion should be sought. If a man is seen by a different governor, a different wing officer, chaplain or welfare officer if may help to secure better consideration of his case. So why does not the same principle apply to the next stage of the process where the reports of those officals are considered? A 10-year period is a very substantial chunk out of any man's life, and it is proper that after being in prison for that length of time he should have his case examined by a new agency other than the special joint committee of the Parole Board of the Home Office which, as we have heard, has already been looking at his case for the last six or seven years.

The other important feature of the noble Earl's amendment, and I am glad he emphasised this, was that the prisoner would have a chance of appearing personally before the persons nominated by the Secretary of State to consider these cases. It is well known that many prisoners are not good at expressing themselves in writing and are therefore unable to take advantage of the right they are supposed to have to make representations either to the local review committee or indeed to the special joint committee which the noble Lord mentioned on a previous occasion. However, they might well be able to advance considerations of material importance to their case if they were able to appear before such a body in person, as this amendment suggests.

As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, knows, I am particularly worried about the position of non-English speakers in our prisons. We came across a case the other day where the noble Lord was good enough to tell me that there was no Spanish welfare officer in the Isle of Wight and therefore the Minister was prepared, in the circumstances of the case, to agree that a Spanish-speaking prisoner in, I think, Parkhurst, should be transferred to Maidstone where he might have better facilities for communicating with other prisoners and staff.

We have had Arabic-speaking prisoners, again on the Isle of Wight, who were totally incapable of communicating with the rest of the inmates and the staff. It seems likely to me that among the 3,500-odd foreign nationals in the prisons of England and Wales there will be many lifers who would need a great deal of help if they were to present any sort of a case in writing to the special committee. But if they could appear before this prelimiary review committee, as the noble Earl suggests then obviously they would have a right to interpretation, as they are supposed to have in disciplinary proceedings before the governor and the board of visitors. This is a modest proposal but one that would give some hope to lifers of an additional stage in the consideration of their parole, and therefore it would hold out some hope to them of a fairness in the system which they do not see at present.

My Lords, my reason for rising in this discussion is mainly because I was so extensively quoted by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, during the Committee stage when he presented a different shaped amendment, that I thought I could not with honour sit here, having been a kind of disembodied voice on the previous occasion, and disclaim what was said on my behalf. I can, and gladly do, confirm that what the noble Earl said that I felt about his amendment is in principle correct. But I am not entirely happy—and I have told the noble Earl this—about the method that he is proposing. He has acknowledged that the method may have to be thought about again. The point here is that the preliminary review committee to which the amendment refers, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, knows very well, is an informal and unofficial body which is in the business, and has been since 1973, of looking at all cases of lifers to see whether and if so at what appropriate point of time, their cases should be put into the formal review process. I question whether in a statute it would be proper to make reference to an informal and unofficial body of that kind, and whether the Home Secretary could be required to give instructions to such an informal and unofficial body.

That is really by the way, because I strongly believe in the principle behind this amendment. It is right that the formal process of reviewing life prisoners should begin at about the 10-year mark, if it has not begun, at the instance of that informal and unofficial body, earlier. I believe that is absolutely right—of course, without prejudice to the views in the formal process of the local review committees and of the Parole Board, to say nothing of the views of the trial judge and of the Lord Chief Justice. It is a long-drawn-out and lengthy process, and it is right that it should be a long-drawn-out process.

I also believe that, as happens in parole for determinate prisoners, the life prisoner, when his review takes place, as I think it should at, if not before, the 10-year mark has been past, should have the right to refuse to have his case considered. He should have the right to opt out. This is a proper safeguard which places the onus on the prisoner to risk disappointment if, as is almost certain to be so in a few cases of particularly heinous crimes, no recommendation for release is going to be made following that 10-year review. It may well be that the view of the Parole Board, the recommendation to the Home Secretary of the Parole Board, is that the case should not be reviewed again for perhaps three or as much as five years. At least that will have been the risk taken by the prisoner in allowing his review to go forward and not refusing to have it looked at. That is better than oblivion.

I believe strongly in the principle of the amendment, which is to ensure that a life prisoner has a milestone ahead to look forward to. Having read Hansard, I am well aware that the views of my noble friend Lord Harris in this matter, and from a similar experience, are quite different from mine. I have visited life prisoners. I could list to your Lordships the eight or nine prisons I have visited, where I have spoken to life prisoners. In all cases I can say that they live on hope. Whatever one may feel about the heinousness of the crimes they committed—and they are not all criminals, in the sense that they did something once that was dreadful and maybe they would not think of doing such a thing again—the one thing they have a right to expect is to have some hope rather than to deteriorate (which, if they have not got hope, there is a grave danger of their doing)—into vegetables.

There are perhaps some of your Lordships who will say that that is no less than they deserve. I can only say that I profoundly differ with such a view. Only yesterday I spent a considerable time, the whole afternoon, with a probation officer who until recently had served four years in the lifers' wing at Maidstone Prison, her responsibility being to do social work among those prisoners. She confirmed absolutely the views which I am now expressing from an inside view, from a human contact view with human beings. I can only say that that strengthened my belief that the principle of this amendment is right, and I support it.

My Lords, I should like to support the amendment moved by my noble friend and to which I have my name. Most of the arguments in favour of the amendment have already been used and explained. The main resistance to the amendment moved by my noble friend at Committee stage—and he referred to it—was that it was cruel to give hope when that hope would not be realised. But, together with other noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the amendment, I believe that it is far more cruel to feel ignored, isolated, and forgotten.

Whether the vehicle that my noble friend has chosen is quite right or not—and I listened with great attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, and it is right that in a statute a statutory body should be written into it—what attracts me about this particular amendment, although it is rather more mild or, as my noble friend said, more timid than his previous amendment, is the opportunity, if the prisoner is willing, that he should be interviewed by a member of whatever committee it is, a local review committee or another sort of committee which could be incorporated in the statute.

This point of the opportunity for contact with another human being is absolutely essential. If the answer is to be, "What is the point of that if the prisoner will be told that it is useless our talking about him getting parole for the next unimaginable number of years?" The fact that it is spoken about and that the person is able to hear it from another human being is very important. He knows in his own mind often the hopelessness of his case, certainly in the short and medium term. Nevertheless, the fact that there is contact—personal contact, not something just considered by a committee removed from him—makes all the difference. Having many years ago worked as a prison visitor at Holloway and having there dealt with some very long-term prisoners, I am convinced that this human contact on a one-to-one basis is of the greatest importance, and therefore I support the amendment.

My Lords, I too support the amendment from the point of view of maintaining hope and allowing personal contact with a member who will make the recommendation.

My Lords, I supported this amendment in its stronger form and I support it in its lesser form.

My Lords, let us start by looking at what now happens—and with two eminent ex-chairmen of the Parole Board and one probably silent chairman present, I shall be corrected if I am wrong. As I explained at an earlier stage, when a life sentence prisoner has been detained for three to four years—and in some cases it may be earlier—the joint committee meets to consider the facts of the case and all the reports that have been made on the prisoner during his detention so far. It then either recommends a date when the case should be referred to the local review committee or, if it is clear that he could not be released for several years, or not immediately clear how soon he might be released, asks to see the case again after a specified interval.

Although the joint committee may not immediately recommend a date for the review and ask to see it again, the great majority of cases are referred to the local review committee well before the prisoner has been detained for 10 years. Even where it is apparent that the prisoner will not be released for many years, the joint committee follows a working rule that it will always look at his case again after he has been detained for 10 years. So it is not a question, as the noble Earl, Lord Longford, claimed, in Committee, of the file being brought out and some officials sitting round and deciding not to look at that particular file again for some time.

The Minister seems to be saying that I got something wrong, my Lords. May I ask him to say what I got wrong? So far as I am concerned, the procedure he has described is the one. I have been denouncing.

My Lords, I am trying to establish whether what the noble Earl is denouncing is what I am describing, and he has now confirmed that it is. As was made clear more than once in the debate, officials are in a minority on the joint committee. Senior members of the Parole Board, including the board's chairman and vice-chairman, form the majority, and it is right that that should be so because the committee is, in effect, winnowing the cases to be presented to the local review committee and the full board so as to present to them only those cases with at least some prospect of success.

The review process is elaborate and thorough and it would be wrong for the whole of it to be put into action in every case and at short intervals where there is no prospect of doing anything but consuming the time of free men and dashing the hopes of the prisoners; and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to the importance of not dashing the hopes of the prisoner and giving him the opportunity of opting out of the stress of that process if he feels that suits him.

In the relatively small number of cases where a prisoner has been detained for 10 years and no date has yet been set for his case to be referred to the local review committee, the case will have been seen by the joint committee at least twice. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, regards that as a milestone, but it is not 10 years languishing with one's case unconsidered; nor, as the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, suggested, is the prisoner ignored, isolated and forgotten.

My Lords, perhaps I may make it clear that the fact that the case has been looked at twice up to the 10-year mark by an unofficial and informal body gives no knowledge to the prisoner concerned as to the outcome of those two reviews. Therefore, he or she will not know what the outcome is going to be, or will have been, until the formal review process has been gone through.

My Lords, I am obliged for that comment because I am anxious to learn. What the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is saying is wanted is an indication to the prisoner of the progress of what I might call his case, and that did not seem to me to be the principal object of the amendment. I am informed that the prisoner knows at every stage of the review—and I see the noble Lord, Lord Harris, a more recent occupant of the hot seat, nodding his head. That being so, I think what Lord Hunt has advanced is somewhat weakened.

I was referring to what the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, referred to as the prisoner being ignored, isolated and forgotten. He is in fact interviewed very frequently indeed by people skilled in doing that—governors, probation officers, chaplains and so on—and their considered reports are before the joint committee for their consideration. Apart from the Parole Board's psychiatrists, who may interview a prisoner on behalf of the board—but that is rarely done—it is true that the present members of the joint committee are not necessarily skilled in interviewing.

We must accept that in prison we have not only people who, some of us feel, perhaps are there only by mischance and who are straightforward and honest people in other respects, but also people who are consummately skilled in misleading those to whom they talk. The judge of course has skills, and the chairman of the board may very well have those skills too, but it is not the training of other people, and interviews on behalf of the local review committee about the prisoner's representations are, I think, the appropriate point at which the prisoner has contact with this procedure.

My Lords, the point I make about representations is that many prisoners are not able to communicate in writing and that foreigners would not be capable even of communicating in the English language, whereas if they could appear in person before the special committee—which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, advocates—they would make verbal representations with an interpreter present.

My Lords, it is difficult to deal with such views put in one after the other. Noble Lords are saying that there should be personal contact, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is saying that where the person is a foreigner, it is better that the translation should be done verbally than on paper, so the point he makes is the same as the point other noble Lords are making. I have to be advised in these things, and when I look at the annual report of the board for 1977 I see that personal hearings, while they might work to the advantage of the sophisticated criminal, could "disadvantage the unsure and the inarticulate". I am quoting the Parole Board, in its report—and I should have thought that the members of the board are the people with the most direct experience. Then:

"There is much to be said for the view that the good documentation by the people with knowledge of the prisoner over the years is the best method of guiding those who have to decide whether parole should be granted".

It is a difficult case. In the light of the weight of the advice that I have quoted—the views of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, support what I have said—it appears that your Lordships are asking for something which appears so simple, but which I do not feel will in fact amount to what you would expect of it. I hope that before he comes to a final decision, the noble Earl will consider very carefully his amendment, which he has himself said he finds not altogether satisfactory.

My Lords, to put the noble Lord out of any anxiety, I say at once that I shall not today be dividing the House on this question. This is mainly for the reason mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, which has already occurred to me—that it is not a very satisfactory amendment. However, it is a straight issue of principle affecting a number of human beings. Last night we rightly discussed a question of principle affecting one woman and one child. It was rightly considered that that raised a great question of principle.

Life prisoners might in the past have deserved badly of society, but they are now among the most agonised and vulnerable people. Our whole approach to them raises a question of principle, which should be very carefully considered. I shall discuss the matter with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who, over such a long time, has taken such enormous interest in prisoners. I shall discuss with them all the question of what is the most suitable amendment to put down, but I shall certainly put down something—

My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down—

I am not sitting down quite yet.

My Lords, I am an optimist. I wonder whether the noble Earl will be kind enough to give some indication whether it is the frequency or the formality of the review with which he is principally concerned; or is it the immediacy aspect?—that is the personal interview, which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has rather emphasised might be the main concern. If the noble Earl would give such an indication, I would be clearer about the focus of his intentions.

The noble Lord will be clearer about my intentions before the next stage, my Lords, since I gather that the Government are allowing several months for all of us to think over these matters; I do not suppose that we shall again be going into the question yet awhile. But I should like to try to answer the noble Lord's point. Certainly I consider that it is monstrous that the prisoner should not be seen by a member of the committee. That principle is accepted in the case of the local review committees. It is argued that a member of the local review committee—a local bank manager, for example, as it may well be—is not capable of interviewing a prisoner. To be told that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, with all his immense abilities, is incapable of interviewing a prisoner, is not acceptable. The same would apply in relation to the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, or the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham. Such eminent people command the attention of your Lordships whenever they speak; yet we are told that they cannot interview a humble prisoner, that it must be left to someone more skilled. That is what we were told just now—

My Lords, as it happened, I specifically exempted the chairman of the board. It is a small point.

I see, my Lords. Well, it is a funny sort of board, with about 50 members, if only the chairman is capable of interviewing. That argument is quite absurd; I can say that without giving offence. It is asked, who can interview the prisoners? The noble Lord says that they can be interviewed by governors and other people on the spot who know them well. Well, let us accept that arbitrament. I must not go into detailed cases, but I know of more than one case where the prisons collectively are entirely on the side of the prisoner being sent forward for parole. We know who has been standing in the way of that. If it were said, hand over the matter to the prison, there would be many prisoners known to me who tomorrow—I would not say that they would be out—would pass to the review process. The argument there, I am sorry to say, is far removed from reality. However, let us leave it there. To use the noble Lord's expression, I have to be advised; and I hope that he will be advised better next time. If he is not, I feel that it will not be for want of other people, as well as his own official advisers, trying to help him. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 48:

Before Clause 30, insert the following new clause:

My Lords, I rise to support this amendment so admirably moved, if I may say so, by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. This Bill has been much criticised for its major deficiency in failing to contain a provision which would be sure of substantially reducing the prison population. We have many times canvassed and described the intolerable conditions in our prisons, and I think that about that there is substantial agreement on all sides of the House. But the problem that we have endeavoured to grapple with is by what means we can, for instance, get somewhere near the report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, proposing the progressive reduction of the present prison population from 44,000 to 37,000. We have the further recommendation of the Prison and Borstal Governors' Branch of the Society of Civil and Public Servants, calling for a reduction to 32,000. Our fear is that what the Government have proposed in their proposals will come nowhere near achieving that result, and the horrid conditions of prisons, especially local prisons, will continue in spite of all our endeavours.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has explained, the new clause provides for the introduction of an automatic, supervised release scheme for prisoners serving sentences of less than three years, but with the proviso that a court may exclude an offender from automatic release on supervision where it considers that this is necessary for the protection of the public. That proviso meets the objection which the judges, and in particular the Lord Chief Justice, had previously in respect of automatic supervised release. Your Lordships will recollect the speech of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice in this House in April of this year, when, referring to this proposal, he said:

"The judges suggested that there should be power to non-apply that rule in specific cases particularly where the public require protection. That suggestion was turned down flat. But if that suggestion were adopted I would respectfully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that there is no possible objection to the scheme."

So one has there a backing for the scheme from perhaps the most responsible judicial source, and certainly the most authoritative.

My Lords, whether or not the Minister agrees with the precise estimate of the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—that is, whether or not he agrees that the proposal for this concept of a new kind of sentence (which has been termed a custody plus supervision sentence) will produce the precise reduction the noble Lord has indicated—we feel it will indeed be a very considerable reduction. What I think is significant is that there is now clear evidence from Home Office research that release on parole licence, which combines supervision by a probation officer with the deterrent effect of recall to prison for misbehaviour while on licence, for which the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, provides, does reduce the offender's likelihood of re-conviction. So we believe that there are powerful arguments in favour of this scheme, combining the impact of a short period in custody with controls over an offender's future behaviour of the kind contained in a parole licence. It is a new initiative; we believe it is a responsible one, and I hope that at this stage the Government will accept it.

My Lords, I merely want to add to the very thorough exposition so far that the only reason of a substantial kind that we have ever been given for not adopting this system is that the courts would not accept it. We now have the word of the Lord Chief Justice that he, at least, would accept it with the proviso in subsection (2), so I think the case against it is really totally demolished. We have spent I do not know how many days on this Bill, but I believe that this is very much the most important thing in it that we have discussed. I hope that we shall get some change which will save the inevitable disaster which is facing us in the prisons if we do not.

My Lords, I should like to support this amendment. We have a prison in Lincoln which I visit from time to time, so I am well aware of what has been described as the conditions of overcrowding in our prisons, and of the extreme seriousness of that. For that reason alone I should want to support this amendment. I had prepared a few words, but the points that I had in them have already been made very clearly and cogently by Lord Hunt and Lord Elwyn-Jones, and there is no point in going over things which have been well put already. I should have thought that this new venture would also provide the sort of space in which those likely to be responsive to rehabilitation may find some sort of encouragement, and again that is something to be in favour of. For those reasons, I support the amendment.

My Lords, a person sentenced to three years may be released after one year if he qualifies for parole and receives the full one-third remission of his sentence, so that he is released after 12 months. But a person who is sentenced to 18 months in prison may still be released after one year because he does not qualify for parole. It is absurd that a person serves the same actual length of sentence when the courts have thought fit to impose a difference of two to one in terms of the length of sentence given. They finish up by serving the same length of time as a result of the inoperation of the parole system on short sentences.

My Lords, I should like to speak against the amendment. I know that the Magistrates' Association is against the proposal for several reasons. First, it would drastically reduce the sentencing power of magistrates' courts to, I should like to say, a ridiculously low level. The maximum sentence of imprisonment available to a magistrates' court at the moment is six months. If you deduct one-third of that for the automatic one-third remission and then this proposal would knock off another two months, the maximum term of custody that a magistrates' court would be able to impose would be a net two months.

The second reason is that it must put a considerable extra burden on the probation service. I am rather doubtful whether they are ready at the moment for that additional burden. Having said all that, one would not object to such a proposal if this early release under supervision had to be earned. I understand that parole has to be earned. If the threshold of parole could be lowered to sentences of six months, then I think this release under supervision would be acceptable. Being automatic, it is not acceptable. If magistrates' courts are going to have the power to imprison at all, a net of two months is totally inadequate.

My Lords, I did not intend to speak because everything seems to have been said. But I felt that I must do so in view of the contribution from the noble Earl, Lord Fortescue. I am also a member of the Magistrates' Association, but disagree with them. I was not aware that they came out officially against this. I am not sure they have. It may be just a view expressed by a number of the members of Magistrate's Association.

My Lords, they have come out officially against it.

My Lords, on the other hand, the Justices' Clerks' Society is for it. One of the points that the noble Earl, Lord Fortescue, made, was the unwillingness of the probation officers. The Conference of Chief Probation Officers has repeatedly welcomed this proposal. When the noble Lord said that two months was not a deterrent, I would take issue with him. It is generally accepted at the moment that it is the first few weeks or days in prison which act as a deterrent before the person gets used to it and is institutionalised. With great respect, if one has not been in prison—and most of us have not—it is probably impossible to judge the effect of this. I think that two months is a deterrent, but this provision would also be helpful in emptying the prisons.

My Lords, this is a subject about which I know very little. My instinct tells me that there is a great deal of merit in the amendment. I should like to support it. However, with regard to Clause 7, why should a man who fails to comply with the requirements of his licence not be made to go back and serve the rest of his sentence? If he has to serve an additional sentence of only a maximum of 30 days, he may end up with less sentence than the courts gave him in the first place, although having broken the terms of his licence.

My Lords, there is one small thing. Obviously, I support this amendment. I have my name to it. My noble friend Lord Fortescue says that it will put an extra strain on the probation service. Even if there is an extra strain on them, the probation service have said they like the idea. The lack of strain or the release of strain on the prison service will outweigh any extra strain that might be put on the probation service.

My Lords, at the Committee stage the noble Lord brought to the House a proposal for a scheme for supervised release which my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway showed to be mandatory and in which the element of discretion was entirely executive. After much discussion, he prudently took it away and he has now, as he threatened, brought it back. It has undergone a certain amount of surgery in the interval with the result that the court now does have a discretion. In what the noble Lord sees as the normal way of things, an offender would still leave custody, under supervision, after only the first third of his sentence has run but in what are, I suppose, intended to be exceptional cases the court will have the power to disapply that decision and the noble Lord has sought to quantify the number of occasions when that would happen.

So it may be, my Lords, but the discretion is important in more than one respect. The discretionary measure may have mitigated one of the features to which the judiciary have taken exception but at the same time it has opened the arrangement to one of the objections which the noble Lord and his friends, apparently have to the alternative scheme, at present in the Bill, of partly-suspended sentences. We were told, were we not, that the benefits to the prison system of that scheme—our scheme—were uncertain, since no one could tell how the courts would choose to use their power? To the extent that this discretion meets the objection that the courts must be free not to apply supervised release, it becomes open to the objection that the numerical benefit to the prison system is uncertain and potentially small.

Now that is not an academic consideration, because the noble Lords opposite—and not only opposite, either—have sent up a very great cry at several critical junctures that what this Bill lacks is any certain impact upon the excessive number of people in prison. If the concession the noble Lord claims to have made is a real one, this measure now joins those others whose effects are uncertain. If it is not, his gesture to the judiciary is a hollow one and will not serve to commend his proposal to them.

My Lords, I must intervene on this answer. The argument about the suspended sentence is that the range is from plus-4,000 to minus-4,000, roughly speaking. You have a figure of 6,000 in the figure here, which may be reduced by a percentage. If it were reduced by 100 per cent., you still have nought. There is absolutely no question of its going widely the other way, and the analogy is quite false.

My Lords, I do not know that the analogy is false, but I am merely using the arguments in exactly the same circumstances that the noble Lord has used them himself against my discretionary scheme. I was told that the scheme that we have in the Bill is discretionary and will not therefore certainly reduce the prison population, whereas the scheme produced in the amendment when it came to this House at Committee was automatic and it would not reduce the prison population. That was the principle reason that it was commended to your Lordships. Now your Lordships opposite have introduced the discretionary element and if you had done so in an unfettered way, as it is in our arrangements, then the noble Lord's amendment is open to exactly the same objections as what is in the Bill. If, on the other hand, he had not, then it does not meet the objections of the judiciary which it claims to do.

I noted with interest the arguments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, that release on parole reduced the likelihood that an offender would reoffend and be reconvicted. But that surely is an argument for selectivity in the parole process, and to the extent that this is a mandatory scheme that is lost. So, what he is arguing for is selectivity and not automatic release.

What I have said so far merely places the noble Lord's proposal at the same level for consideration as what is already in the Bill. That alone would not be enough to persuade your Lordships to prefer the Government's plan to theirs. But is not, of course, the only consideration, and the Government are acutely conscious of this because the debate which now occupies your Lordship's House is to us a very familiar one. It has already been argued within Government itself when we ourselves faced the choice between a discretionary scheme of partly suspended sentences and a discretionary scheme of supervised early release.

What commends our scheme to us, my Lords, is that first that it is ready to hand. The power existed in the Act as we implemented it. Secondly, that it secures, where suitable, an even greater reduction in sentence lengths (to a quarter of the sentence as against one-third); and thirdly, there is the not inconsiderable matter of cost. If, as the noble Lords' opposite hope, their scheme was widely used and rarely disapplied, the actual volume of supervisory work would be very considerable indeed. That would cost money and that is always a consideration for Government. It is a consideration, of course, that must be carefully and even willingly gone into where there are certain or even hopeful benefits perceived. But the regrettable fact is that the benefits of supervision in this case are very much less indeed than certain.

The comments that the Government received upon the likely benefits from schemes of compulsory supervision over short periods of unwilling clients make us despondent of any great benefit—particularly so since prominent among those with grave doubts was the probation service itself—and the noble Lords who have advanced the case of supervised release with such conviction this evening had better remember the even greater conviction with which they told me on Monday that it was irresponsible to fly in the advice of exactly that service upon professional matters.

My Lords, as the conference of chief probation officers is taking place at this moment I should be interested to know exactly to whom he is attributing these views.

My Lords, I am attributing them to the probation service, who run this. What we are offered—

My Lords, if the noble Lord says the probation service, I am asking him specifically what is the view of the conference of the chief probation officers. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said something wholly different on that point, and the noble Lord is appearing to contradict her and then when challenged he is saying that he is not prepared to specify to whom he is referring.

My Lords, I shall burrow into the background of my information and revert to that, as is my habit. What we are offered in place of our scheme—and it is a choice; I really do not think that we can have both in the Bill although the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, has not put down an amendment to remove what is now in the Bill, the two would sit very oddly side by side—one that could be made to work only at the expense of an elaborate and costly supervisory effort provided by a probation service that is already exceedingly hard worked, and that appears to be profoundly sceptical of its benefits, and if the scheme really did combine genuine discretion and the prospect of a greater reduction in the prison population, it might be worth preferring it to a partly suspended sentence, despite the disadvantages. But it cannot provide a significant element of discretion without eating equally significantly into the expected benefits to the prison system. What we would have is a scheme not perhaps dramatically worse than what we already have but something, nonetheless, that really is not as good and to be had only by much trouble and great expense. But it would be a deception to think that discretionary supervised release can conjure up a reduction in the prison population which is not available through partly suspended sentences. It is quite simple: the existing sentencing powers give the courts discretion to fix sentences no longer than the seriousness that the case demands. That is what the courts do. The Lord Chief Justice has made that clear to this House himself. The power to suspend all or part of a sentence enables the courts to reduce the amount of the sentence which the offender actually serves. Discretionary supervised release will achieve no more than that—indeed, given that the proportion of the sentence to be served would be fixed at a third of or two thirds, it offers less. There is no reason to suppose that the courts should find it possible to use this early release power more frequently than the power of partial suspension. By definition, a discretionary scheme could not compel the courts nor should it. On any basis, it is they who fix the lengths of sentences.

I had hoped to reply with chapter and verse to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, but I am not sure that I can pursue it through the index. I admire the aspirations of noble Lords opposite. I am not sure that I admire the way in which they deplore that fact that the Government have considered this matter at considerable length and as a result of their reflection have changed their mind as though that is an improper result of reflection. I think that a Government which cannot change their mind is likely to be in very great trouble. Nonetheless, I admire the aspirations of noble Lords opposite. I admire their ideals and their evident philanthropy but the hard fact is that what they have put before your Lordships is less flexible to the courts (because the discretion is all or nothing) and less welcome to the supervisory service (because an unwilling short-term clientele is the least treatable and rewarding to work with and the least likely to benefit).

My Lords, I have now been told that the answer to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is that I was referring to the National Association of Probation Officers.

My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord, He will, of course, appreciate what he said: he referred to the probation service, implying a unanimity of view. He has now indicated that it is one part of the probation service that he was referring to. It is a point of substance, as I think he may agree.

My Lords, yes, it is a point of substance; but it is a prestigious body involved in this work. Your Lordships told me to ignore their advice at my peril only two days ago. I quote their advice in support of my case and I do not see why I should be denied that pleasure. I was saying that it would be less welcome to the taxpayer because that same supervisory effort, though of limited and doubtful benefit, will give rise to certain and inescapable costs. I think it will be less welcome to the prisoner, who would stand to serve a slightly larger portion of his sentence. Those various counts all add up to a great many discontented customers. I hope that your Lordships, too, will feel discontented and will follow me to the left below the Bar if the noble Lord presses this to a Division.

My Lords, I do not think it would be right to pretend that this decision was in any way an easy one for the Government to take. I say that at the outset. In the middle of last year I was consulted by Home Office officials, at the request of the Home Secretary, on his own proposals. On that occasion I ventured to give a number of opinions. I was only giving a personal reaction at that time, and the first important point I put forward was that I hoped this was not going to be called "parole", because it was not. It was, in fact, an early release system; there was no qualitative judgment on the individual cases coming before anything approaching an institution like the Parole Board itself. It was in fact an early release scheme and there was a principle of automaticity. There are problems about automaticity and about imposing a form of supervision on people who do not want to be supervised. I accept that at once. Though I do not object to the Government's changing their minds, the warm agreement being expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on this point disguises the fact that it was his Government who were putting forward the proposal in the first place.

Exactly, my Lords.

My Lords, the noble Lord has just made the point that the Government have changed their mind, and asked: should they be censured for that? No, of course they should not. But I think that a number of us are concerned about the character of the new decision. I do not believe there is any serious comparison at all between the partially-suspended sentence and what is proposed in this amendment.

First, as to the numbers concerned, the claims made by the enthusiasts for the partially-suspended sentence are pretty modest and, as my noble friend Lord Donaldson has pointed out, it is possible that there will be an increase in the size of the prison population rather than a reduction. I do not propose to become involved in that argument all over again, but that is the real situation. On the other hand, my noble friend Lord Hunt has pointed out that, as far as this amendment is concerned, we could be facing an increase in the number of people subject to supervision by the probation service in the community of somewhere in the region of 6,000. If I may say so, that demon- strates the very substantial differences that exist between two schemes.

Of course the Government were faced with a very difficult position at the end of last year. We know there was some opposition from some members of the judiciary. I do not want to become involved in the argument as to who were consulted, but it would not be right to suggest that all members of the judiciary were consulted on the matter, because that is not so. The problem undoubtedly was that there was some significant judicial opposition to what was proposed, and there was opposition from the Magistrates' Association and also from the National Association of Probation Officers. I would not dispute that. I believe there was dispute about that, just as there was over the original parole scheme itself, as far as the National Association of Probation Officers was concerned; and I do not think they were too keen on community service either, so far as I can recall. I make this point because it is right to recognise that the Government did face a genuine difficulty. But the problem we face in this matter was not really dealt with at all by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, because, as he well knows, the problem is one of what is to happen in the prisons.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln was discussing conditions in one of the grieviously overcrowded local prisons in this country: Lincoln. When I last went to Lincoln Prison just after the POA dispute, the Governor told me there was a great possibility of breakdown in that prison. What did he mean by that? He meant that the main services and the whole of the sewage system could basically bust up as a result of the sheer pressure of numbers in that institution. That is what we are talking about when we refer to prison over-crowding. It is not simply a question of discomfort—though, heaven knows!, there is plenty of discomfort—but the real problem is one of an imminent breakdown of the service. This has been dealt with by the former first independent Inspector of the Prison Service, the late Mr. Pearce, in his first annual report. Those of us who go to prisons are aware of the great concern of the entire prison service about what is now happening.

What is the Government's approach to this? We have Clause 29. I believe that will one day be implemented. I must say to the Minister—and I apologise for coming back to a point which a number of us made on Committee stage—that of all the possibilities the Government have examined, the least attractive option of all is the executive release system which is set out in Clause 29 of the Bill. It is now even worse because of the exceptions which have been made—this is the view of many experienced prison governors—which will cause widespread unrest if it is ever implemented. I repeat that there is a high degree of likelihood that it will have to be implemented because, if it is not, we shall have a total breakdown of the prison system.

That is the problem the Government faced, and although I recognise only too well the difficult character of the decision they had to make, I fear they have made the wrong decision. I think the proposal of my noble friend Lord Hunt answers the difficulties and, if I may say so to the noble Earl, Lord Fortescue, when he said that the powers of magistrates would be dangerously reduced, there is in fact a power to dis-apply, so that the magistrates, as the Crown Courts, also, would have to make a judgment in each case as to whether they were going to dis-apply or not. To come back to the point that was made by everybody who has spoken on this debate, there are a series of choices and I think that this is by far the most sensible way of dealing with it. I think there would be a greater degree of public sympathy and support for this approach, certainly as compared with the executive release scheme which, in my view, will cause widespread public anxiety. I will gladly give way to the noble Lord.

My Lords, the noble Lord was good enough to give way so that I might intervene. I now have before me the submissions of the National Association of Probation Officers, the Conference of Chief Probation Officers and the Central Council of Probation and Aftercare Committees, all of whom express grave reservations. I think it right to put that on the record. The noble Lord was then addressing himself to the overcrowding, which we are all aware of; but what your Lordships have to accept is that we want a method that will produce certain results, and this method is no more certain than what we propose and it has certain disadvantages.

My Lords, I accept that. When the noble Lord mentions reservations, of course there are reservations among many institutions which have been consulted. The question, however, is whether they opposed the Government's proposal in principle or whether they did not. We all have reservations on virtually every possible scheme we have been considering. There are painful and difficult choices in this matter. I believe the Government have taken the wrong decision and that, if this amendment is not carried and not added to the Bill, we shall be driven into the executive release scheme, which I believe will be a profound error and will cause widespread public anxiety and further trouble in the prisons.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Harris for making an admirable summing-up speech, which saves me from making one myself. I do not think it would be the wish of your Lordships that I should go into the argument again. I valued enormously the contributions made in the debate on my amendment, and I should particularly like to say how much I valued the intervention of the right reverend Prelate. There is only one point which I am in duty bound to clear up. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, referred to subsection (7) of my amendment, and asked why a person who infringed his licence should not come back and serve the whole balance of the sentence. If he looks at subsection (8), he will see that there are two conditions in which a person could be recalled; one for breach of his licence and the other for committing a further offence. The breach of his licence may be for not keeping appointments with a probation officer on a number of occasions. It is the much lesser offence, although to be deplored, and not the criminal offence, in any sense, that is catered for in subsection (7). Therefore, I hope that the noble Earl will not feel that that is wrongly drafted.

Your Lordships have listened to a very interesting interchange between what I had to say at the beginning and what the noble Lord the Minister said at the end. Late on 28th June, when I made a slightly longer speech, I was not sure whether I would be meeting in the semi-final today the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, or the noble Lord, Lord Elton and which encounter I looked forward to most. I enjoyed enormously what the noble Lord had to say and I hope that he has not taken personally any remarks that I made; for instance, about the Government changing their minds. I change my mind very often, on reflection. All we are asking the Government to do is to have the courage to change their mind again.

I should like to mention one point, about which there has been a lot of discussion; that is, the attitude of probation officers. It is perfectly true that the Conference of Chief Probation Officers has expressed reservations about having adequate resources. But subject to that, they have welcomed this and I know that that is the attitude of the Central Council of Probation and After-Care Committees. As regards my friends, the National Association of Probation Officers—and I was their president for something like seven years—I would only say to them that, whereas on many occasions they reflect correctly the attitudes and concerns of the probation officers, they being the professional body and trade union, I believe that they are quite wrong on this occasion, as they were wrong in 1967 in not opposing, but expressing strong doubts about, parole. I do not believe that those strong doubts, which they believe to be in the best interests of probation officers, are shared by many probation officers in post around the country.

There is nothing more that I need to say, except that I propose to divide the House, because I believe that this amendment puts down a marker for those of us who will not accept that, with more than 44,000 prisoners in establishments whose certified normal accommodation is 37,000, we can go on as before, with the courts putting away offenders for ineffectually long periods in prison, as opposed to non-custodially out of prison—many of them in the scandalous conditions of local prisons—and notwithstanding the time required, to say nothing of the cost, to build more establishments to contain those prisoners.

I put it to your Lordships that we should not rely on the proposition of the partially suspended sentence, or on that sentence alone, with all the reservations and doubts which have been expressed about it and which were aired during the Committee stage of this Bill. Suspended sentences have largely failed, because they have failed to support those on whom they are imposed. Nor do I, with my noble friend Lord Harris and others, believe that we should await a breakdown in the administration of our prison system, and wait for a crisis to arise, before resorting to the early release proposal, which it is suggested the Home Secretary should have as a power of last resort, in a crisis. That is quite the wrong way to approach the prison problem. Something more effective and more continuous in its effects must be introduced into this Bill, and I suggest that this amendment does it.

In conclusion, this really is not a measure which is put forward by "wets", unless your Lordships like to consider me in that category, nor by people who have scant regard for law and order. We are moved as much by pragmatism as by considerations of humanity. We are convinced that law and order are better served in this way. So having given an all-party lead to an amendment which I believe can be fitted in, in addition to the partially suspended sentence, although it creates more difficulties, I urge your Lordships—and I wish that I could be heard in the Bars and lounges—to give a non-party lead by coming into the Division Lobby in favour of this amendment.