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Chamber

Plenary, 15 Mar 2007

15 Mar 2007 · S2 · Plenary

Item of business

Custodial Sentences and Weapons (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Fox, Colin SSP Lothians Watch on SPTV

The purpose of the amendments is to address what has been widely accepted as an anomaly in the bill—the fact that offenders who receive 14-day sentences serve longer in custody than those who are sentenced to periods of 28 days. The bill insists that those who receive sentences of 14 days or fewer must spend the entire time in custody—not the 50 per cent of the sentence that they currently serve, nor the 75 per cent that will apply to all other prisoners under the bill, but 100 per cent of the time behind bars, so to speak. Clearly, it is nonsense that getting a shorter sentence means serving longer in custody. That patently undermines the bill's objective, which is to make the justice system clearer and more understandable to the general public.

At various stages of the bill, the minister has argued that hardly any sentences of 14 days or fewer are handed down by sentencers. It could be argued that that gives us all the more reason to leave the current 50 per cent custodial part of the sentence alone. However, as the minister knows well, hundreds of fine defaulters end up serving such a sentence although a non-custodial disposal was suggested to be far more appropriate in the first place. Fine defaulters—persons for whom the court did not consider prison to be the appropriate disposal—now spend longer in custody than more serious offenders.

The plethora of evidence that the committee received included a submission from Sacro, which said that it considered the imprisonment of the least serious offenders to be misconceived. However, we are about to ensure that those offenders spend even longer in custody than more serious offenders. Frankly, many people would think that that was nonsense.

During the earlier stages of the bill's passage, the minister argued that we ought not to underestimate the fact that longer sentences also attract a community part under licence. However, under that licence, the offender simply promises to be on good behaviour; otherwise, they get to spend the rest of their time in their own bed and in their own community. Lesser offences attract more severe punishments. My amendments seek to rid us of that silly consequence by keeping the current sentence provision at 50 per cent of time being served. As I said, that is in keeping with the rest of the bill, which, after all, declares that the minimum period in custody should be 50 per cent, rising to 75 per cent if the sentencers so decree.

I am sure that the minister will agree that I listened intently to what she said at stages 1 and 2. Amendment 16 is reasonable, balanced, fair and proportionate, and will avoid the public ridicule that will inevitably greet a bill with such complicated and counter-intuitive provisions and under which people who are on longer sentences will serve proportionately less time in prison than those who are on shorter sentences. I ask Parliament to support this very sensible amendment.

I move amendment 16.