Sir Julian Lewis: I was struck by the example that my right hon. Friend gave of someone who committed a vicious assault getting only 12 months, and now getting no months and no prison time at all. Of course, it could work the other way round: it could be that when a judge is forced to confront the fact that if he gives a sentence of only 12 months for a vicious attack the prisoner will walk free, he will feel that he must make the sentence somewhat longer – in which case the Government’s plan to free up a prison space will not even work, will it?

[Robert Jenrick (Shadow Secretary of State for Justice): My right hon. Friend may well be right. A number of the policies introduced by this Government have had the most extraordinary unintended consequences. The Secretary of State said earlier that a number of people have been recalled. That is because of the failure of the Government’s policy; it is because they let people out on early release when they should not have been let out. Who knows what the unintended consequences of these policies are? …]