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   Minister proposes tougher sentences for knife crimes
The attorney general has proposed "a new adult starting point of 25 years for murder where an offender aged 18 or over takes a knife or other weapon to the scene of the crime with the intention of using it to commit any offence, or to use it as a weapon, and uses it in committing the murder". Baroness Scotland of Asthal told the Lords yesterday that the proposals "are intended to provide for more transparency and a greater degree of consistency in sentencing". "There will be no initial cost and the provision will have no cost for 15 years from the point of implementation, but will increase each subsequent year over a period of about 45 years, which is when the provision will have reached its maximum impact," she said. The Conservative spokesperson for justice, Lord Henley, was concerned by the "question of the definition of a knife or other weapon". He was also concerned that that increasing the figure to 25 years for those aged 18 and upwards and leaving the figure for those under 18 at 12 years "will create a big discrepancy and the government might want to look in future at whether it might not be appropriate to raise that figure for the under-18s." He also thought that "there were other ways in which this matter could be addressed rather than by simply increasing the minimum". Lord Wallace, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for justice said the courts should ultimately be free to determine the minimum sentence by taking into account all the factors. He was concerned that there were too many inconsistencies within the provisions, and claimed they were "born out of a concern that what we have here has come from the school of thought of 'something must be seen to be done' rather than from taking a step backwards and working out what is the right thing to do". Source: ePolitix.com Copyright Dod's Parliamentary Communications Ltd
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