Making his House of Commons debut this week as the as-yet-unsworn-in lord chancellor, Alex Norris (pictured) declared that he would do away with the ‘longstanding injustice’ of indefinite prison sentences once and for all. Not only that, he would be working with ‘two committed advocates for IPP reform’: former Conservative lord chancellor Robert Buckland and former Labour home secretary David Blunkett. Yes, readers, David Blunkett, the former home secretary who introduced IPP sentences in the first place.
In Blunkett’s defence, he has never shied away from blame. ‘I got it wrong,’ he admitted to the House of Lords in 2021. Three years later, he told the Guardian that ‘what has happened with this sentence is the biggest regret I have in terms of the outcome of all the many things that I was involved in in the eight years I was in government’.
Back to Norris’s debut. Obiter has become accustomed to fiery exchanges between the justice secretary and their shadow counterpart, so was intrigued to see the new boy keep it friendly with former policy wonk Nick Timothy MP. ‘I do not know him well, but I know that he, like me, shares a love for this country and that everything he does is seen through that prism,’ Norris said. ‘My commitment to him is to work with him. There will be times, perhaps even including today, when we will need to disagree in the best traditions of this place, but I know there will be a lot that brings us together over the months and hopefully years to come.’
No news yet on whether Norris’s boss will scrap his predecessor’s plans to curb jury trials. We wonder how long the détente will last.
No comments yet