What assessment has been made of the effectiveness of the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme? In 2022, my office received 819 requests to review unduly lenient sentences. Of those, 139 were referred to the Court of Appeal, and the sentence was increased in 68% of cases.

What steps will the Government take to review the unduly lenient sentence scheme to cover cases such as that? I welcome much of the work being done. As the Solicitor General will be aware, a serving Royal Navy sailor was the subject of a violent attack in Torquay when he attempted to stop a group of yobs stamping a bird to death, but the unduly lenient community sentences and small fines handed down did not reflect the gravity of the offence or provide any deterrent.

Could the Solicitor General make it clearer what the scheme is about and spread the message more broadly? I regularly write to him to say that a sentence has been too lenient. I recently wrote to him about Bernie Ecclestone, who I thought should have been severely punished for his behaviour. I have also sometimes written to the Solicitor General and his predecessors about too severe sentences, often involving women who have not conducted any violent crime but get long sentences. Can we have a balance, please?