House of Commons Hansard Debates for 12 Nov 1990

Mr. Waddington : One must examine separately discretionary and mandatory life sentences. I shall reply first with regard to discretionary sentences, with which the European Court of Human Rights dealt the other day. We have only just received the judgment. I am studying it carefully and, of course, I shall come to the House as soon as possible to tell it our conclusions.

I cannot predict what precise effect our proposals in the Criminal Justice Bill will have on the prison population. Although its overall effect will be beneficial in that regard, it certainly would not be right to present our proposals as being designed to get rid of prison overcrowding. It would be easy to do so, but wrong. It is not my job to keep out of prison those who, in the public interest, should be there.

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Therefore, we have been right to get on with the prison building programme. The recent encouraging fall in the prison population--down by more than 4,500 compared with two years ago and by more than 3,000 compared with a year ago--has enabled us this year, and will enable us in 1991-92, to spend more money on refurbishment, particularly on the programme to end slopping out.

In the preparation of the Criminal Justice Bill we have not discovered all the causes of crime or identified all the ways to prevent it. We shall undoubtedly be presented with numerous glib analyses today. I fear that Labour's first response to rising crime is almost always to blame society or the Government or both, but rarely the criminal.

Labour Members used to say that the number of reported offences had increased because we had created what they chose to call a "loadsamoney economy". It was an insulting way of putting the point and almost as though people should not have the cars, televisions and video recorders which, as often as not, are the targets of thieves. Nevertheless, there was more than a grain of truth in what they said. There is, indeed, much more property about to steal than there was 10 or 20 years ago. The recent disappointing figures showed that, with much of the increase due to theft of or from cars.

Now, Labour Members sing a different tune. The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook recently told the annual general meeting of Crime Concern that he was convinced by the argument that

"a decline in our sense of community coupled with a renewed growth in unemployment"

goes some distance to explaining why crime is increasing. Not that is to my mind a particularly insulting diagnosis to those people who suffer misfortune in their lives and put up with hard times, yet never dream of turning to crime.

Clearly, there is much about which the Opposition will never agree, but there are many things about which we can all agree, and the first is that the fight against crime needs the active support of us all. The Government, the police and the community are all in it together. The Government's principal role is to encourage an awareness in the community of what people can do to help themselves, to further crime prevention schemes, such as the safer cities programme, and to see that the police are properly resourced. I have been impressed by the co-operation between local authorities, the police and local residents in the operation of the safer cities programme. I am delighted by the positive attitude of local authorities, playing a part in all the projects, and I pay tribute to them.

No one can question this Government's support for the police. Between May 1979 and May 1990, the total number of police officers in England and Wales increased by 15,096. In 1990, 1,100 uniformed police officers were added to the 126,000-strong establishment. Provision was also made for some 1,200 more civilians, so releasing more policemen from desk jobs for operational duties. However, there is no point in providing new officers unless they have the equipment they need to do the job. I was pleased to announce last week that we are increasing our support for police capital expenditure by nearly £60 million in the next year. On top of that, I was also able to announce a further increase of 700 uniformed officers and 1,300 more civilians.

I have mentioned the Home Office Bills in the Queen's Speech, but there are other matters that I want to bring before the House when time allows. I have already

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announced that I intend to take the first opportunity to create a new offence of prison mutiny to deal with the kind of events that we saw at Strangeways. I can confirm today that we intend to introduce legislation to cover the proposals contained in Lord Justice Taylor's report into the Hillsborough stadium disaster. He recommended the creation of four new criminal offences to deal with disorderly behaviour at football grounds.

The Government have considered his proposals and concluded that they would provide valuable new measures to help control hooliganism at football grounds. The sale of tickets on the day of the match without the authority of the home club, throwing missiles, chanting obscene or racist abuse, and running on to the pitch without reasonable excuse would become offences. We believe that it is right that in the context of football those activities should be unlawful because of their implications for order. We shall bring proposals before the House as soon as parliamentary time allows.

In a speech the other day the right hon. Gentleman offered to make "common cause" in the fight against crime, but I doubt Labour's commitment in that regard. Last week the right hon. Gentleman reaffirmed that he wants to put the police forces of this country into the hands of those local authorities whose mischievous antics have brought such shame on his party.

Far more important was his promise to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. How on earth can he reconcile that promise with the rights, freedoms and responsibilities which we are debating today? What of the rights of those killed and maimed by the IRA? Will others who are threatened be better protected by the right hon. Gentleman's commitment? Would the freedom of all of those faced with the evil menace of the IRA be more secure if one of our weapons against the terrorists was scrapped? What sense of responsibility does the Labour party have when it talks of scrapping a power which a Labour Government introduced, and the value of which the Labour party recognised year after year until a different breed of Labour Member came into this place in 1979? The right hon. Gentleman knows that he should have had the courage to stand up against them.

We will be carrying on the fight. We will remain firm to the principles which have guided us over the years. We will certainly continue to see that the rights and freedoms of the British people are protected and enhanced, and that a proper balance is struck between freedom on the one hand and responsibility on the other. 5.17 pm

Mr. Roy Hattersley (Birmingham, Sparkbrook) : The Home Secretary was kind enough to remind the House that the topic for today's debate chosen by the Opposition was identical to that which we chose a year ago. My opening comments are identical to those of a year ago. By his speech he demonstrates that he is neither psychologically nor intellectually equipped for his office. I do not propose to play his game. Instead, I shall talk about the real issues facing this country and the concerns covered by the topic that we have chosen for debate.

I offer my unqualified support for one sentence in the Gracious Speech :

"My Government will vigorously pursue their policies in fighting crime."

I hope that the Government will have more success with those policies than they have had in the past 10 years.

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September crime figures were the worst recorded in our history. They showed an increase of 70 per cent. since the 1979 general election. That is a humiliating record for a Government who were elected on the specific promise to strengthen law and restore order. The Government's failure to curb and control crime is another reason why they are unfit to hold office.

On Thursday, the Home Secretary told the country that spending on law and order had increased by 70 per cent. since the Government were elected in 1979. If that is the case, the taxpayers are entitled to complain that they have had nothing like value for their money. Of course, nobody claims that the Government are directly responsible for the whole increase in crime, but there is no doubt that they have escalated that increase. At one end of the crime spectrum the "get rich quick" mentality, so much the theme of the Thatcher years, has fostered a contempt for the law typified by the Guinness trial.

It has also been typified by the Home Secretary's refusal to condemn the unlawful behaviour of his friends at Sky. At the other extreme is the argument that I made some days ago, and shall continue to make, about the increase in crime as result of unemployment and poverty. When I made that point, I was quoting from a Home Office working document. The Home Secretary is perfectly entitled to refute it if he wishes to do so, but to condemn me for quoting it is a new view of ministerial responsibility.

Mr. Waddington : What is the right hon. Gentleman quoting from?

Mr. Hattersley : I am quoting from the same document that I quoted from six months ago when the Minister of State--no longer in his place-- then intervened to say, "That one doesn't count. It was written by the man with the earring". No doubt the Home Secretary will be able to find the man with the earring whom his Minister identified. He will then obtain the working document, which I have in my possession and which I shall gladly send him, which says that unemployment and the fear of unemployment contribute to the increase in crime.

My principle charge today is not that Government policy causes crime, but that the Government have done far too little to contain the epidemic. Instead, they have tried to blame everyone else, for example, victims who they say do not take sufficient care of their property--the Home Secretary said that again today--and chief constables who are said to be deficient in their duties and should be the subject of performance assessments. Everyone is to blame except the Government.

For a decade, a fundamental error has prejudiced Government policy. The emphasis has always been on solving crime and creating a deterrent to crime by imposing severe sentences on those who are caught and convicted, but that strategy contains two fatal flaws. Only one crime in four is ever solved, so criminals do not go around with the constant fear of detection and punishment. Perhaps more important, by expending so much time on headline-catching promises about tough sentences, attention and energy has been diverted from the much more important subject of crime prevention.

The Home Secretary persists in saying that the Government took the lead on crime prevention long before anyone in the Opposition thought about it. I must warn him that I propose to retaliate with force next week

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with the worst punishment at my disposal--I shall quote from my speeches of 10 or 15 years ago. I know that the Home Secretary regards that as the ultimate deterrent and I propose to use it against him if he persists in saying that he, and only he, has thought about crime prevention. The Home Secretary is in the reverse position--he must take part of the blame for the emphasis on punishment as distinct from the emphasis on prevention. He must know from the evidence that capital punishment will not cut the murder rate. He parades his support for it to ingratiate himself with the diehards in his party, but in doing so he prejudices the whole crime debate.

Prevention is far more important than capture and conviction as the stiffest sentences never compensate for the material loss and psychological trauma of a burglary or a mugging. However, throughout almost the lifetime of the Government, crime prevention has been relegated to the second order of importance. That is exactly the point made by Lord Justice Tumin, Her Majesty's Chief inspector of prisons, in an article entitled "Prevention better than Punishment", which appeared in The Times on Tuesday. His message was that "jail should be reserved for the most serious criminals" and that prison regimes should not be judged according to whether they are "nice or nasty" but according to the effect that they have in preventing those who inhabit them from committing further offences. For some men, young men in particular, prison ingrains their criminal tendencies. The reform of prisons is an essential part of the war on crime.

In my view--I detect that somewhere buried under what the Home Secretary said today it is his view as well--the war against crime should be based on a partnership between the police, people and local authorities. It is the Government's duty to reinforce and encourage that partnership, yet they have allowed the police to become dangerously overstretched--more overstretched than at any time in recent history. Local authorities have been positively discouraged from playing a proper part in crime prevention, but people have been expected, privately and individually, to carry more of the responsibility for crime prevention than they can successfully discharge.

I gladly pay tribute to neighbourhood watch, crime concern and the public's involvement in the safer cities project--limited geographically and in terms of funds though that initiative may be. Such schemes are to be encouraged and should be developed, but unless they are matched by more direct action they can make only a marginal contribution to crime prevention. I propose to describe how a better contribution should be made and I shall take first the police. The Home Secretary says that no one can doubt the Government's commitment to the police, but the police doubt it. I am astonished that he has not learnt that during a year in which his relations with the police have sunk lower than those between any Home Secretary and the police for a long time. I make my position absolutely clear--there is no doubt that we need substantial increases in police manpower, effective manpower. We should not have increases on paper, but real increases in police houurs devoted to real police duties. Establishments have been increased in the past 10 years--usually, each increase has been announced several times to give the impression that it is greater than it is. However, often the new recruits have been financed by reductions in

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overtime, which have reduced the net increase that the new establishments provided. More important and more damaging is the fact that police officers continue to perform tasks that should be discharged by civilians. More important and more damaging still is the fact that because the police have had heaped upon them new and often inappropriate burdens, their resources do not match the crisis that we expect them to face and overcome.

Last week the chief constable of Durham described to me the problems that his force faces in conducting a prolonged murder investigation. Dozens of detectives have taken hundreds of statements, recorded under the provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Those detectives are then obliged to type up their interviews when they should be pursuing their inquiries as detectives and not acting as copy typists. They are required to undertake the long process of one-finger typing because the authority cannot afford to employ audio-typists. That is the direct result of pressure on local authority spending created by the poll tax and the revenue support grant. It makes nonsense of the claim that the Government are providing all the resources necessary to allow the police to do an effective job.

The Government have certainly increased the obligations on the police and some of them, PACE for example, are undoubtedly necessary and should be applauded. Nevertheless, they are time-consuming. Some of the new burdens are not so much unnecessary as positively undesirable. Police time should not be spent pursuing overseas visitors who have overstayed the time specified on their visas ; nor, to echo the words of the chief constable of South Yorkshire, should police officers be used as a debt collecting agency for poll tax defaulters. The performance of such a task drives a wedge between the police and the community whom they serve. Such tasks are also a scandalous waste of police time.

The police want to get on with their business of real policing, freed, as they said to me at the Police Federation's annual conference at Scarborough this year, from the impertinent claim that they are the property of this Tory Government. For the police to discharge their duties effectively, they must be convinced that society values their service, but the Government behave in a way that seems to be positively intended to undermine police morale. The Government vetoed the arbitration judgment, which increased housing allowance, and in doing so broke their promise always to implement the Edmund Davies award. The Government threaten the essential confidentiality of the central police computer by turning it into an independent agency. They are risking the efficiency of the forensic science service by requiring it to sell off its goods and wares to police forces as if it were a private contractor. The Government insist that tasks that are the proper resonsibility of the police should be performed by untrained employees of private security companies. Instead of all those issues, the Gracious Speech should have contained the diametrically opposed provision-- a proposal for the licensing and regulation of the private security industry.

Mr. Rowe : I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman intends to be absolutely clear in his speech. May we then expect a Labour document defining precisly those activities deemed to be wholly appropriate to the police and those deemed not to be? He has already complained

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bitterly that police are involved in pursuing people who will not pay the poll tax or keep the law, but also that several other functions have been taken away from the police.

Mr. Hattersley : I do not want to be absolute about that, because a chief constable has obligations and responsibilities. As the Home Secretary will be the first to say to his hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe), it is not for politicians to tell chief constables what or what not a police officer should do. The hon. Gentleman may, but I do not, want politicians to have tactical control over police forces. However, I want the House to stop imposing specific, undesirable burdens on the police force. The poll tax provision that I described, and the pursuit of

overstayers--visitors who have extended their visa limits--are not a matter of general definitions, but duties and burdens imposed by the House, which should stop doing so and instead act in the interests of good policing.

The third element of the essential coalition is local government. The best councils want to work enthusiastically with the police. Two weeks ago I was in Keighley, where the local authority recently completed a pilot scheme that tested the sort of practical, perhaps prosaic policy of better locks and lighting, and more facilities for the young unemployed, which was once sneered at as an element of crime prevention. As a result of such improvements and interest in crime prevention that the scheme generated, crime in the district had fallen, year on year, by 81 per cent. The scheme was a success, but the council was unable to extend it to other districts that would benefit because the money was simply not available.

The small sums allocated by central Government to local government for crime prevention--for example, in the city of Birmingham, £250,000 was allocated for the safer cities project--in no way compensate for the £20 billion loss of rate support grant that councils have had to endure throughout England and Wales in the past 10 years. As a result, hard -pressed local authorities without any specific crime prevention obligations naturally concentrate their efforts and spending on other sectors. The Gracious Speech should have included the promise to impose a statutory duty on all local authorities to introduce crime prevention measures. That duty should have contained the obligation to include crime prevention in local authority development plans and planning permission criteria.

I repeat that reform of the penal system is an essential part of the war against crime. The Criminal Justice Bill is based on that principle. Although our detailed debate on those proposals will take place in a week or two, I propose to say something about the Bill in a moment, as the Home Secretary has done. Before I do so I shall deal with other aspects of the Gracious Speech, both inclusions and omissions.

First, at a time when there is an increasing public determination to end racial discrimination in this country, the Gracious Speech said not a word about the disadvantages suffered by black and Asian British, or ways of ending them. The Police Federation commits itself to eliminating any sign of racial discrimination in its ranks. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis urges greater efforts to stamp out racial attacks. The Army promises to take action to ensure equal opportunities. But the Home Secretary is wholly silent on the subject. I know that racial equality is not a subject that enthuses him, but

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it enthuses the Opposition. We propose to take action to eliminate racial discrimination after our victory in the general election.

Mr. Waddington : The right hon. Gentleman should be careful about what the says. I was at Bramshill the other day to show my support and take part in a seminar organised by the police on some of the very matters that the right hon. Gentleman raised. If events are taking place in the police force of which he approves, I cannot see how he can say that the Home Office is doing nothing. We have been fully involved in those initiatives and are proud of that. We are paying a great deal of attention to such matters and I am doing my level best to promote all such initiatives and am proud to do so.

Mr. Hattersley : I am glad that the Home Secretary intervened, and he can do so again immediately after my next paragraph, which deals directly with the question : what should the Home Office be doing that it has not done, and does not do? The Home Secretary knows that, while the Criminal Justice Bill was being drafted in the Home Office, officials--I am assured that they were senior officials--approved clauses to impose a duty on courts to end all racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. Those clauses included the provision of ethnic monitoring of sentences. We know that ethnic minorities are more likely to be sent to prison than their white contemporaries, and stay there for longer.

Those clauses were drafted in the Home Office, but none of them appears in the Bill. Would the Home Secretary like to intervene again to say why not?

Mr. Waddington : For what it is worth, at no time since I came into the Home Office have I ever seen any such draft clauses or anything remotely like them. If the right hon. Gentleman's imagination is running away with him, he must be responsible for it. We can certainly debate whether it would be desirable to spell out in black and white on the face of the Bill that there should be no discrimination throughout the criminal justice system, but the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that if we were to do so, we should merely be restating what is the law now.

Mr. Hattersley : I hope that the Home Secretary is not telling me that no clauses exist in draft form in the Home Office.

Mr. Waddington : I have not seen them.

Mr. Hattersley : The Home Secretary says that he has not seen them, but that may be a confession of his incompetence. Is he telling me that they do not exist? If he is not, we can pursue the matter on Second Reading.

Mr. Waddington : What was the last question?

Mr. Hattersley : Do such clauses exist? Does the Home Office have them ready if the Home Secretary approves them?

Mr. Waddington : They clearly exist in the right hon. Gentleman's imagination, but I have never heard of them or seen them.

Mr. Hattersley : May I urge the Home Secretary to inquire into the matter when he returns to his Department tonight or tomorrow? That is the first issue that does not appear in the Gracious Speech.

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Another issue to which no reference is made, even though the Home Secretary was kind enough to refer to in in his opening passage, is broadcasting, even though we are promised, and anticipate, secondary legislation this Session in the form of orders to regulate the operation of satellite broadcasting. I have several questions to ask the Home Secretary and it is clear from what he said at the beginning of his speech that not only does he not know the answers, but he does not know the crucial questions in this matter.

I do not expect the Home Secretary to intervene straight away. All I ask is that he notes the questions, does his best to understand them and obtains answers, not necessarily by the winding-up speech tonight, but by tomorrow or the end of this week. I could not be more reasonable in my request. All we ask for is answers to the questions, which are crucial and which up to now the Home Secretary does not appear to have appreciated.

The questions have achieved a new importance because of the de facto merger between British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky and the conversation on the subject between the Prime Minister and Mr.Rupert Murdoch. I know that the Prime Minister's meeting with Mr. Murdoch was kept from the Home Secretary and he did not know about it until newspapers told his office. However, I assume, putting aside the usual contempt of the Prime Minister for her Ministers, that the Home Secretary has now found out what went on.

It is silly, and an insult to the intelligence of the House, to say that Mr. Murdoch merely mentioned the matter to the Prime Minister and it was not regarded as being in any way important. Mr. Andrew Knight, chief executive of Mr. Murdoch's empire in this country, said that Mr. Murdoch has only two or three meetings a year with the Prime Minister and that he began with some casual conversation on the subject of BSB and Sky. That sort of explanation is wholly incredible, and in the light of it I want to ask the Home Secretary some specific questions.

First, I wish to give the right hon. and learned Gentleman another chance to answer a question that he has already refused to answer. Does he share the view of the chief executive of the new Independent Television Commission, that BSB is not entitled to pass on its contract to Sky, and that Sky transmissions are now being broadcast through BSB dishes unlawfully?

Mr. Waddington : That is certainly my understanding. I think that there was a clear breach of contract, but as I pointed out earlier and as the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, that is a matter for the IBA ; and the IBA, as a consequence, is perfectly entitled to terminate the contract that it made with BSB. I thought that I had made that abundantly plain.

Mr. Hattersley : That leads us to the next question. Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman give us advice as to whether the Prime Minister understood that this was an unlawful operation when she discussed it with Mr. Murdoch? I suspect that, as usual, the Prime Minister, believing herself to be omnipotent, thought that she understood what she was talking about and gave Mr. Murdoch to believe that he had tacit support for his wilful disregard of the provisions in the Broadcasting Act which was passed a few months ago.

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How does the Home Secretary propose to ensure proper respect for and compliance with the Act that he sponsored last year? Does he believe, for instance, that, after the merger is complete, the DBS satellite--the old BSB satellite--must be kept in use, or is he content with satellite broadcasting in this country developing merely around Rupert Murdoch's inferior Astra technology?

My second question is directly related to the Home Secretary's specific legislative duties during the rest of this year. What regulations does he anticipate will govern the conduct of the new merged authority? Originally, it was thought that the quality requirements imposed on channel 3 and channel 5 broadcasters would not be necessary because satellites were competing with each other. Now there are no competing satellites. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman believe that quality obligations must be introduced through secondary legislation?

Thirdly, what is the Government's position on the ownership of newspapers by satellite broadcasters? We were told last year that secondary legislation would be introduced to place a limit on BSB newspaper holdings. We were also told that, for a variety of reasons--I shall not go into them- -this would not apply to Sky. Will the limitations on newspaper ownership apply to the new merged Sky and BSB company?

In short, what do the Government believe should happen now? Are we to have secondary legislation limiting cross-ownership--the sort of idea that was going to apply to BSB before Mr. Murdoch took it over--or, now that Mr. Murdoch is involved, is the new company to be given the preferential treatment which he was previously going to enjoy with Sky? The crucial question is : is Mr. Rupert Murdoch to be given special treatment again as he was when he acquired the Sunday Times, The Times and Today and as he was when Sky was absolved of the obligation placed on BSB?

In the past, the Government have done Mr. Murdoch favours as a mark of their gratitude for the way in which he has helped them to win general elections. Now that, with or without his help, they are going to lose the election, is there any hope that they might behave with a little integrity?

Mr. Waddington : The right hon. Gentleman is very free with his insults, but he must not make snide allegations of dishonesty against individuals unless he is prepared to make them outside the House. He knows perfectly well what I said before about what was discussed at the meeting. Even if Mr. Murdoch had said in plain terms that he was about to sign an agreement with BSB, that would not have been a statement that he was going to behave unlawfully, because what appears to be unlawful, or contrary to the contract signed between BSB and the IBA, is the fact that no warning was given to the IBA and that it would seem that there might be a controlling interest by a non-EC body in the new outfit.

As none of this was discussed at No. 10, it has no bearing on the right hon. Gentleman's allegation--so now let us come to the specific question-- [ Hon. Members-- : "Briefly."] I will not allow the right hon. Gentleman to make snide, nasty remarks imputing dishonesty without coming back at him, and he had better get used to that. We intend to put a 20 per cent. ownership limit on newspaper interests in DBS. That is what we always said we would do. We always said that there would be no

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similar limitations on the newspaper interests in pure satellite broadcasting, for two reasons. First, the practical reason--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker) : Order. Surely some of this could be left to be rebutted in winding up.

Mr. Waddington : With respect, I was asked a specific question.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Even the Home Secretary does not have the right to make a second speech.

Mr. Waddington : With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it would not be customary to ask leave of the House to speak again, so I have but one opportunity to reply to the questions put to me by the right hon. Gentleman. If the right hon. Gentleman does not want me to reply--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has the right to intervene if the right hon. Gentleman who has the Floor gives way--but intervention should be brief.

Mr. Waddington : I shall try to be brief--

Mr. Hattersley : I told the Minister that I would be happy to receive his answers on a future occasion, but I do not want to quarrel with you, Mr. Deputy Speaker--I shall let the Home Secretary do that. I shall accept whatever ruling you make.

Mr. Waddington : We made it plain that we would conduct matters in this way, first, for reasons of practicality, because the satellite company can uplink from abroad. Secondly, we recognise a world of difference between the Government imposing restrictions on ownership of scarce frequencies allocated by Government, and imposing restrictions on satellite broadcasting in which there is scope for diversity of different channels. As for the right hon. Gentleman's last point--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I have an obligation to preserve the rights of other right hon. and hon. Members who want to take part in the debate. I very much hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will bring his intervention to a conclusion.

Mr. Waddington : I can swiftly deal with the last point. I cannot say whether the contract for DBS will be re-let if the contract with BSB is terminated. It will be a pity if there is no contract for DBS, but that is outside the Government's control and it is quite likely a matter for the market.

Mr. Hattersley : What I find extraordinary about that intervention is that the Home Secretary had it all ready to read out but did not feel it right to read it out during his speech. He could have encapsulated the principle in a single sentence. When BSB was independent, newspaper ownership rules were to be imposed upon it. Now that it is associated with Mr. Murdoch, those rules are not to apply. The country, like the House, will regard that as a disgrace. I want to make our position on this subject plain. Immediately after the Labour Government are elected, we shall ask the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to examine the concentration of media ownership in this country--newspapers as well as television and radio. We

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shall ask the MMC to make specific recommendations on how the present unacceptable degree of concentration of ownership can be split up.

Another topic omitted from the Gracious Speech and connected with newspapers was the Calcutt report. Will the Home Secretary confirm--I am reluctant to ask a question lest he should answer--that it is still his intention to implement the Calcutt proposals for statutory regulation if the newspapers do not accept the Calcutt last-chance offer to put their own house in order?

When the Calcutt report was published, the Home Secretary was admirably firm on this matter, and he had my wholehearted support. Cynics outside said that the firmness would disappear as the general election approached. I would be grateful if his Minister will confirm that it is still intended that Calcutt will be the last chance before statutory action. I know that the industry is setting up a commission to supervise self-regulation and that a code, not quite the Calcutt code but a code of sorts, is being drawn up. I want to be told explicitly that, if that code is broken, the statutory route will be followed.

That leads to my next question about Calcutt. Some of the Calcutt recommendations propose changes in the law that are not directly related to the code. I shall give the obvious example. It is recommended that taking a photograph of a person on private property without the explicit permission of that person should be an offence. I assumed that the Home Secretary was going ahead with that statutory element in Calcutt. I am glad to see him nodding. I would have been more reassured if I had found that proposal in the Gracious Speech. The Taylor report is not mentioned in the Gracious Speech but apparently proposals about that will be brought before us this year. We shall examine the Home Secretary's proposals, some of which are right. Proposals about throwing missiles and about racial chants are right. We want to examine carefully the dangerous matter of running on to pitches without adequate reason. I am against people running on to pitches, but I am worried about the definition of "adequate reason", and we shall look carefully at the legislation's small print.

I should like to refer briefly--because that is all that the Home Secretary's remarks deserve--to his comments on the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989, before finally speaking to the main legislative item. He does himself, his Government and his cause no good by, for the narrowest and cheapest of political reasons, trying to suggest that there are some hon. Members who do not detest terrorism and wish to exterminate it in this country. I can think of nothing that would give the IRA more pleasure than to believe that what the Home Secretary says is true.

We have had what I knew would be the general statement on terrorism. I take this opportunity to reaffirm, because it is right to do so whatever the Home Secretary says, the general determination of the House to obliterate terrorism in the United Kingdom. In a free Parliament and a democracy, there are different views about how that can best be achieved, but no one should have any doubts--this is directed particularly to the IRA--about our united determination to achieve the basic objectives.

I shall make only one comment about disagreement on tactics. I do not propose to talk about the Government's practical record, lest that should give heart to our mutual enemies, but nothing has happened in the last 10 years to entitle the Government to dismiss out of hand the Labour

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party's prescription for greater success. That prescription says that tough action against terrorism has to be matched with the determination to do nothing that alienates the law-abiding majority. That has always been our pragmatic objection to the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and it remains our objection.

We also have an objection in principle. The simple injustice of long periods of detention without charge or judicial examination during which there is no access to legal advice is a matter of principle that the Government should take seriously when they consider the consequences of the wrongful conviction of the Guildford Four, the Maguire family, and, as I think will soon be demonstrated, the Birmingham Six. The new Criminal Justice Bill could have been the opportunity to ensure that such injustices occur more rarely. I regret that such injustices will never be eliminated, but their incidence could have been reduced, and, the chance has been missed. It gives me no pleasure to say that there has never been a time in modern history when the British people were less confident about their criminal justice system. Many, although not all, of their doubts are misplaced, but there is no doubt about how they came about. The doubts have been encouraged by judges who impose preposterous sentences accompanied by absurd opinions, by notorious miscarriages of justice, and by a whole variety of allegations--most of them unjustified--against the police. The police have reacted to allegations more rationally than the Government. The police see immense advantage to themselves in an independent system of investigation of police complaints. That is what the police want, and I promise that they will have it after the next general election. The Government could have done much to quieten other fears by adding three radical but simple proposals to the Criminal Justice Bill. They could have improved the provision that a defendant cannot be convicted solely on uncorroborated confession evidence. They could and should have included additional safeguards to ensure that suspects are properly represented.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton) : The right hon. Gentleman speaks about conviction on uncorroborated confession evidence, and I know that he takes the matter seriously. What would he say to a woman who has been raped and whose only evidence is what she says on oath actually happened? Some time later, the man can get rid of all the forensic evidence against him and what remains is the woman's word. Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to go into the next general election saying that the single woman complaining without corroboration can never bring to justice the man who raped her?

Mr. Hattersley : The hon. and learned Gentleman asks a politically hard question, and I shall give him the intellectually hard answer. First, I did not talk about the evidence of the victim against the man who had been charged. I talked about confession evidence, a confession by the man who has been charged and against whom there is no evidence apart from what he said when he was interviewed immediately after his arrest. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked a question which was different from the point that I was making, but I shall do my best to answer it, because I take the matter seriously.

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The rules of evidence to protect the innocent in cases about which one feels deep sympathy have to be applied with equal rigour to cases of a different sort. We cannot say about cases for which we have such sympathy that the rules of evidence which are generally regarded as right and proper can somehow be forgotten. That is not an easy answer, and some people will criticise me for giving it in this particular. The serious point about evidence is that, by and large, the rules have to apply in all cases and the innocent have to be given the opportunity to protect their innocence.

The Criminal Justice Bill should include the creation of an independent review body to investigate suspected major miscarriages of justice. The Maguires, the Guildford Four and, I believe, the Birmingham Six demonstrate the need for that reform. I have no doubt that the inadequacies of the present appeals system are the result of the narrow legal confines within which judicial appeals are now bound and limited. Some cases need to be looked at again from start to finish without the prejudices--I use the word in its least pejorative sense--that result from a liftime spent in the legal professions. Anyone who reads the appeal case of the Birmingham Six and others has the terrifying suspicion that, if what was said on their behalf had been said to a tribunal that was not exclusively made up of judges but had perhaps a majority of judges and some representative, intelligent, informed laymen, the examination would have been different and the outcome might well not have been the same. A new tribunal must be set up to examine cases of long detention. I repeat that it will include judges, but it will also include laymen who will examine the whole issue from a wider perspective.

The second great omission, apart from the absence of a proper civil rights dimension in the Rent Bill, is its failure to make any serious inroads into the scandal of remand prisoners. That scandal was highlighted in national newspapers by the case of Mr. Terry Marsh, who spent 10 months in prison before he was tried and acquitted. Respect for civil liberties requires us to reduce the number of remand prisoners and the time that they spend on remand. Our desire to reduce the prison population also stems from that respect. That chance has been missed.

I emphasise that my questions are rhetorical and ask the Home Secretary, why is the rule that all defendants must come to trial within 112 days of committal not immediately put into operation all over England and Wales? Why have London and the south-east--where the problem of delays in bringing prisoners to trial is most acute--been exempt from that rule? Why is there no proposal in the Bill for a tightening of the criteria in the Bail Act 1976?

The number of remand prisoners in gaol has doubled during the life of this Government. The legal provision--that bail is granted unless a strong case can be made against it--should be made more explicit, and the law should require that the principle be uniformly applied. Perhaps most important of all, to reduce the time that is wasted in court, a court inspectorate should be established to report to the Lord Chancellor on the efficiency of the courts' conduct and operation. At present, the courts too often operate for the convenience of judges, barristers and solicitors. To free the courts and to get them moving, that sort of restrictive practice ought to be ended.

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It would be ended by a genuinely radical Government, and it will be ended by a generally radical Government after the next general election.

That having been said, I repeat my unqualified support for the principle that underlies the Criminal Justice Bill. Of course a custodial sentence is very often the most appropriate sentence for crimes of violence and sexual offences. Sometimes, men and women have to be imprisoned to protect the community ; the Home Secretary and I are at one about that. We are also in agreement that very many men and women now in prison should be serving their sentences in the community.

At least, I think we are in agreement. Sometimes, the Home Secretary agrees that prison corrupts rather than reforms. He described prisons in the News of the World --a dangerously radical journal by the Home Secretary's standards--as "universities of crime" and implied that the time had come to change both the syllabus and the minimum entrance requirement. However, on other

occasions--launching the Bill was one of them--he takes, or appears to take, quite a different view. Unless he gives a clear and unequivocal lead, the Criminal Justice Bill will not reduce the prison population to the extent that is essential.

The Governor of Armley prison told me on Friday that his inability to build the proper relationship with prisoners--to prevent the tragedies that have occurred at that prison, and to have some hope of preventing prisoners from offending again--required him to have more resources : prison officers as well as new and better buildings. The right ratio of staff to prisoners will not be achieved simply by recruiting more officers ; it will be achieved only by a substantial reduction in the prison population.

I very much welcome the emphasis of the public expenditure White Paper on improving old prisons--ending slopping out, for instance--rather than the slower process of building new ones. But the only way in which we can make prisons work--to cut crime--is to achieve a substantial reduction in the prison population.

I offer two other reasons for introducing more sentencing within the community. First, it is cheaper. It costs £20,000 a year to keep a man in prison which often achieves nothing at all. Secondly, alternative sentencing is more satisfying for the victim who has been mugged or burgled. Retribution may be sweet, but restitution is usually sweeter. On that principle, it is important that, wherever possible, alternative sentencing--sentencing within the

community--should be related to the offender's making good the loss or damage.

I hope--although I am not sure, even from what the Home Secretary has said today--that that is common ground between us. Today I shall not deal in detail with any of the other areas of cross-party agreement--video recording admitted in evidence for child cruelty cases, or unit fines in magistrates courts. Nor shall I describe at length our opposition to the privatisation of court escort duty, the privatisation of remand and the fatuous proposal for electronic stagging, which merely fulfils the purpose of getting the other Minister of State on television during each summer recess. Now that he has had his moment of glory, that proposal should be buried as the inoperative and useless proposal that it is. More detailed comments must wait for the Second Reading debate on the Bill. I shall simply end by describing again my forebodings about

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