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Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks) : I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate. I shall try to be brief so that my two hon. Friends who wish to participate have time to speak. I would say to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) that in this debate on rights, freedoms and responsibilities, many of us would regard it as among our first responsibilities as Members of Parliament to ensure that we pay our taxes. Whatever side we are on--whether as Labour Members who disagree with the community charge or as Conservative Members who disagreed with the high rates of taxation suffered by the whole country under a Labour Government--we, above all people, should pay our taxes.
Mr. Harry Barnes : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hague : I am afraid that I shall not give way because the hon. Gentleman had half an hour on this subject, which is more time than is available for three of us on the Conservative Benches. No doubt we shall hear many more half-hours of speeches from him on this subject.
I should like to support two measures promised in the Gracious Speech that should strengthen the sense of individual responsibility throughout the country--one is the Criminal Justice Bill and the other is the road traffic legislation, which I know is not within the direct responsibility of my hon. Friend the Minister, but I shall refer to some aspects that relate to Home Office matters. Those matters were debated on Friday.
I warmly support those Bills, but I wish to draw attention to the difficulties that we face in ensuring that certain groups of young people live up to the responsibilities that the law places on them, and to point out that, although the measures proposed will help to combat the problems of under-age drinking and driving and the general incidence of teenage crime, still more action may need to be taken in future.
The road traffic Bill includes some welcome provisions. We have probably all been visited in our surgeries by the relatives of people who have been killed by drunken drivers--drivers who have subsequently received what seemed to be derisory fines and penalties. A prison sentence of up to five years is an appropriate penalty and I hope that it will be used to the full by the courts. There is a case for considering still longer periods for which to withdraw a person's driving licence, and the provision for a new test to be taken before a licence is reissued is an excellent idea.
I suspect that the considerable problem of under-age drinking when driving will remain. That is because in many licensed premises it is fairly easy for people under the age of 18 to obtain alcohol, just as it is easy for those under the age of 16 to obtain cigarettes elsewhere. It may seem churlish to criticise those involved, but when the wide availability of alcohol is combined with a recently passed driving test, the consequences can be terrible.
I raise the subject for a constituency reason. My constituents in Wensleydale in north Yorkshire have recently been shocked by a series of road accidents associated with under-age drinking and driving in which
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16 and 17-year-olds have suffered horrific injuries. For a while, victims' friends and local communities may reflect on those matters and act more carefully, but after a few months, all is forgotten and the same thing is likely to happen again. There is a particular problem in rural areas, where alternative forms of entertainment are sparse, where policy resources are stretched and where roads are unlit and dangerous in winter.I should be the first to accept that it is not easy for us in the House to protect people from the consequences of their own actions, but I think that we can do more to help in the future. The measures announced in the Gracious Speech will help by making far more serious the personal consequences of drink-driving, but we also need a stronger effort in many schools and, possibly by Government Departments, to combat under-age drinking and driving. Over the years, campaigns on smoking, drugs and AIDS have succeeded in making an impact on people in their late teens. It may be time to give more attention in public health campaigns to alcohol and, in particular, to its connection with road accidents involving young people. Some of my constituents, including many pub landlords, believe that the answer to the problem lies in some form of identity card. The landlords argue that they frequently serve alcohol to 16 and 17-year-olds because many of them look 18 and because they have no means of knowing for sure how old they are. I suspect that there will be many years of debate in the House before any decision is made to introduce national identity cards, but the potential for helping with under-age drinking is definitely one argument in favour.
The other measure in the Gracious Speech that should lead to an improved sense of responsibility is the Criminal Justice Bill, although I have some reservations about the progress that we are likely to make in reducing crime among the teenage population. There is no doubt that many of the provisions of the Bill will help. They include the doubling of the number of hours of community service that may be imposed on 16-year-olds and the general use of community service orders--for many young offenders an option far superior to prison, which clearly does not do many people a great deal of good and does not turn them away from crime.
Curfew orders, fines more related to the ability to pay and the increased power of courts to hold parents responsible for the actions of their children are undoubtedly good ideas, as is the attempt to ensure that prison sentences are for the most serious crimes while other measures, such as fines and community service orders, are deployed against more petty offenders.
I am not sure, however, that those measures will be sufficient in the long term to cope with a small class of persistent offenders in the teenage population who, in recent years, have blackened the reputation of their generation and undermined public confidence in the ability of the police to ensure that law and order are maintained.
My constituents and others in the north of England, including police officers, tell me that, in some areas, more than half the crimes are committed by people under the age of 17 and that those in that age group are particularly heavily involved in the theft of cars. In one area, I have heard about gangs of an average age of 16 who go out to steal cars each evening. Having stolen a car--usually of the more sporty, high-powered variety--they don ski masks and cruise past the police station blowing the horn and inviting pursuit. We are being naively optimistic if we
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think that restraint will necessarily be imposed by parents. I am told that, in that same area, parents of children under the age of 17 send their children to break the windows or steal the car tyres of people against whom they hold a grudge. Perhaps the provisions off the Criminal Justice Bill will help to deal with that.There is a danger that a sort of professional criminal class will develop among the teenage population. I accept that custody is not necessarily the answer to that either. In many instances, young people can immediately produce a business card with the details of their solicitor when caught. Public confidence in the rule of law is reduced because of the difficulties that the police have in catching people who commit those perhaps petty but often repeated crimes. The real danger to public confidence sometimes arises when such persistent offenders are caught.
As one of my constituents wrote to ask me, what are we to do when persistent young offenders who are known to be such in their areas are not remanded or ever taken into custody even after many warnings and fines that are then followed by more offences? I absolutely agreed with my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison). He drew attention to the continuing role for deterrence. We sometimes forget about that. One of my constituents wanted to know what is to be done when a young offender is to appear in court, and knowing that he has nothing to lose because new offences committed since the notice of the intended prosecution will be ignored, embarks on a so-called crime spree. My hon. Friend the Minister may tell me that such things do not happen very often. However, many people believe that they do happen and that belief alone damages confidence in the courts and in the police.
While I congratulate the Home Office on its proposals, how confident are my colleagues in the Home Office that their planned changes will not make it even easier for young offenders to seem to get off lightly even after a long string of offences? The penalties imposed in those cases must be seen to bite. We must ensure that community service orders are sufficiently long, curfew orders sufficiently strict and parental fines sufficiently heavy to make an impact on that group of young people. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to assure us that the effect of the combination of those measures will be monitored and carefully researched and that the Government will be ready to tighten the measures further if the need arises in future.
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Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South) : Perhaps I can assist the hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) in his researchers. He might care to visit Massachusetts and consider the experiment carried out there many years ago which reduced juvenile crime and recidivism greatly simply by acknowledging that some juveniles are delinquent and that they should be taken out of the system at a very early age and then rehabilitated back into the system. However, that requires money and investment.
The new Criminal Justice Bill lacks any provision to deal with a growing scandal about which I have spoken to the Minister privately--the young people who kill
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themselves in our prisons. Inquests are held week in and week out. Prison suicides are increasing. We must ask ourselves why that is happening.The press releases issued after the Queen's Speech announced with pride that the prison building programme was to have three of its proposed sites chopped out--one at Fazakerley, one in
mid-Staffordshire and one elsewhere. It was stated that there would be enough room within the present prison system. We have the most disgraceful prisons in Europe. The conditions are appalling ; people kill themselves there. But nothing is being done about it. There is only one way to deal with the Armleys of this world, and that is to bulldoze them. If we are to have prisons, they should be used intelligently and, for goodness sake, they should be made hygienic. At least then we might begin to rehabilitate people instead of turning them from petty criminals into potentially professional villains who can only harm society.
If a little common sense is used and we invest in ascertaining the potential delinquents at an early age and try to rehabilitate them, and if we then find that there are people whom we must send to prison--I am not soft on crime and punishment--at least we will send them into humane conditions and we might rehabilitate them. We might at least put them somewhere where they can learn a trade or become educated and are not locked up 23 hours a day idling the hours away, spending their time talking to a cellmate and learning how to do the job better next time.
We delude ourselves by playing the endless turne of making sentences longer and then trying a new kind of punishment such as keeping people contained in their houses. That is a load of garbage. We already know that the tagging system cannot work. The tags go off as a result of interference from all kinds of external sources. There is just one thing missing from the Queen's Speech. What do the Government intend to do to recreate a manufacturing base in this country? They will not encourage industry with high interest rates. They might have fallen a point and they might fall a couple of points more as we approach election day, but what are the Government going to do? What will they do to encourage inward investment instead of allowing capital to flow out like water through a sieve, as has happened for the past 12 years?
Perhaps the Minister of State might indulge me with the answer to one question that has baffled me for the past two months since I read it in a Dublin newspaper. How is it that the Republic of Eire, without vast oil resources or the hundreds of billions of pounds that we have had to throw away in the past 10 years, with an agriculture-based economy, with a migrant work force, and with no industrial base and skills, can arrive in October this year at an inflation rate of 2.8 per cent. while we, with all that oil money, landed up with an inflation rate of 10.7 per cent.? Could it have helped our economy not to have had the oil and, for once, to have learnt something from the Irish?
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Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton) : I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, the police and all those involved in the arrests and the discoveries in north-west London earlier today. It is the breakthrough for which we have been waiting for several months. We are delighted, and we hope that it leads to convictions.
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There are many Bills in the Gracious Speech that I would welcome, but first I single out two rather complex Bills for which we have been waiting for some time : first, to revise the planning system and, secondly, to improve the assessment, collection and enforcement of maintenance payments--very much the theme of this debate. Two nuggets that I also welcome are the provision of a second Severn crossing in the south-west, which will help my constituents and industry near my constituency, and, at long last, the implementation of the Horne report to reform procedures for street works so as to ensure that utilities dig up the roads in a consistent and co-ordinated way. With regard to crime and related matters, I welcome the Criminal Justice Bill. I also welcome a piece of legislation for which I believe the Department of Transport is responsible, to toughen the penalty system for drink drivers who kill. In my constituency much concern was caused by the tragic death of a teenager, Joanne Cruwys, and the rather paltry sentence that was meted out to the man who, while very drunk, killed her. That matter was referred, under legislation that the House passed some years ago, by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General to the Court of Appeal. As a newspaper article stated last week, the gaol term and the ban from driving were extended. I welcome that and I look forward to legislation to ensure that we do not have to go through such a palaver and that parents and families do not have to go through the agony of seeing such matters prolonged.As we implement what is contained in this commendable Queen's Speech we shall also be preparing our programme for the next Parliament. This Parliament has seen legislative revolutions in many aspects of our national life. Some of the measures that we have passed still await full implementation--for example, electricity privatisation and national health service reform. The jury on those matters is still out.
My constituents, like many others in the west country, are suspicious of drastic, rapid and frequent changes. They are not always carried along by rhetoric. They want to now thke bottom line--"How much will it cost me?" That is a good Tory response to any legislation, and thousands of my constituents are good old-fashioned Tories, although they are not entirely happy at present. For example, they require more persuasion on the issue of NHS trusts. I note from the local press that my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) agrees with my caution on that subject.
Similarly, my constituents have been slower than people elsewhere to introduce grant-maintained schools. I am not against grant-maintained schools, but we need to proceed with caution, certainly in my area. I therefore welcome the assurances, as reported in the press this morning, by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science on education vouchers. The watchword for the next Parliament and for my party must be steady progress and improvements in public services, standards, quality, value for money and equity, and more caution towards administrative and structural upheaval--in other words, positive and constructive consolidation. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will bear those words of caution in mind if they are called upon in the next few weeks, with whatever attendant reluctance or risk, to use their own rights, freedoms and responsibilities.
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9.14 pmMr. Jacques Arnold (Gravesham) : In the brief time available to me, I should like to express my support for the War Crimes Bill because British justice and British honour are involved. We have unwittingly provided sanctuary to the people accused of terrible crimes. Now that that is known, we cannot leave it there. These crimes were crimes then. We are asking that those people be subject to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the courts of this land like any other British residents. That is all that is being asked of the House and Parliament. I hope that this time we shall see the legislation through on to the statute book.
We have heard much in recent days about an impending Labour Government, and many people outside wonder what such a Government would be about. But why study the crystal ball when you can read the book? The Labour party is in power in town and county halls throughout the country. Its track record is open to study in Liverpool, Brent and Ealing, where it was chucked out by its enraged charge payers last May, and in Haringey, Lambeth and Greenwich. With records like that, in supposedly reformed moderate Labour councils, no wonder the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) has been so energetically laying down a smoke screen in recent days. We should blow away that smoke screen and look at some facts and figures.
First, Labour claims that there is no difference between the amount of community charge levied in Conservative and in Labour-controlled councils. In a press release from the Labour party on 18 April, we were told that the average poll tax in Conservative and Labour councils hardly differed. Let us look at those facts. Hon. Members need only go to the Library to get the facts for the average community charge for areas that are either Conservative unitary authorities, London or metropolitan boroughs, or which are under Conservative shire county and district councils. There are 95 such authorities, and the community charge in them averages £333. In the Labour-controlled areas--sadly, there are 73--local people suffer an average community charge of £384--
Mr. John Evans (St. Helens, North) : Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the poll tax is a fair tax?
Mr. Arnold : Well, £51 may not be a lot of money to the hon. Gentleman who yelled out, but it is certainly a lot of money to most of the people who have to pay it.
Mr. Evans : The hon. Gentleman voted for it.
Mr. Arnold : Well, those figures mask the reality. We forget the impact of the safety net all too easily. That is the system whereby residents of prudent Conservative authorities are obliged to subsidise the residents of wasteful Labour authorities. If we were to strip away the surcharges and handouts, we would find that the Labour party's arithmetical inexactitude is almost a case for reference to the Advertising Standards Authority. Having done that, we find that totally Conservative areas have an average community charge of £305, compared with the rip-off in totally Labour areas of £412-- [Laughter.] Opposition Members may think that this is a laughing matter, but a differential of no less than £107 per head for the privilege of voting Labour has a devilish impact on the charge payers of those areas.
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Let us look at those rip-offs. Were it not for the generosity of the Government's safety net, people in the London borough of Greenwich would be paying £620. As it is, the rest of us are subsidising Greenwich residents to the tune of £212 per head--just because Greenwich has a traditionally wasteful Labour council. Lambeth's real rip-off is £575, not the £548 that it has tried to levy on local people. Haringey's is £573. Southwark would have to charge £550 were it not for our subsidy of £160. I could go on and on. I represent the people of Gravesham and I resent the fact that each of my constituents has had to pay £15 towards those spendthrift Labour councils.One could call those figures a competence test and Labour councils would be found wanting. But how about the incompetence test? That is best measured by the level of contributions in the collection account. This year, inevitably, an estimate has had to be made, but next year the figures will be based on the actual record. That track record is already becoming evident. By August, in Conservative collecting authorities 83 per cent. of people had paid. In Labour authorities the figure was only 74 per cent. By the end of October the figures had become even clearer. In a study by The Guardian, the worst four collectors were all Labour controlled. In Hackney, 44 per cent. have paid nothing. In Liverpool, 42 per cent. of charge payers have paid nothing. In Lambeth, the figure is 40 per cent. Indeed, Lambeth has still not collected the rates from the previous system and has not closed its accounts since 1984-85. In Nottingham, 30 per cent. have not paid. That is not particularly surprising as Labour councillors, and indeed Labour Members of Parliament, give little encouragement to pay and put strongly the counter-arguments to paying the community charge. Thirty hon. Members backed the campaign of non-payment, as did many dozens, if not hundreds, of Labour councillors around the country.
In Gravesham, the leading Labour councillor, Tina Deadman, is leading a non -payment campaign. She is prepared to use council services but leaves it to other, less well-off people in the borough to pick up the bill. I thought that the Labour party was moderate and sanitised in this day and age. It is high time that it expelled Councillor Deadman and her like for her defiance of the law and lack of consideration for poorer constituents.
Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of councils have got on with collection. The figures now show that over 90 per cent. of people are paying. That is not dissimilar to the proportion who previously paid the rates. Some effective Conservative authorities are doing far better. Medina, which is a newly Conservative-controlled council on the Isle of Wight, has already collected from 96 per cent. of its charge payers. Gravesham has collected 93 per cent.
I could go through a litany of Conservative councils which are getting on with collection. Those figures will be reflected in the contributions next year to the collection account and chickens will come home well and truly to roost. Labour councils which have been least efficient or unco-operative in collecting their community charge will pass on that charge to their charge payers, who will know what to think.
One of the claimed virtues of the community charge was that the actual charge would be comprehensible to the
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electorate--an actual poundage figure. It would reveal the comparative performance of councils. That is now happening and there is no wonder at the frenetic activity of Labour Members.9.22 pm
Ms. Jo Richardson (Barking) : I do not know what the Home Secretary was worried about when he opened the debate this afternoon. He castigated us for choosing yet again--I admit it--the title of the debate. He was wrong to do so, because the House needs the opportunity that we provided by selecting this range of subjects to consider matters which may or may not be in the Queen's Speech but which some hon. Members wish had been included. Hon. Members needed an opportunity to give their views on rights, responsibilities and freedoms and show the House what they meant by them. Indeed, we heard some contrasting speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House.
Our discussions ranged from mid-Kent and transport there, to Iraq and the national health service. My hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) referred to the speech that she gave two years ago as an alternative Queen's Speech for women. It has all been interesting and enthusiastic stuff, which the Home Secretary should welcome.
The Tories have a negative concept of the term "freedom", which is presumably why they do not want to talk about it. They believe that, if the state does nothing to help and support people, somehow that increases each individual's freedom of movement. They emphasise individual responsibility, but fail to emphasise the individual's rights. That concept is a complete mystery to those of our constituents who are, for example, waiting for hip operations. It is no freedom for them to have to hang about for two or three years because the health service is not sufficiently responsive to provide a bed.
We in the Labour party have a positive concept of freedom. It emphasises individual choice and accepts that the Government have a role in providing the means which allow people to exercise that choice. It is nonsense to say that women with children are free to choose their work, if there is no child care available. That notion of choice is an empty piece of rhetoric.
One important aspect of this Session's legislation which epitomises those differences is presented in the White Paper "Children Come First". It places a strong emphasis on a father's responsibility to support his children financially. Although the Government have had many opportunities to do so, they do not recognise any corresponding rights which fathers could be accorded to encourage them to care for their children.
Why, for example, have the Government so consistently blocked the EC directive on parental rights which would open up opportunities for fathers to take leave from work to care for their children in the early stages of life? It is a good right, which would elicit a greater sense of responsibility from fathers. Instead, fathers are constantly labelled and stigmatised as merely breadwinners. I support the idea of fathers paying maintenance for their children. I am sure that we have all had many letters from women constituents who want to know where their husbands are and will welcome this provision. I am sure that everyone will. However, I do not endorse the idea that fathers should be viewed solely as breadwinners. They
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have or should have responsibilities for caring, too. How much more warmly I could have welcomed these proposals, if they had included a father's right to paternity leave on the birth of child, as the Labour party proposes.When the Secretary of State for Social Security made his statement to the House he said :
"the welfare of children is the prime consideration."--[ Official Report, 29 October 1990 ; Vol. 178, c. 729.]
Yet the most important factor undermining the welfare of children in a separated or divorced family is the poverty of the mother and children living on benefit. We must look carefully at the concept of maintenance to ensure that we are not confirming women in that position.
It is hard to come to terms with the idea that there must be parental responsibility for a child's actions, but I understand what the Secretary of State is saying. Yet what is the position of a mother who has been left by her husband or who has left her husband and has the double responsibility of being both parents and of following her children to court to see that they are all right? We must consider that double responsibility.
Central to the Tory notion of freedom is the free market, yet in so many areas of life that market fails to provide. It does not deliver training, child care or employment rights. It is that same free market morality that has helped to turn Britain into a bitterly divided nation. This is the first post-war Government to have turned the morality of Robin Hood on its head as they rob the poor to give to the rich.
Another important area of rights are those that a woman should have when she is expecting a baby. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) talked about the national health service, based on her expertise. Women have a right to expect good quality pre-natal and post-natal care and they should not have to worry about losing their jobs. They should also not have to worry about finding a hospital bed when the time comes to have the baby, but that is happening in my health authority.
Maternity rights should be available for all working women--the basic provision in every Community country. The extension of maternity rights to all working women would be a practical and equitable measure that would deliver real equal opportunities and social justice to many more women. I hope that the Government will support the proposed European directive that will guarantee women those rights. Sadly, nothing in the Government's track record gives me much cause for hope.
The Government claim to have improved life for women, but let us look at the record on independent taxation. The introduction of independent taxation was much vaunted and women thought that they would at last have independence in taxation, with the ability to fill in their own forms. Women should, of course, have the right to be taxed independently and equally, but the Government have a responsibility to ensure that that happens. Independent taxation has not meant equal taxation. A married couple might earn exactly the same amount of money, but the woman still pays more tax. In all but exceptional circumstances, the married couple's tax allowance goes to the husband, which hardly represents a major advance for women. The Conservative party's much vaunted ministerial group on women's issues has been a loud-mouthed, do-nothing group, which has failed to advance women's rights one iota. The five-point plan on child care has not led to the creation of even one more nursery place. That
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group is nothing more than a cynical piece of self-promotion and a sorry substitute for real action. The plain fact is that the United Kingdom is still at the bottom of the league in the provision of child care.The appointment of a woman Minister to be chair--I know that she does not like to be called chairman--of the ministerial group will do no more to advance women's rights than the sorry track record of the Conservative woman Prime Minister. In last year's debate, the then chair of that group-- still a member of it, as I understand it--claimed that he had improved opportunities for women in public life. I suggest that he should have started by putting his own house in order, because 96 per cent. of the cleaners employed by the Home Office are women, but only 2 per cent. of the professional and technical officers. That is something of a contrast. I hope that the Minister, now she has taken up her abode at the Home Office, will look to that. There were considerable opportunities for the ministerial group to implement some equal opportunity strategies--I hope that they will take those opportunities now.
I recently conducted an exercise on the visibility of women in the top ranks of the police throughout England and Wales. I hope that the hon. Lady will look at it--it is a sorry picture. It is shame that there are not more chief officers, superintendents, assistant superintendents and deputies, and that women are to be found only as constables and up to the level of sergeant. Women can have little confidence in the police when they see little reflection of themselves in the force.
Today, I attended an interesting conference across the road in the Queen Elizabeth suite, organised by the National Federation of Women's Institutes, which is not exactly a Labour organisation. Its members call it the sleeping giant. There were 800 women at the conference, and I wish all the hon. Members present had been there to hear them, because they had plenty to say about their position in society and the rights of which they fear they are deprived. They began to ask the panel what would happen when the sleeping giant woke up and made a few waves. I wanted to bring them all over here to make a few waves this evening, so that male Conservative Members could hear what those women were saying.
I brought the women to their feet when I said that the Lord Chancellor had recently stated that he hoped that there would be more blacks and women as judges, not this year, next year or the 1990s, but the next century. The women wanted to know why their talents and aspirations were so hidden and barrier-ridden that they had to wait until many of the subjects that the women's institutes had been discussing over the years are properly aired in the courts, and taken notice of and there are more women judges to help in that. The general thrust of this debate has been about rights. We are interested and concerned to hear what the Minister has to say in response. I have made a short summing-up speech because there have been so many speakers this evening. The Conservative vision of rights, responsibilities and freedoms is certainly not the same as the Labour one. We have a vision that is coming across to people in this country, who know that it can become a reality, but they know, and they cannot wait for it, that that reality will come only with a Labour Government.
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9.38 pmThe Minister of State, Home Office (Mrs. Angela Rumbold) : It is a pleasure for me to be here this evening to answer this interesting, wide- ranging debate in which there have been 19 speeches from Back-Benchers ranging across a series of issues, including the environment, health, education, the family, the citizen, urban life and the wider concerns of Europe and even the Gulf. All those have been within the context of this evening's topic--rights, freedoms and responsibilities. I shall do my best to respond to the points that have been made, but I hope that the House will be as indulgent as it usually is if I miss some of them.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) gave me some comfort for some of the time during some of his speech. He will not be surprised to learn that I was less happy with some of his other sentiments. The right hon. Gentleman said that crime prevention was the focal point of the policies of his party, and he dismissed the record of the Government, so I shall reiterate a little of what we have done in this area.
Crime prevention is and will continue to be an essential element in our response to crime. In recent years there have been substantial gains in this area, locally and nationally. The growth of neighbourhood watch schemes, driven by the desire of members of the public to tackle crime, has been phenomenal. There are now more than 81,000 such schemes in England and Wales. In many parts of the country police and local agencies are coming together to work in collaboration to tackle crime in creative and innovative ways. The right hon. Gentleman must understand that tackling crime is not merely a matter of Ministers standing at the Dispatch Box waving an imaginary wand over crime. Crime prevention has to do with collaboration between those working on the ground and citizens. Centrally, we have fostered this development and given it direction--most recently in the issue of a new circular and booklet containing guidance on best practice to all the relevant local services. The crime prevention handbook for the public, "Practical ways to crack crime", has been distributed to more than 4 million households, and demand for it continues.
Our safer cities programme, which the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook mentioned, has established 16 projects across the country supporting more than 700 crime prevention schemes. Central Government are supporting safer cities by meeting the cost of the salaries of the co-ordinating staff and through grant funding. Many of us spend much of our time visiting those centres to see the important work being done to prevent crime in our inner cities and urban areas. The right hon. Gentleman also promised that, were there ever to be a Labour Government, he would set about creating crime prevention schemes that would be led by local authorities, in partnership, no doubt, with central Government. But I expect that that would cost central Government, or at least community charge payers, some money. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has informed the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer about this commitment to extra expenditure by a future Labour Government.
The right hon. Gentleman also spoke of his commitment to the recommendations in the Calcutt report. I am glad to confirm that my right hon. and learned
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Friend will accept those recommendations and is examining the statutory framework for that and for including the sort of example--the taking of a photograph--that the right hon. Gentleman gave. I also want to explain to him the reasons for the inclusion in the Taylor report of the offence of running on to a pitch--something about which the right hon. Gentleman expressed some anxiety. He will recall that there is a proposal in the Taylor report to remove the fences round pitches. If they are removed, the offence of running on to the pitch would be a sensible precaution to take for security reasons--Mr. Hattersley : The hon. Lady will recall that I said that I had some sympathy with this idea and would look at the Bill ; but is running on to the pitch to be prohibited at all forms of public sport?
Mrs. Rumbold : No, we are talking purely about the Taylor recommendations for football.
Turning to the Criminal Justice Bill, the right hon. Gentleman asked about one or two incidents. He also asked about our aim to get cases from magistrates courts to the Crown courts on committal within 112 days. At present, only London and eight counties still operate outside this limit and we are hoping that an announcement on the final phase of custody time limits will be made before the end of the year.
The right hon. Gentleman also suggested the introduction of sentencing councils. I draw his attention to the fact that several people have called for the establishment of such councils as a means of securing greater consistency in the sentencing of offenders. The Government are not persuaded of the need for that. The courts will continue to benefit from the guidance issued by the Court of Appeal and the training provided by the Judicial Studies Board. In addition, they will have in the Bill our proposed statutory framework for sentencing. One of its main aims is to promote a more consistent approach to sentencing.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : What are the Government doing about remand prisoners in police stations in the Greater Manchester area? When I raised this issue, the Home Secretary nodded his concern. First, it is totally inappropriate for prisoners to be kept for long periods in police stations. Secondly, it is a large cost for the Greater Manchester police authority.
Mrs. Rumbold : My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary nodded his head when the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) made that point. One reason for remand prisoners being kept in police cells in the north of England is that the Prison Officers Association refuses to open the wings in Strangeways. Those wings are now ready to accommodate people and could perfectly well take them in. That would save the police force the unacceptable costs to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn our attention and would remove the unacceptable conditions in which people are held. I urge the hon. Gentleman to take up the matter with the Prison Officers Association.
I can tell the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook that the purpose of the Criminal Justice Bill is to achieve the correct and appropriate sentencing of offenders and thereby offer a positive response to crime. It is not intended to empty our prisons, however desirable that might be.
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The hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) said that she supported the provisions for the maintenance of children whose fathers have abdicated their responsibilities. The provisions are even-handed and will apply not only to fathers but to mothers if necessary.Ms. Richardson : Fewer mothers leave their kids.
Mrs. Rumbold : The hon. Lady is correct. However, she and many people would quickly accuse the Government of not being even-handed if we did not apply our maintenance provisions to both men and women. The hon. Lady condemned the Government for our policy on maternity leave. It is important to remind her that Britain has a longer period of maternity leave than any of our European partners. It is true that we do not pay some of the women for as long as some of our European partners, but much time off is allowed for women to have children. It is important to refute what the hon. Lady said about my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten). He is no longer a member of the ministerial group on women's issues. He has handed that responsibility to me. I strongly refute the accusation that that group has not conducted itself and its business very stringently. It has worked hard to produce its five-point plan on child care. Some of those measures are beginning to take effect and more will take effect in future.
The hon. Lady knows perfectly well that the simple test of writing something down and declaring it does not necessarily make it happen. Policies take time to work and I am confident that time will show an improvement. The five-point plan was issued just a year ago.
Ms. Richardson : My understanding is that the ministerial group has discussed only two subjects apart from child care. One is domestic violence, which I gather the group is against, and the other is rape in marriage. I and women in Britain wish that the Government would put some effort into making those two crimes totally unacceptable.
Mrs. Rumbold : I am grateful to the hon. Lady for telling me what the group has discussed. She is right : we have discussed violence and matters concerning rape, and I can tell her that things are definitely happening on that score. She also challenged me to say what else the ministerial group had said. As she may remember, it was set up in response to a call ; my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary was the first person to establish such a group to examine forward-looking strategies. That was an extremely important move. A number of issues have been raised, which the group is currently studying. We are now examining the question of employment for women--I know that the hon. Lady will be interested in that. I noted the comments made by the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise), to which I shall refer later.
I was interested to hear of the experiences of the hon. Member for Barking today at the National Federation of Womens' Institutes. I would have enjoyed visiting the organisation myself, but was unable to go. As she knows, many women are currently on the ladder and on the way to the very top. We do not ask--as some expect us to--that we should come out of school or university and be made judges immediately ; we do not ask for a Ministry for women, or for special concessions. We do not want
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positive discrimination in our favour. However, we do want our abilities, freedoms and rights to be acknowledged so that we can make our way equally and fairly alongside men on the road to success.Mrs. Rumbold : I can refute what the hon. Gentleman says--from a sedentary position. We are making progress faster and faster as time goes on. That is because of the desire of women : that is what women wish to do. Women will continue to be more successful than they would if they were subjected to positive discrimination, which is both paternalistic and patronising.
I must congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Mr. Durant) on coming out of his seven-year silence. It is an awesome return from a sentence, but, as we expected, he made a real contribution. I was delighted to hear his views on the importance of the family to children's early years. I entirely endorse what he said, especially his views about the importance to children of having warm and caring experiences in their early years within their families. Like him, I did not receive a telephone call over the weekend. I am very upset about that, as I share his views on that difficulty. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) gave us sombre words of warning. I fully endorse his views : men and women everywhere must know that they have the right to live free from fear.
My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) referred to Northern Ireland and to the horrors of terrorism. Of all the rights, responsibilities and freedoms that we have, assuredly the freedom from acts of terrorism is one with which all hon. Members would agree. Opposition Members must be enjoined to think carefully and hard before abandoning efforts taken by the Government to protect us all. Whether we are Members of Parliament or members of the public, we are all innocent victims in the face of terrorism.
I must also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison), who spoke about the war crimes Bill. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has noted his views. My right hon. Friend also expressed concern about the deterrent set out in the White Paper governing the framework of the Criminal Justice Bill. The intention is to have purposeful and demanding sentencing--whether non-custodial or not--to command the respect of the public. I am sure that he will agree that without that confidence no rule of law can be upheld. As he rightly said when referring to asylum and to the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees the Government are obliged to let into the country anyone who claims asylum at an airport or sea port. The Government also have an obligation to maintain proper immigration control in the face of the huge migratory pressures in the world today.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend knows that it is not a matter that affects the United Kingdom alone ; it concerns the whole of Europe. We are worried about the greatly increasing numbers and the clear misuse of the asylum procedures. We are urgently reviewing the impact on immigration control and the Government's obligations towards asylum seekers and the arrangements for processing individual cases. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be reassured by that.
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The hon. Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Evans) will be glad to know that we have abolished detention for 14-year- olds, about which he was concerned. I understand that concern, as I understand the concern of the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) about suicides in prisons. I deprecate those occurrences, and I hope that we will be taking urgent action. It is an important and serious issue that must attract the Government's urgent attention. The hon. Member for St. Helens, North also mentioned Red Bank school. The points that he raised are mainly matters for the Department of Health, and I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to them when I have an opportunity to do so.The hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) spoke about women and work. She has already heard my views on the way in which I hope women will want to pursue their careers to the top of every available ladder. She suggested that women working part time had a bad deal. Some 60 per cent. of women in the United Kingdom are in work, which is one of the highest proportions of women working anywhere in Europe. One reason why part-time work is so successful is that that is what women want. It is important to encourage employers, large and small, to improve the conditions and the opportunties for women to work part time or flexible hours if they find that satisfactory.
Mrs. Wise : We are in favour of part-time work for women who want it, but there is no reason why it should be for rotten wages and in rotten conditions, without the worker having any control. Why will not the Minister agree to the EEC directive on that?
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