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the facts and to complement its positive measures by providing resources for youth and community activity and for the preventive work of the probation service and community services to stop youngsters getting involved in crime. I ask them to ensure long-term success by providing those resources and long-term planning and team work in the community.The Government have paid much lip service to the prevention of crime. In some of his responses, the Minister of State has shown a personal interest in making schemes work, but they cannot be seen as a cheap option and I appeal to the Home Secretary, who has not shown the same sympathy as the Minister, not to repeat mistakes but to make use of the professionalism, experience and evidence that is available on what preventive work can achieve and to build that into the Bill and into the measures that will accompany it when it is implemented. 7.58 pm
Mr. Roger Gale (Thanet, North) : I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael). The House has great respect for his knowledge of work with young people. I was particularly impressed by his argument about withdrawing police from courts because of the introduction of the Crown prosecution service, and I agree with him. I believe that many Conservative Members agree with his comments about the importance of getting community service right in terms of how it affects young people. I part company with the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth on parental responsibility. The hon. Gentleman goes half way but, like the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley)--who made some rather churlish comments about the entire Bill-- he seems incapable of accepting parental responsibility as part of statute. Day after day, many people approach Members of Parliament and keep ramming that message home. Those of us with teenage children know the difficulties of exercising parental control. It is not an easy job, but that does not mean that it is open to any of us to abrogate responsibility and to say, "Let someone else carry on." But that message has come to us repeatedly from the Opposition. Of course, we must make the right provision for young people. Of course, that must be part of a package of measures. If we ask young people to take part in community service, of course that service must be properly introduced, staffed and structured. But the bottom line is that parents must be required to take some responsibility for their children. That responsibility has broken down and, in part, has led to the increase in juvenile crime.
I should like to give an immediate and broad welcome to the thrust of the Bill. Unlike the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook, I believe that it is imaginative and far-sighted. It will take us another step forward in the sequence of Criminal Justice Bills that the Government have introduced.
Mr. Stuart Randall (Kingston upon Hull, West) : The Opposition are not saying that parents should not take an interest in their children. We are concerned about the fact that some proposals in the Bill will fine parents for some of the misdemeanours in which their children take part. We believe that that could drive a wedge between young people and their parents and that it is not conducive to building the relationships that can alleviate crime.
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Mr. Gale : The hon. Gentleman says only what so many Opposition Members said repeatedly for the greater part of the debate. I listened carefully to them. It is clear that they are prepared to will the end but not the means. In other words, as on so many other issues, they do not have the bottle for the job. I am not saying that every word in the Bill as drafted is perfect. I have served on the Standing Committees on two Criminal Justice Bills, and I hope to serve on the third. We revised those Bills in Committee. Of course, we shall look at every dot and comma and try to ensure that we have got this Bill right. There must be a fundamental commitment to the principle that parents must take responsibility. There is nothing wrong with enshrining that in law.Our constituents will be extremely heartened by the balance that the Bill strikes between the crime and the punishment. We repeatedly hear from constituents how strongly they feel about the lack of appropriate punishment for violent offenders and sexual offenders. We repeatedly hear complaints about the fact that first-time offenders are sometimes given custodial sentences. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) said that prisons were cluttered with those on whom a more appropriate sentence could be imposed, and I could not agree more.
There is a general impression that prisons are universities of crime. There is a strong impression--this is another message that came across in the debate--that there are many people in prison who should not be there. Also, our constituents resent the fact that their taxes pay to keep in prison people who should be paying their debt to the community in the community.
It is nonsense to break up a home, send a man or woman to prison, support the family through every kind of benefit and impose on it the social stigma and social damage caused by removing a parent. The offender could and should much more properly serve his or her sentence and pay his or her debt to the community in the community in a way that is useful not only to the community but to the individual while maintaining the family unit. The Bill aims to draw that necessary distinction between crimes for which custodial sentences are appropriate and essential for the protection of the public, and crimes for which custodial sentences are not appropriate, except in extremis.
It is important that service to the community is constructive and not mindless. If we are to go down that road, it is vital that we make proper provision for the service that will benefit the community and the individual. Just digging ditches and filling them in is not the answer to anyone's problems. There are many jobs that can and should be done by people paying their debt to society.
I listened with interest to references to privatisation of escort work and remand prisons. I was saddened by the response by the Opposition and some of my colleagues, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby). I understand the concern of the police, but surely every hon. Member believes that highly trained, experienced, efficient police officers should use their time to the best advantage to do police work. We no longer ask the police to do most point duty. We do not ask them to act as traffic wardens, except rarely, so I cannot understand why it is necessary to ask a highly trained policeman or policewoman to escort remand prisoners travelling on a bus between a remand prison and court.
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I cannot understand why the Opposition seem unwilling to learn the lessons that have been learned in the United States and to try privatisation of remand prisons. The authorities in the United States have gone much further down that road and have privatised penitentiaries. That works well. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge says that it is vital that the security staff who are employed are properly trained. We clearly need to give attention to that. To use the Opposition's words, we do not want any cowboys doing the job, but there is no reason why a cowboy firm should do the job, unless we let it.Mr. Sheerman : At the Labour party conference, the senior director of the Group 4 company--which, I believe, is one of the most reputable security operations--told me about what he called a cowboy firm guarding submarine installations in Scotland and paying men £1 an hour. When will the Government do something about that system? If it can happen guarding submarines in a highly sensitive defence area, it can happen with the privatisation of remand services.
Mr. Gale : I appreciate the fact that much of the hon. Gentleman 's observation, like much of his policy, is based on guesswork and hearsay. Conservative Members try to go into matters more deeply and seriously. I am prepared to believe that there are private security firms that are not up to scratch, just as there are parts of the public service that, on occasions, are not up to scratch. That is no reason not to use some imagination and not to allow those who could do the job efficiently to do so and save the time of trained policemen and policewomen.
In looking at private remand prisons, are we prepared to consider the reintroduction of what was called the bridewell, the remand prison with the court room attached? It has been suggested that in inner cities that could be especially appropriate. It has been suggested that when we are considering new buildings--and it has been suggested that some high-rise blocks might be eminently suitable as remand prisons--it should be possible to build the court room into the same establishment, which would minimise travelling and, therefore, the amount of escort duty necessary. I hope that my right hon. Friend can comment on that in his winding-up speech or that he will say that we may be able to examine that idea during the Bill's progress. I have studied with great interest the provisions dealing with probation and with release on licence. Clearly, those provisions will be the subject of debate in Committee. At this stage, I want to say to my right hon. Friend only that he may wish to comment on the extension of sentences and on the reduction of parole when prisoners behave badly or cause disturbances in prisons. The Bill seems to lay considerable emphasis on the terms of release on probation from prison, but it does not refer to sanctions that may be taken against prisoners who cause disturbances while in gaol. We have seen recently how dangerous such disturbances can be and how they can affect the welfare and lives not only of prison officers, but of other prisoners. The Bill provides an opportunity for us to address ourselves to the subject of disturbances in prisons.
Several hon. Members who are members of the Select Committee on Home Affairs are absent today because they are taking evidence on football hooliganism. It would be wrong for me, as a member of that Committee, to
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pre-empt its findings. However, I have been asked to make a couple of points that arise from the evidence that we have taken already. The Bill contains several new offences that may prove extremely appropriate in dealing with those who cause trouble inside and outside football grounds. The police who gave evidence last week to the Committee made the point clearly that the powers to search fans outside and, especially, inside grounds are woefully inadequate. We heard an appalling story from one police officer about a fan who, when arrested inside the ground, was found to have about his person a plastic rocket launcher which was designed to hurl missiles to the other end of the pitch and to explode among the spectators there. It is clear already that the provision that allows the police and others who are exercising crowd control inside football grounds powers of search is inadequate for them to do the job that they are required to do.The police also suggested that their powers and those of the security teams who are used at football grounds are inadequate for the control of pitch invasions. It is often said that the police do not do enough to control crowds on the football pitch, but in view of the presence on the pitch of thousands of fans, it is abundantly clear that no amount of effort by the police or by the security teams will be sufficient to identify more than a few of the miscreants so that they can be brought to trial. I know that the Select Committee will want to make recommendations on that. I hope and believe that the Select Committee's report on policing football stadiums and on football hooliganism generally will be published while the Bill is in Committee and I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to respond to some of the recommendations and, if necessary, to take appropriate action to legislate on them during the passage of the Bill so that time will be saved and the measures will be implemented as swiftly as possible.
I want to refer to issues facing the magistrates courts. Most of them are not referred to in the Bill, so a Second Reading debate may not be an appropriate stage at which to discuss them. However, this debate provides an opportunity to place on record some of the concerns felt by magistrates and by court officers such as about the sentencing of uninsured drivers. Formerly, those who drove uninsured were liable to a prison sentence, but that offence was then removed from the list of imprisonable offences because it was felt that simply not having insurance was not a sufficient reason for someone to be sent to prison--and, broadly speaking, I concur.
However, there is a strong feeling from the magistrates' benches that in removing the liability of going to prison from those who drive without insurance, several knock-on effects have been created. It is suggested that if uninsured driving was reinstated as an imprisonable offence, it would be possible for magistrates to award prison sentences in extreme cases and, in most cases, to impose community service, which they cannot now impose on the uninsured driver. My right hon. Friend may consider that the matter can be more properly considered when we discuss the Bill on road transport and if he cares to tell me that when he
Mr. John Patten indicated assent.
Mr. Gale : I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Perhaps he will either make representations or encourage
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me to make representations to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, so that the matter can be addressed in the Bill on road transport. It is clear that the sentencing provision available to magistrates for uninsured drivers is inadequate at present.Earlier in the debate, we heard much about release on bail, especially as it applies to members of the coloured community, and that is also a source of concern to magistrates' benches, although I do not wish to go through the arguments again. At present, the justification for surety and bail, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) said earlier, is based on the likelihood to leave--in other words, whether the accused is likely to appear before the court. The court finds that extremely restrictive and the benches have suggested that bail could be used in a wider range of cases and circumstances, and imposed using criteria other than simply whether the accused is likely to reappear before the court. It is also suggested that the bail imposed is often worth more than the fine that would be imposed, so if the accused absconds, the court at least gets its money.
There is concern about the powers of the magistrates courts to commit people to the Crown court for sentence. It is felt that if the magistrates courts had a general power to commit for sentence to a Crown court when other matters were already under consideration before the Crown court, those cases and sentences could then be taken together in the Crown court, which would obviate the need for sentences to be imposed in the Crown court and for further matters then to go back to the magistrates court for final sentence. That would simply cut out the middle man--
Mr. Sheerman : Just get on with it.
Mr. Gale : The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) makes some disparaging remark. I will give way to him so that he can say it again.
Mr. Bermingham : I did not say anything to the hon. Gentleman, who should have an eye test. Has he heard of section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which gives power to the higher court to deal with the lower court on minor matters?
Mr. Gale : The magistrates' clerks feel that their powers are not general enough for them to be able to refer cases for total sentencing from the magistrates courts at their instigation rather than at the instigation of the Crown court. I know that the hon. Member for St. Helens, South spends far more time in court than I am likely or hope to do. I am merely seeking to relay to the House the feelings of those at the sharp end who do another part of the job that the hon. Gentleman seeks to do. I know that the Bar has a view of those matters, but so has the bench and so have magistrates' clerks. It is right that the House should hear and pay attention to some of those views. Perhaps there are occasions when we do not listen enough to those who are at the sharp end.
Another area of concern is the non-production of prisoners before courts. The bench feels that there is a need for guidance. It is felt by many of those who sit on the bench that there is a need for an explicit provision in the Bill to cover what courts should do when prisoners are not produced before magistrates courts. That takes on a particular relevance if we are to move towards the privatisation of remand prisons. It is clear that the
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responsibilities of those running such establishments will have to be defined. We need to define how the courts are expected to react when the prisoners whom they anticipated dealing with are not produced before them.Capital punishment has been raised yet again in the debate. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton said earlier that he intended to table an amendment to the Bill with a view to reintroducing the penalty of capital punishment as the maximum available sentence for murder. My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), who is a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs and who is taking evidence at the moment, has told me that it is his intention to table such an amendment.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, I have voted in favour of the reintroduction of capital punishment on every occasion when the House has debated the issue since I have been a Member of this place. I believe that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder. I believe also that the incidence of armed crime has risen since the abolition of capital punishment. That continues to place the men and women of the police force in an intolerably dangerous position. I hope and believe that the House will have a further opportunity to debate an issue that has the overwhelming support of the general public when we come to consider the Bill on Report. I shall support an amendment that seeks to reintroduce capital punishment.
Several Hon. Members rose --
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker) : Order. Unless more restraint is shown by hon. Members in the length of their speeches, other hon. Members will be disappointed by not being able to contribute to the debate.
8.23 pm
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Mo n) : I understand your stricture, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I hope that those who wish still to contribute to the debate will bear it in mind. There have been some fairly long contributions and perhaps they have prevented some of us who have been in our places since the beginning of the debate from developing some of the arguments that we wished to advance on Second Reading. As a Member who has been a member of a Committee that considered a former Criminal Justice Bill, and as someone who has considered our approach to criminal justice legislation over the past 10 years, I am rather like the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) in being circumspect in approaching a fresh Criminal Justice Bill. The main provisions of such a Bill are loudly trumpeted, well trailed and held before the House as the Government's final answer to rising crime rates.
It is claimed that the best way to stop criminals from profiting from their illegal activities is to support the provisions in the latest Criminal Justice Bill. The crime figures tell us, however, that crime has increased at a faster rate under this Government than at any time since the second world war. I refer to the seemingly endless increase in serious crime. The number of offences of violence against the person has doubled since 1979. There were 94,960 such offences reported in 1979, and 180,000 were reported in the year ending June 1990. The figure for 1990
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was a 7 per cent. increase on the figure for the previous year. These are startling statistics when we have a Government who were elected on a law and order ticket.Before dealing with the main provisions of the Bill, I wish to stress yet again the need for a new approach in dealing with crimes of violence. Over the years, as a practitioner in the criminal courts, it has sickened me to see the inconsistency of approach between crimes involving violence and crimes related to property. Motoring offences sometimes attract more serious sentences than those that are given for crimes of violence, and that worries me. I have never understood why theft or burglary should be considered more abhorrent than violence. Of course, theft and forcible entry of a dwelling must be adequately punished, but striking a person in anger, especially a child or a woman, is a hideous offence. It is an attack on a person's dignity. It is the intrusion of a person's privacy, and to that extent it is destructive. Our entire approach to sentencing should recognise that. To the extent that it is recognised in the Bill, it is welcome and long overdue.
There are other matters set out in the Bill that are welcome, and we have heard about them today. I have in mind the new sentencing framework, the proposal for unit fines and the abolition of sentences of detention for 14- year-old boys. There is a number of omissions, however, that should be highlighted, and we need to strengthen some of the proposals in the Bill.
We lack consistency in our approach to sentencing and the provisions in part I may well fall short of producing the consistency in sentencing that would give our criminal justice system greater credibility and authority. We have heard about the recent survey which showed that there were considerable variations in sentencing between courts. The average use of custody at Wood Green Crown court, for example, was 38 per cent., whereas it was 69 per cent. at Mold Crown court in Clwyd. In Powys, 6 per cent. of adults received custodial sentences for theft, yet 17 per cent. did so in Cheshire. At Gloucester, 29 per cent. of those sentenced for burglary received custodial sentences, while 54 per cent. did so in north Wales. That level of inconsistency is indefensible. The public do not understand why they are more likely to receive a custodial sentence in one part of the country than in another.
I have some reservations about the concept of a sentencing council. We should be able to avoid getting ourselves into the position of having to set one up. Unfortunately, however, the Government do not have sentencing policy right in the context of the Bill, and we may be driven to consider setting up such a council unless we achieve a consistency which gives greater credibility and authority to the criminal justice system.
One of the main omissions from the Bill is a coherent strategy for reducing the remand population. I introduced a Bill in 1988 which was aimed at achieving a consistent approach. Again, I commend the contents of the Bill to the House. Remand prisoner figures are staggering. In March, the remand population in England and Wales was 10,194, or 20 per cent. of the entire prison population. The proportion of remand prisoners to prisoners generally has more than doubled in the past 13 years. Remand prisoners are also often held in the worst conditions. All hon. Members should be worried about the fact that nearly 60 per cent. of self-inflicted deaths in prisons occur on remand. Prisoners are three times more likely to take their own lives than the rest of the population. However, if we
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consider the remarkable statistics about remand prisoners, it is clear that only 36 per cent. of female and 52 per cent. of male prisoners who are remanded in custody eventually receive a custodial sentence.I welcome the acknowledgement that for most crimes punishment in the community is not only likely to be in the public interest, but would also increase the prospect of victims receiving compensation. That is a welcome development. It is important that the criminal justice system accepts the need to compensate the victim. If we can achieve that by ensuring that more people receive sentences in the community to do community work, that would help to create the proper system.
Conservative Members have spoken about the benefits of electronic tagging. However, I do not believe that the case has been made for tagging. I listened with great care to what has been said, but I am inherently against tagging. There have been only a few minor pilot schemes and I believe that there should be more of them before we enshrine the principle in legislation. It is dangerous to introduce the principle in primary legislation.
I am also worried about the extended powers to bind over parents of young offenders. I understand that we must make parents more responsible for the activities of children ; that is a very strong point. However, my experience, and the experience in the courts generally, has shown that where current powers to make parents more responsible for the offences of their children are used, it can involve friction in families. We must strike a balance between the need to make parents responsible for the offences of their children and the need to bind families together instead of breaking them up and creating friction. The Government have not made a proper case in that respect in the Bill.
I am also worried about the privatisation of prisoner escort services and particularly for remand prisons. I have an inherent objection to that proposal. It is abhorrent that money can be made from the administration of criminal justice.
The Bill has some good parts and it contains some useful provisions. However, I believe that it has some completely unnecessary gimmicks and some glaring omissions which should be considered. I stress again that my main objection to the Bill is that it contains no coherent strategy for reducing the remand population. I recognise that that would entail the use of greater resources, but it is wrong that people who are mentally ill or suffer from drug or alcohol abuse should be kept in prison. Other provision should be made for them.
It was remarkable that, when the Home Secretary responded to a point about the code of guidance or memorandum, he could not tell us what other provisions there were for those people. He said that we should consider other provisions and ways of dealing with them, but he could not tell us how or where. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will tell us where those people are to be kept, because greater resources are involved. Until we have a coherent strategy for reducing significantly the remand population, we shall not have a proper approach to the criminal justice system.
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8.34 pmMr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : I welcome this opportunity to speak and I regret the fact that Conservative Members have said once again that they want to see the restoration of capital punishment. The House has decided that issue decisively on three or four occasions over recent years. I believe that only two firm pieces of new evidence that should concentrate our minds have come to light since the previous debate. They are the acceptance that the Guildford Four were innocent and the acceptance by most people that the Birmingham Six should be released. Those are clear reminders that there can be miscarriages of justice and that the death penalty is final and makes it impossible to provide recompense for such miscarriages.
The Bill addresses a new situation in that we are now in a lame duck Parliament with a lame duck Prime Minister who can clearly restore her credibility in the country and overseas only if she opts for a general election. The likelihood is that during the passage of the Bill we will have a general election sprung on us. We shall then have from my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Labour party Front Bench new legislation of a very different nature or we shall get some of the non-controversial parts of this Bill enacted in the last few days before a general election. I hope that the Minister will try to get consensus from the Bill instead of confrontation.
The major issue at the general election will be the greed society which has been created over the past 11 years. I believe that it is odd that, having achieved a dramatic demographic change in the number of young people in the age group likely to commit crime, we have not seen a fall in the general crime statistics, although I welcome the fact that crimes among juveniles appear to be declining in line with demographic changes.
I measure the Bill against the effect that it will have on my constituents. They still suffer a great deal from petty crime, much of which is committed by their neighbours, and their greatest regret is that the Bill contains no clear measures to prevent crime. There is nothing about crime prevention. I hope that, as the Bill proceeds, the Government will bring forward measures to prevent crime. In August the Minister of State tried to justify the large increase in the crime figures and he said that it was the public's fault because they did not deter opportunist crime. I accept that some members of the public could take a little more care of their property and could try to discourage some opportunist crime. However, in my constituency too much of the crime arises from people trying to earn small sums of money to pay for drugs and from boredom, neither of which leads to opportunist crimes.
If the Government want to stop opportunist crime, they should make more efforts in certain areas. The Government have suggested, with regard to credit cards, that people should have a discount for cash. Ministers should cast their minds back 10 or 15 years when one of the most common crimes involved armed bandits holding up petrol stations. That crime virtually disappeared because petrol companies improved security at their stations and the majority of people began to pay for their petrol by credit card. The amount of money available to be stolen in petrol stations late at night diminished dramatically. If the Government want to discourage criminals going after money and using violence, they should be encouraging credit cards, not discouraging
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them. I realise that credit cards increase fraud, but if we must choose between the two, I should prefer fraud to violent crimes involving people trying to take money.The Government should also consider how the poll tax affects matters such as street lighting. It is clear that many local authorities have identified relatively cheap schemes to improve street lighting and make property more secure, but those schemes still cost money. It is extremely difficult for those authorities to get the money. Until recently, tower blocks in Brinnington in my constituency had fairly high levels of crime. The local authority put in surveillance systems--entry is gained only after identifying oneself--put in new door frames and carried out various other measures dramatically to improve the security of those tower blocks. The effect has been tremendously good for the people who live in the tower blocks. The only problem is that such improvements are expensive. If the Government want to prevent crime and, in the end, save money, they should make it easier for housing authorities to take those measures. We have already discussed the failure of car manufacturers to make motor vehicles secure.
The last point on crime prevention is that we should do much more to encourage the youth service--again, one of the services that are squeezed by the working of the poll tax or the community charge. The youth service is one way to avoid boredom.
There should be much more in this legislation about restitution to some of our constituents who lose out as a result of crime and then find that they get very small sums in compensation.
In the debate on the Queen's Speech I pressed the Home Secretary about what he will do about the disgraceful situation in Greater Manchester. He knows that there are far too many remand prisoners at the moment in police cells in the Greater Manchester area. We understand the problems that occurred at Strangeways, but it is ridiculous that a police station such as Stockport has inadequate cells and that those cells are cluttered up with remand prisoners. I should have thought that the Home Secretary could use the problems of Manchester dramatically to cut the time that people on remand remain in prison or, in Greater Manchester, remain in police cells. All he does is say that it is the prison warders' responsibility. He is the Minister in charge. He should find some way of negotiating so that we could get remand prisoners out of police cells in Greater Manchester.
Also, the Home Secretary has to accept at least 112 days as a firm legal requirement in which to get people into court rather than to allow the conspiracy which seems so often to occur between the various people involved and which allows remand cases to run on and on.
There are many other points that I should like to make. No doubt I will have an opportunity to make some in Committee. However, we should look at prisoners' rights. I have made that point on many occasions. It is easy to give rights to people of whom we approve, but it is difficult to give rights to people of whom we disapprove. We should consider giving far more rights to prisoners. When a prisoner asked me whether he could have a copy of the prison rules, I sent him a copy, but he was denied access to most of them. He was told that they were not available to prisoners. I realise that there are difficulties with barrack room lawyers in prisons, but prisoners should be able to see the rules and have a clear understanding of them.
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Parental responsibility has been pressed by Conservative Members. Parents should be much more responsible. It distresses me when I find my constituents encouraging their youngsters to go out on to street corners at night because they perhaps make too much noise in the house and the parents are pleased to see them go out. They do not ask questions about what they do. Young people sit around on street corners, annoy other people and, through boredom, get into crime. I should like more of my constituents to take a responsible attitude to their children, but we must be careful about demanding too much through the courts.It is quite clear that many young people who appear before the courts do not have parents who are in a position to be supportive. They are looked after by, perhaps, a grandparent or a parent who is already struggling to have any control over them. It would be unsatisfactory to cause extra hassle for the person who is giving some support.
I hope that the Committee stage will be constructive and that, even if we have an early general election, we will be able to get something out of the Bill by the time the election comes.
8.43 pm
Mr. Terry Dicks (Hayes and Harlington) : Some of the things that I am about to say will not please the bleeding hearts, the do-gooders or the officials at the Home Office who seem to have a great influence--perhaps too great an influence--on the criminal justice legislation. I welcome the Bill in general terms because it takes us a stage further in dealing with crime and criminals.
I draw the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to my intervention in his speech, which I think he handled in a rather flippant way. I asked about concurrent sentencing, and he made the point that if people commit two crimes and time was added on instead of the sentence running concurrently, they would be in prison for a very long time. People outside the House do not care at all about that. If someone commits a crime for which he goes to prison for five years, and he committed that crime five times in an evening, why should he serve the same amount of time as someone who has committed the crime only once? That seems illogical and unfair, and it does not reflect people's views.
Before Opposition Members smile, let me say that my views represent those of ordinary working class people in my constituency. You can bet your sweet life that they also represent the views of your constituents but which you are too scared to put forward.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman must not drag me into these matters.
Mr. Dicks : I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With great respect, I should have said the constituents of Opposition Members. The Bill mentions early release time. Why on earth should we have early release time? A sentence should be a sentence. If people do not behave in prison, we should add time on for bad behaviour, not take time off for good behaviour. There should be no question about it ; if they are in prison, they are there to be punished, and that should be the beginning, the middle and the end of it.
Capital punishment has been mentioned. Of course we should have capital punishment. It is the only way to deter murder and it is the only way in which we can get our
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hands on and get rid of the terrorists in our midst. People say, "You can make one mistake and wrongly execute somebody." There are about 50 people walking free now who murdered once, served their time, were released, and then murdered a second time. For every person in respect of whom a mistake has been made, 50 people have been murdered who would not have been murdered had those who had committed the crime been executed the first time round. We must bear that in mind when we hear the wailing, whining and whingeing of those who say that capital punishment is not right in a civilised society. How can that be said when our society is not civilised because of the way in which terrorists behave in the streets of this country?The Bill does not mention corporal punishment. The thug, the football thug and the lager thug know no other vision of life apart from violence. People would like to see dished out to those people the sort of violence and attacks that they dish out to decent people. There would be no compassion whatsoever from the ordinary chap in the street if the football thug got a dose of his own medicine--legalised, of course. Those are the rules that they live by, and they are the rules that they must face up to when they commit crime.
On parental responsibility, the do-gooders say, "Parents do their best ; they cannot always be responsible." Why cannot they always be responsible? If they have children, they are their responsibility. Children of 12 or 14 have raped old ladies. If the punishment for those kids, had they been over 18, is 10 years, why the hell do we not give it to the parents? They are responsible for kids of that age behaving in that way. I am sick and tired of people saying that they cannot be responsible for the behaviour of their youngsters and teenagers. What a load of nonsense and rubbish.
On prison rioting, the public could not understand how the violent thugs in Strangeways were allowed to get away with it day after day. It is no good my right hon. and learned Friend telling me that he took advice from people in the Home Office who I believe never walk the streets of this country because they do not know what is going on. The ordinary chap in the street asks, "Why weren't they washed off those roofs? Why weren't they brought down?" To suggest that we had to be careful in case one of them was injured or another fell off is a load of nonsense. There would have been a massive cheer if we had taken tough measures to bring them down.
Of course we hear from the do-gooders and the bleeding hearts about prison conditions--"It is dreadful. There are 19 to a cell 23 hours a day and they have to slop out." If they did not slip in, they would not have to slop out, so what are they worried about? Another thing that we must always remember about prisoners is that all those in prison--I accept, of course, that there will be men who should not be there--are there by choice. Prisoners chose to go to prison when they decided to break the law. The ordinary chap in my constituency does not care about people in prison because they chose to go there. We must constantly bear that point in mind.
Why are we spending millions of pounds on improving prison conditions? The better we make them, the easier it
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will be for them to say, "I like going to prison." Old lags come out saying, "I had a good time. That prison is pretty good and that prison is even better."Two years ago, I looked at the Christmas day menu at Gloucester prison. It was better than the menu enjoyed by many pensioners in my constituency day after day, let alone at Christmas. The priest in charge held a little service and said how sorry he was that the prisoners were away from their families at that festive time. If they had not broken the law, they would not have been apart from their families. I shall tell the House what I do when constituents come to see me and say, "Please, Mr. MP, my husband lives in this constituency but he is in prison in Hull. Could you arrange for him to be moved nearer to me because the family are in distress?" I say, "He should have thought of that before he broke the law and landed in prison. It is his fault. I will not waste my time on him or his circumstances."
I should like to bring rule 43 to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend. It is strange that the most violent criminal in our midst-- the child abuser or the sexual offender--gets 100 per cent. protection when he goes to prison whereas another violent man, a robber, has to live in the prison community. Because the other inmates might not like the sex offender --someone who violently assaults a youngster--or what he has done, we have to pull him to one side and protect him ; but who protects the young kid whom he violated? Nobody. So why the hell should such a man be protected in prison? He should have to go to prison and face the consequences of his crime. If more such offenders realised the life that they would have in prison and the protection that they would not have, perhaps they would behave and think twice before committing such crimes. As I have said, the Bill is a good contribution to improving matters, but it does not go as far as I would like. I re-emphasise the important point that I hope that we shall get another opportunity to debate and to vote on capital punishment. Opposition Members may well say that it is a free vote, but they know and we know that they are whipped in to vote against capital punishment--[ Hon. Members :-- "Rubbish."] It is not rubbish and Opposition Members know it. I have talked to some Opposition Members about it. The public will not forget the next time that Opposition Members--and those weak Willies among my hon. Friends--oh yes, we have a few--
Mr. Sheerman : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has made a serious allegation. There is no whipping in the Opposition on the important issue of capital punishment. It is a totally free vote. The hon. Gentleman has made a gross calumny against my party.
Mr. Dicks : The hon. Gentleman is being economical with the truth. I am simply saying that the people of this country will not forget Opposition Members and those of my hon. Friends who frustrate them in their demands for a tough line against murder. I remind my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench that, if they do nothing else when pushing this Bill through, they must give us an opportunity to vote once again on capital punishment.
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8.52 pmMr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South) : I declare an interest as a barrister and a former solicitor. It is a pity that the hon. Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) who attacked me earlier is not in his place. He had the grace to apologise--
Mr. Sheerman : It is disgraceful. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) is leaving the Chamber.
Mr. Bermingham : Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to make just one comment on the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks), who casts insults without the intelligence or the knowledge to back them up. It is easy to play to the gallery, but we are talking about justice, human beings, the right to life and the liberty of subjects. If we could have a perfect system of justice that would not make mistakes, I should treat the hon. Gentleman's comments with little more than the contempt with which I treat them now.
There have been numerous examples, not just in our legal system, but in the legal systems of many other countries, of mistakes being made. When a mistake is made and a prisoner has been executed, the tragedy is that we cannot bring him back. He cannot be compensated. What if we had executed the Guildford Four who have now been cleared? How could we have compensated them? How, in a civilised society, can we descend into the language of the barbaric jungle, like the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, who casts such comments and criticisms because he cannot accept that those of us who have spent a lifetime in the legal system accept that it is capable of making mistakes and we dare not take those risks again?
We have learnt something over the past 100 years, and that is that we cannot always get it right. Sometimes the pressures on a court and on a jury are so great--sometimes the pressure on police officers to achieve results is so great--that mistakes can be made. I do not attack police forces because mistakes have been made, for I accept that police officers are human beings who are capable of verily believing that somebody is guilty and of verily believing that their evidence matches that. They can still be totally wrong, but wrong in an honourable and honest way.
I make this next comment while the Home Secretary is in his place. On Merseyside, we achieved a reduction in the crime rate last year simply because our police force there is increasingly efficient and is led by a very good chief constable, and the officers of the force are a credit to any society. However, this year we are to be capped by £7 million. I have written to the Home Secretary about this and I hope that he will bring pressure on his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, because if £7 million is taken from the budget of the Merseyside police we will have a reduced number of police officers and we will not be able to afford the equipment that is necessary to re-equip the force. That affects the policing policy. It reduces the level of policing and the level of crime detection. It is utterly counter-productive. I hope that the Home Secretary can do something to help Merseyside because we deserve it.
I know that those comments do not fall within the scope of the Bill and I apologise for raising that matter, but the opportunity was too good to miss. I hope that I have made my point. I notice that the Home Secretary is smiling, so perhaps he will think about what I have said.
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In some ways, the Bill is a tragedy. It does not address the real issue, which is not whether we have longer or harsher sentences or whether we attack parole or regrade juvenile crime, but how we attack crime itself. The real question is how we stop young offenders offending in the first place. If young people do not start to commit crime, there will not be any not-so-young people to continue those criminal ways, and there will not be any older people committing crime. If we can root out part of the juvenile problem, we can root out part of the criminal problem.The tragedy, which most people seem to forget, is that when somebody robs, wounds, kills or embezzles, there is always a victim. Hon. Members have already said that we do not care enough about the victims in our society and that is more than true. Over the years, I have spoken in the House many times to promote the interests of victims. We have tried to get the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board procedure correct. Great efforts have been made by Lord Carlisle since he took control of the board and I pay due credit to him. We have tried to think how we can compensate in such a way as to put at ease the mind of the old lady whose house has been burgled. The easiest way of compensating the victims is to prevent the crime from occurring. Indeed, crime need not occur if we tackle the problem in the right way.
I intervened earlier in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) to suggest that we should go for earlier identification. I am well aware of the Cardiff experiment, which has been brilliantly successful, and I am equally aware of the Massachusetts experiment, which has been equally successful. In those experiments, the early identification of the criminal has led to preventive medicine--if I can put it that way--that may deter a sizeable proportion of young people from continuing in a life of crime. If we deter the young, that will reduce the number of older youths involved in crime and, therefore, the prison population. The Home Secretary might care to study the German system. The Germans have suddenly found that they do not need to build new prisons because not as many people are being sent to prison. There has been a sudden downturn, and it might be interesting to discover why. A little investment in that area--nobody has a monopoly of wisdom-- might produce massive dividends. It might lead to a position in which not so many prisons or remand institutions were needed. The police could again embrace the concept that, when a crime is committed, there are sufficient manpower and resources to detect it immediately. That requires investment. That requires not screams for longer sentences, more cruel conditions, this, that and the other, but the identifying of the cause of criminality. Once we have identified that, we may be on the road to solving the long- term, rather than the short-term, problem.
I await with interest what happens in Committee. It might just be that we find a measure of agreement that will lead us down the right path on this occasion.
9 pm
Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) : It has been an interesting debate. Those of us who have listened to most of it will have learnt a great deal, unlike one Conservative Member who arrived, made an extraordinary speech and immediately left. Someone recently described the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) as the soft
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underbelly of the Tory party on these issues. Perhaps the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) is the hairy posterior.
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