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Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?
Sir John Wheeler : With reluctance.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : I merely wish to point out that a dead body is more obvious than the consequence of any other form of crime. The reporting of other types of crime may have increased, but the reporting of murder is unlikely to have increased because it is such an obvious crime.
Sir John Wheeler : As I said at the beginning of my speech, those in favour of the restoration of capital punishment are unlikely to be persuaded by anything that I or anyone else may say against it. That will be especially true if we bat the various statistics to and fro across the Chamber or between ourselves.
I contend that some tentative conclusions--I state it as marginally as that --can be drawn from the figures for crime shortly before and shortly after the abolition of capital punishment in 1965. Before then, there were two categories of murder : capital and non-capital. The former included murder in the furtherance of theft, murder by shooting and the murder of a police or prison officer. Following the abolition of capital punishment, there was an increase in the number of murders judged to be capital. However, the increase began before abolition, so cannot have been caused by it. There was a corresponding increase in non-capital murder, for which there was no change in penalties, and in crimes of violence generally, for which there was no change in penalties.
The evidence from abroad also casts doubt on the unique deterrent value of capital punishment. For example, many studies in the United States of America have compared the murder rates of abolitionist and neighbouring retentionist states, murder rates in states which abolished and later restored capital punishment, the number of homicides just before and just after a sentence of execution, killings of police officers in cities of abolitionist and retentionist states and the incidence of fatal assaults in prison. They contain no evidence that the absence of the death penalty increases murders or that its presence deters capital offenders. Even many advocates of the death penalty recognise that most murders are emotional and impulsive, and
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largely within the family or among close associates, thus not susceptible to the deterrence argument. Therefore, most advocates of capital punishment favour restricting it to certain types of murder. Yet any attempt to make such distinctions in legislation would produce invidious and morally indefensible results in the future just as it did in the past.New clause 1 refers specifically to police officers. Yet the figures for murders of police and prison officers before and after the abolition of capital punishment suggest that capital punishment has no unique deterrent effect. The number of killings of police officers resulting in murder convictions has varied between nought and six every year since 1958. In the 31 years from 1957 to 1989, 27 police officers were murdered on duty out of a total of 51 police homicides, with no killings in 1957, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1968 and 1976.
New clause 6 refers to prison officers, and for them the argument is even less sustainable. In a period of nearly 50 years, when the prison population has more than doubled and more high-risk offenders have been in prison than ever before, only two prison officers have been killed--one in 1948 and one in 1965. New clause 5 refers to firearms. In the 10 years from 1977 to 1988 the average number of homicides by shooting was 48 with considerable annual variations, as one might expect from small figures. There is no case that gun killing has changed in any way to necessitate a special penalty. New clauses 2 and 3 relate to terrorism in Northern Ireland. I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and it is understandable that there should be strong feelings about the death penalty for at least terrorist murders. In fact, terrorists are even less likely to be deterred than other murderers. They are fanatics who are perverted in their thinking and feeling and who see themselves fighting for a cause higher than themselves. They are willing to live in a state of dangerous exaltation in which they hold even their own lives at a relatively low price.
First, it would be necessary to define what a terrorist murder is. Would it be a murder committed by a known member of the provisional IRA or of a middle east terrorist group? Would it apply to a known terrorist engaged in an ordinary crime, such as a bank robbery, where killing occurs? Given that political status for the inmates of the Maze prison has long been withdrawn, would not a working definition of terrorism produce irresistible demands for the restoration of that status on the grounds that the criteria of political crimes had at last been set out?
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Mr. Hunter : My hon. Friend is making a fundamental mistake in overlooking the fact that we already have definitions of terrorism and terrorist activities on the statute book. We have proscribed organisations and scheduled offences.
Sir John Wheeler : I gave way to my hon. Friend because his name leads those who propose that the death penalty should be applicable to people who are called terrorists. He proposes a special and separate penalty for
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a category of offenders who would have to be separately defined within this Criminal Justice Bill. That would be a fatal mistake. It is incredible that new clause 3 would make the death penalty apply in Northern Ireland. No one has been hanged in the United Kingdom for hundreds of years except on the verdict of a jury. As is well known to the Committee, the degree of intimidation in Northern Ireland is such that it has not been possible to try such cases by jury. They are tried by the Diplock, one-judge courts. Has anyone asked the Northern Ireland judiciary whether it is prepared to act as judge and jury in capital cases?There are other important reasons arguing against the introduction of capital punishment for terrorist murder, many of which have already been mentioned. In the stages leading up to an execution, a terrorist would have a strong motive for taking and threatening to kill hostages and for intimidating all those taking part in the trial, particularly jurors. There would be the expectation that executions would be followed by reprisals. Informers would be less likely to help the police.
Since capital punishment would not apply to those under 18, the death penalty would reinforce the trend for terrorist organisations to recruit increasingly young members. Capital punishment would create martyrs and there is considerable evidence that martyrs stimulate support for and recruitment to terrorist organisations. For all those reasons, I agree with many senior Army and police officers that the reintroduction of capital punishment would hinder rather than help the fight against terrorism.
A substantial proportion of homicides in England, Wales and elsewhere are committed by people in an abnormal state. Most murder victims are killed as a result of rage, quarrels or jealousy. In more than 70 per cent. of homicide cases, the victim was a member of the suspect's family, such as a spouse or lover. The deliberately planned and carefully executed murder, on which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton touched, is relatively rare. Deterrence in the form of capital punishment would work only for those who think before killing.
The best protection for the public remains the certainty of detection. Most of the more serious offences are cleared up. In 1988-89 the clear-up rate for crimes of violence against a person was 75 per cent., for frauds and forgeries it was about 70 per cent. and for theft and burglary overall it was about 30 per cent. Remarkably, the clear-up rate for homicides is 96 per cent. That is the best form of deterrence.
In concluding, I should like to touch briefly on new clause 4 proposed by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer). He renders a great service to the House in bringing to our attention the technical availability of the death penalty for offences in archaic Acts of the late 18th and 19th centuries. It is perhaps relevant to say that the 18th century saw the greatest use of capital punishment, but controversy over its use was as sharp then as it is today. By 1820, there were no fewer than 200 offences for which, in theory, capital punishment could be imposed, but such was public opinion that juries would often refuse to convict regardless of the evidence. It is also relevant that even in those cases where the death penalty was given, only about 10 per cent. resulted in execution--so much for the deterrent argument.
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I have great sympathy with what the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West has proposed, but I regret that I cannot support him in the Lobby because I believe that those old Acts and the offences they create are in need of repeal. I do not want to substitute a sentence of life imprisonment for an offence that could be abolished or at least reformed to suit the modern age.I believe that the House should invite the Law Commission to give urgent consideration to the abolition or review of those archaic Acts, when I would wish any penalty to be available to the courts to be anything other than the death penalty.
Mr. Rees : I liked the reference of the hon. Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) to the 18th and 19th centuries. A study of the statistics on the recent upsurge in crime in comparison with that committed in the 1920s and 1930s might suggest that the explanation is a sociological one. At one time I read about the middle years of the 19th century in great depth. The vast number of murders then committed seemed to have nothing to do with the number of people hanged in London at the time. There is no relationship between the two.
The hon. Member for Westminster, North also referred to the Diplock courts and the no-jury trials. I agree that that makes new clause 3 extremely defective. Terrorism is at large in Northern Ireland, but the new clause does not appear to understand that.
The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) raised a number of historical issues to explain why there was relative peace in the south of Ireland rather than in the north. We do not pay nearly enough attention to Northern Ireland in the House because most of us know little about it. When we talk about crime and punishment we do so in terms of England, Wales and Scotland.
I regret that the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) is no longer in his place-- [Interruption.] I notice that he is occupying the seat of the Chief Whip--no doubt doing what he would like to do, but has not yet achieved. I do not agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman that there would be 1,500 fewer murders if capital punishment had been available in the past 20 years. That can only be a guess. I believe that he has misread the statistics on murder and probably confused them with those on homicide. I do not believe that anecdotal evidence will do about the use of guns. The trigger point to determine which cases should go to the Court of Appeal should be given far greater attention. I shall vote against the hon. and learned Gentleman's new clause.
I appreciate the point behind the new clause on piracy tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer). Whatever happens tonight, I hope that the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence will consider that part of the Armed Forces Act 1971 that relates to sedition and mutiny. I have a personal interest in that, because men were charged with mutiny at Salerno. I shall not rehearse the story, but I understand what those men and other people felt. Those men could have been sentenced to death and it would have been wrong. My noble and learned Friend Lord Elwyn-Jones played a part in preventing those men from being shot. In common with the legislation on piracy, the death penalty for mutiny should be reviewed because it is as misplaced today as it was 40 years ago.
I intervened earlier in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr.
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Hattersley) to say that proscription and membership of a terrorist organisation are insufficient evidence when it comes to sentencing people to death. I remember when the last detainee came out of the Maze as a result of the House's decision. The last man out made it clear to television reporters that he was a member of the IRA. I mentioned that to the police and said that I thought that one could be brought to court for such membership. I was told that it would be extremely difficult to prove in court that someone was a member of the IRA, the Red Hand Commandos, the Ulster Freedom Fighters or the Ulster Volunteer Force. To seek to impose the death penalty when the evidence rests upon membership and proscription is a mistake. It is only those who do not know Northern Ireland who could argue that martyrdom is something with which one could live. That country is shot through with stories of past martyrs. That is one reason why killing and shooting still takes place. We are not talking about England, Wales or Scotland. Such martyrdom is part and parcel of the life of Northern Ireland and to ignore that flies in the face of Ireland's history.I have my own anecdotal evidence about martyrs. My father, a Welsh coal miner, was a soldier at the Easter rising. He belonged to an Irish regiment then in France but he was brought back to go to Ireland. To some extent, I was brought up with the story of that rising. The fact that the British, as a result of military courts, shot people involved in that uprising--some of them sitting down, including James Connolly--broke the Irish parliamentary party. It was finished because of the way in which the British had acted towards the Irish. We forget about the history of Ireland when we talk in terms of England and the new clauses.
Mr. Trimble : If one carried the right hon. Gentleman's point about martyrdom to its logical conclusion, it would mean that the police and soldiers would be prevented from using lethal force in circumstances where they are entitled so to act. Martyrs would also be created in those circumstances. The 1916 executions did not cause the break-up of the Irish parliamentary party, the home rule party, but the opposition to that party from Catholic bishops. That opposition was first manifest in June 1916, but was repeated in forthcoming years.
Mr. Rees : I must give in on the argument about the Catholic bishops. That intervention illustrates the nature of the problem in Northern Ireland far better than anything that I might say. Why did the Conservative Government before 1974 amend legislation so that there was no capital punishment in Northern Ireland? Many right hon. and hon. Members now present voted in favour of that decision. A note prepared for me at that time outlined that the death penalty came under two pieces of legislation, section 6 of the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) (Northern Ireland) Act 1972 and section 10 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 1966.
The first step was to do away with the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) (Northern Ireland) Act 1922. The second was to leave in section 10 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 1966. Albert Brown, a Protestant and a member of the UDA, was found guilty of murdering a member of the RUC with a licensed gun and sentenced to death. Lord Whitelaw reprieved him because he was told
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by the security authorities in Northern Ireland that, if Albert Brown was hanged, they could not hold Belfast. What is the use of bringing back capital punishment and flying in the face of what happened as recently as 1973? As a result, Lord Whitelaw, who was in favour of capital punishment, came to the Dispatch Box and said that he had changed his mind, not because he had read books but because he had learnt in Northern Ireland that he could not allow the death penalty to be carried out.7 pm
The same thing happened shortly afterwards when, after an amendment had been passed in the House, a man called William Gerald Holden, a Roman Catholic 19-year-old chef, was sentenced to death for the murder of Private Frank Bell of the 2nd Parachute Regiment. The then Secretary of State, Lord Whitelaw, also reprieved that man. Therefore, the same law applied on both sides of the community.
Mr. Roy Beggs (Antrim, East) : Whitewash.
Mr. Rees : It is no good saying "Whitewash", which is what some of the majority community called Lord Whitelaw. The advice given from a Conservative Minister was that capital punishment could not be carried out in Northern Ireland. Capital punishment would be a mistake for Northern Ireland. I happen to think that it would be a mistake in the whole of the United Kingdom, but it would certainly be a mistake in Northern Ireland.
If capital punishment were returned to Northern Ireland, I would radically change my views about policy for Northern Ireland. I do not believe in pulling out of Northern Ireland, but if there were capital punishment, I could no longer support staying there. I would not be prepared to say to the soldiers--many of whom come from my constituency and constituencies in the north of England and Scotland--"Go to Northern Ireland," because the reprisals would be enormous and would be based on the martyrdom of the past. There would have to be a complete reappraisal of policy in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) told us the interesting story of what happened in the Republic in 1922-23, when 81 people, perhaps more, were executed by military tribunal--that is the origin of the two political parties in the south. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are born of the six counties and the 26 counties by the killing of 81 people--I thought the figure was 78. In the election in the south in 1978, chalked on the pavement was the figure 78. It was held against Fine Gael that it was the 26-county party that had initiated--I had better be careful what word I use--the deaths of those people. That was still remembered all those years later.
If our forces were not in Northern Ireland, I concede that similar action would have to be taken there. Regardless of legislation passed by the House, there would be killing because the hatreds born in the north of Ireland as a result of the activities of the provisiona IRA and others lie deep, but we do not know that here. We could have that view. I do not believe that a British Government could execute without trouble a Protestant, Catholic, Unionist or Loyalist--call them what one will. If we were not in Northern Ireland, the story of 1923 would be written again in the north.
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The hon. Members representing both sides of the community in Northern Ireland represent a district where murder matters, where they see it and have heard about it for 20 years. The rest of us are different and that is why we are acting as we are. I could not possibly support capital punishment in Northern Ireland in particular or in the rest of the United Kingdom.Mr. Gale : The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) referred to the debate held in 1988, which I sponsored, and my amendment. He said that the motion referred to what he called a "local option", which was quite incorrect and a misrepresentation of the motion before the House in 1988. That motion sought to reintroduce capital punishment as the maximum available sentence for murder. It is correct that, at that time, it would have been left to the court and the judge to determine whether capital punishment was a suitable sentence. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) has refined that motion and turned it into something more legally acceptable, and I shall most certainly support him tonight.
The argument in favour of the restoration of capital punishment must turn upon whether the House believes that for even a small number of murders, capital punishment is a deterrent. I believe that that is so, and for that reason alone I have consistently supported restoration and will continue to do so.
The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook referred to the hopelessness of a life sentence. He said that it was a terrible punishment to inflict on a man or woman who had committed murder, which was why the Government recognised, and it was now on the statute book in the Criminal Justice Act 1988, that murder should be penalised by life sentence. I believe that the life sentence has made the task of our police force immeasurably more dangerous.
It is an absolute fact that, before the abolition of capital punishment, the professional criminal, as a matter of course, did not carry weapons. This afternoon we have heard anecdotal evidence about how the professional criminal would not only not carry a gun or a knife himself, but would search his colleagues before going out on a job to make sure that they were not "tooled up", because it was recognised that, if one used a weapon, all were liable and would face a capital sentence.
Since abolition, it is an absolute fact that the incidence of armed crime has risen dramatically. My argument in support of new clause 1 is simply that we have a stark option. It is no longer possible to ask the men and women of our police force to go out and face armed criminals when they themselves are unarmed. I do not believe that any hon. Member, from either side of the House, would ask a young soldier to go out in Northern Ireland and face the IRA without carrying a gun, but that is exactly what we are asking the men and women of our police force to do.
Mr. Rupert Allason (Torbay) : Does my hon. Friend recognise that there is an incentive for the armed robber to commit murder because, if he is arrested or confronted by an unarmed police officer who asks him to lay down his weapon, the criminal knows that, under existing sentencing policy, he is bound to get 20 years. Therefore, the incentive is for the criminal to shoot his way out of trouble.
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Mr. Gale : My hon. Friend is absolutely right--the incentive is there and I regret that it has been heightened by legislation passed by this Government. The last Criminal Justice Act and successive Home Secretaries have made it clear that the murderer will face life imprisonment, so the murderer carrying a gun has no disincentive to use it.
Mr. Michael Shersby (Uxbridge) : Does my hon. Friend agree that it is clear from the evidence of recent cases that the criminals concerned went out armed with an arsenal of weapons and with every intention of using them? That is so clear that it is extraordinary that it has been suggested in this debate that robbers go out with guns but with no intention of using them.
Mr. Gale : My hon. Friend makes the point more succinctly than I could have done.
If I--as I do--believe that we can no longer ask the men and women of the police to go out, unarmed, and face armed criminals, the choice before my right hon. Friend is to acknowledge either that we must afford the police the maximum possible protection and the deterrent of capital punishment, or that we must arm our police. It is as stark as that. I find the latter wholly unacceptable, and that leads me inevitably to the former.
Mr. Maclennan : The hon. Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) rested his case principally on the predicament of the police and of our soldiers in Northern Ireland--a theme that has run through several of our debates. I prefer the view of the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), who speaks with great authority as a former Secretary of State both of Northern Ireland and for the Home Department. He rightly drew attention to the views of Lord Whitelaw who, when in a position of responsibility, spoke forcefully about his change of mind :
"I am absolutely convinced that in the days immediately before and after any proposed execution the police and the soldiers would be at increased risk. As a result, the effort to protect the lives of policemen and soldiers by making an example in the case of a death which cannot be reprieved would be likely to provoke more shooting and more risk of death than to reduce it."--[ 0fficial Report, 14 May 1973 ; Vol. 856, c. 1029.]
Admittedly, this is anecdotal evidence, but of a kind that has commended itself to every Secretary of State for Northern Ireland since the troubles started in 1969. We could almost begin and end the debate with Northern Ireland, because, if it is not possible for these reasons to espouse capital punishment in Northern Ireland, then for what crimes can we espouse it?
As long ago as 1953, Sir Ernest Gower's Royal Commission on capital punishment pointed to the extraordinary multiplicity of crimes that go under the name of murder :
"There is perhaps no single class of offences that varies so widely both in character and in culpability as the class comprising those which may fall within the comprehensive common law definition of murder."
Few of us would regard any crime as more culpable than that of terrorism. If, for the practical reasons that have commended themselves to successive Secretaries of State, we are debarred from invoking capital punishment in terrorist cases, we are driven by logic and by the difficulty of these moral connections to the view that we must exclude capital punishment for all murders.
It is strange that we have returned to this debate yet again. We last considered it within the lifetime of this
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Parliament, and we decided, comprehensively and by a very large majority, that the case, which has been considered about 15 times since capital punishment was abolished, had not substantially changed. Of course it is right to reconsider these matters when public opinion is persistent in believing that capital punishment offers some way out of the problem of serious crime and of murder in particular, but I fear that the public, in espousing this commitment to capital punishment, may be looking for an easy answer to a very difficult problem.7.15 pm
I accept the Home Secretary's analysis that the evidence of deterrence is inconclusive. Those who seek to argue that we should reintroduce capital punishment must discharge the onus of proof. The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) attempted to do that, I thought unconvincingly, by referring to a number of articles about the American experience. I thought that the Home Secretary had already demolished that argument quite effectively, by looking at examples of American states that have retained or reinstated capital punishment and comparing them with those that have not, following the 10-year gap in its use. I am sure that he drew the right conclusion : that the evidence does not support the view that capital punishment is a uniquely effective deterrent.
The hon. and learned Member for Burton did not rest his case only on deterrence. He also invoked the argument of retribution--heard perhaps not so commonly in this House but often outside it. For my part, I regard retribution as a matter for the Divinity, not for the legislature of this country.
I also find it hard to accept that those of us who have objections, not only of the practical kind that I have mentioned but also of principle, to capital punishment should be asked to bend our consciences a little to accept it in certain cases, some of which are set out in the new clauses. It is not as though we have no experience of trying to operate with categories of murder, drawing distinctions between moral turpitude of one sort or another. The Homicide Act 1957 ran for long enough to bring that notion into disrepute, and materially contributed to the abolition of capital punishment. Who can say that murder using explosives or firearms is morally more culpable than a long-planned poisoning for gain? But such a distinction could be the consequence of accepting at least one of the new clauses. It is impossible to draw up these nice categories and to apply capital punishment to some of them but not to others. Perhaps the newest argument advanced by those who want to reintroduce capital punishment relates to the proposal in new clause 4--that we should pass the ultimate decision from this House, and even from a jury, to the Court of Appeal. Capital punishment would be exacted in most cases--this was the burden of the speech by the hon. and learned Member for Burton--but the Court of Appeal would have the right--indeed, the duty--to intervene and assess the evidence again. That is a strange proposition, bearing in mind the part that the court played in the Guildford cases, which must have given rise to some doubt about its suitability for a role of this sort, even if it wanted it. The Court of Appeal would not have heard the evidence which led the jury to convict. It would not have heard the witnesses and would have no sense of the trial. It would be quite wrong to impose upon a group of judges the duty of making a life-or-death decision.
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I was surprised to learn from the Home Secretary that the Lord Chief Justice has categorically stated his view, and that it does not contain the kind of qualifications suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Burton. The Lord Chief Justice has said that it would be inappropriate for judges to exercise that sort of discretion, and I take it that that is also the view of his fellow judges.It is bound to be a discretion. The hon. and learned Member for Burton says that it is Parliament that would have decided, but judges would have to exercise a discretion in life-and-death cases and it is not appropriate for us to ask them to do that. In 1953, the Royal Commission on capital punishment considered that proposition and was strongly against it. The Commission's report stated :
"The responsibility of deciding whether a person convicted of murder should be sentenced to death or to a lesser punishment is too heavy a burden to be inflicted on any single individual. The sentence of death differs absolutely, not in degree, from any other sentence and it would be wholly inconsistent with our traditional approach to such issues to lay on the shoulders of the judge a responsibility so grave and invidious."
That has always been the case in this country. There have been variations of the extent to which capital punishment has been applied, but in modern times they have added nothing to the variability of the judges.
The new clause tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) raises new issues. As some hon. Members have said, that new clause is a welcome innovation, because it has brought to our attention the anomaly of the retention of capital punishment for treason and piracy. The repeal of capital punishment for those crimes should not depend on a review of the substance of the law. If we are persuaded, as I think most hon. Members are, of the inappropriateness of capital punishment, we need not wait for the decision of the Law Commission on the review of the substantive law. In an intervention during the Home Secretary's speech, I said that the codification of the criminal law, to which he had referred, is a task to which the Law Commission set its hand a long time ago and effectively completed. As the law rolls on, and as Parliament intervenes to amend the law, the task of updating that work of codification remains and will continue. The Committee has not been asked to give effect to the findings of the Law Commission on codification. No one could pretend for a minute that such matters are pressing. In future, they will simply slip out of the Home Secretary's action tray.
I regret that the Home Secretary concluded his speech on a depressing and negative note, because the rest of his speech was entirely in accordance with the views of most Home Secretaries since 1965 and reflected his careful consideration of whether the settled mind of Parliament should be shaken by new factors. In this matter, Parliament's mind is settled, and there is no case for continual reconsideration of the issue. [Interruption.] I have had an experience which I do not think the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman) has had. One of my opponents at the last general election stood with the sole intention of demonstrating the strength of feeling about capital punishment. That independent candidate attracted 686 votes.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
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Mr. Maclennan : I shall give way when I have finished my point.
Mr. Boyes : The hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) has only been here for 10 seconds.
Mr. Maclennan : The hon. Lady's views are well known, and she has intervened already. I shall be delighted to let her intervene again. Some people hold a strong view on the issue, and that was reflected in those 686 votes in my constituency. We must decide the issue ourselves, not by reference to popular opinion polls or plebiscites. We have been sent here to represent our constituents and to do our best in their interests as we conceive them.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : With the exception of the last 10 minutes, I have been here for the whole debate.
I may well have had an experience that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) has not had. After capital punishment had been abolished, I was defending a man charged with a particularly unpleasant murder of which he was subsequently convicted. Because capital punishment had been abolished, he was not very concerned about whether he would be convicted. If capital punishment had still been in force, he would have said to me, "I didn't do it, Miss." However, when I went to see him in his cell, I was staggered when he said to me, "I want two ounces of Cut Golden Bar, 10 Craven A cork tipped and a paper with the latest racing results." He would not have said that if capital punishment had been in force.
Mr. Maclennan : Hon. Members can consider whether the hon. Lady has strengthened her case by that intervention.
The main argument that must weigh with the Committee in reconsidering the issue is the fallibility of human judgment, the evidence that is presently in our minds that juries have made mistakes which, had the law remained as it was prior to 1965, would have resulted in innocent men being hanged. That is an overwhelming argument against reversing the settled view of Parliament.
Mr. Teddy Taylor : The general sentiment that I have taken from the debate on this serious issue is that most hon. Members seem to think that those who spoke before them spoke for far too long. I shall be brief, because I know that many of my hon. Friends wish to take part in the debate.
Hon. Members have said that having another debate on the issue is a bit of a nuisance. They say that we have decided on the matter and that there is not much point in debating it further. We have to impress on those who are opposed to capital punishment that the argument cannot go away, because on the basis of firm evidence many of us feel that innocent lives are being put at risk almost every day because there is no effective deterrent.
Secondly, many of believe that the law in its present state is such that some determined criminals, especially armed criminals, almost have an incentive to use their weapons if they are caught on a job. No judicial system can prevent murder, but I and many reasonable people are convinced that the evidence clearly shows that many people could be deterred from committing murder.
We have heard a great deal about people's views of the evidence and we have heard their assessment of the situation in America. I appeal to those who have doubts
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about the clarity of the evidence to look at the splendid paper produced by the House of Commons Library.Page 9 is astonishingly clear and precise. It shows that, between 1945 and 1964, the year before abolition, there was not an increase but a reduction in the annual rate of murders from 346 to 296, and that from the moment when capital punishment was abolished, there was a sharp increase in the rate of murder. Those are not my opinions : they are clear, established facts.One can look at the figures in certain ways. One can look at convictions, which would be misleading because there might be more conviction when we had capital punishment than there were after its abolition. However, when one considers the number of bodies--the number of murders made known--the situation seems clear.
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Mr. Rees : After the abolition of capital punishment, the classification of murder and manslaughter were changed, by virtue of the courts, so the hon. Gentleman may not be comparing like with like.
Mr. Taylor : I have the greatest of respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but it does not matter how one classifies murders or manslaughters. I have here a table of the number of bodies--the number of people who have been killed--and the categories include manslaughter, infanticide and murder. The position is clear. The opponents of capital punishment cannot deny that total. From almost the moment of abolition, the number of bodies increased sharply. I challenge those who say that there is no evidence to explain why it was that, in the 20 years after the second world war, when there was plenty of uncertainty in life, including plenty of unemployment, we had a stable or reducing murder rate. Why was it that, after that, under Conservative and Labour Governments, when there was more prosperity, there was a sharp rise from under 300 a year in that 20-year period to 650 murders a year in the next 20 years? There is another piece of evidence that we cannot ignore. I appeal to those who are opposed to capital punishment to explain to me and to people outside why there has been an enormous increase in the use of guns in the commission of crime. It is not just a marginal figure of 10 or 20 per cent. We know that, with capital punishment, criminals in Britain rarely carried guns, but since abolition, guns have been used for quite petty offences. We are talking of enormous increases of hundreds of per cent.
I hope that nobody will say that the figures for the murder of police are not relevant. The figures are clear. In the 25 years before abolition, 22 police officers were killed but in the 25 years since abolition, 53 police officers have been killed--a doubling of the figure. People may look at Japan and the evidence there for certain years in different categories, but the evidence is clear. For us, since we abolished capital punishment, there has been a sharp and sudden alteration in the situation.
The one argument that must haunt every supporter of capital punishment, and the one argument from which we cannot run away, is that of the possibility of a mistake. Is there a likelihood that an innocent person could be hanged? However, even though that is desperately important, we must not forget that, since abolition, 59
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people have been murdered by someone who has already been in prison to serve a sentence for homicide. We do not know what category they would be in.Another factor may arise in such cases. I have studied carefully the case of poor Timothy Evans. Although it appears from the evidence that he did not murder the person whom he was convicted of murdering, there is evidence that he may have killed somebody else.
However we look at the figures, I ask hon. Members to think about the matter in terms of defence policy. I was amazed to hear the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and even our delightful and splendid Home Secretary talking about the dangers to society of treating individuals in such a way. What on earth are they doing supporting our defence policy? Why do we have these terrible bombs, rockets and atomic weapons which can fry people alive, vaporise them or give them devastating long-term illnesses, and which cost so much money? We have them because we want to save life and we want to deter. These chaps are out in the Gulf now to deter war. I accept that it is important that we show great humanity in all we do, but it makes me think that there is something very strange when people who support defence policy to the hilt, remembering that pilots can make mistakes, bombs can drop in the wrong place and innocent people may be killed, change their ideas with capital punishment.
I hope that hon. Members will support new clause 5. In it, I have tried to identify clearly those who can be deterred. If someone is carrying a weapon, he should not be, as he should not be carrying explosives, or going out with a clearly defined offensive weapon. Those who might kill a police officer or a prison officer can be deterred. My new clause has tried to deter such people and to leave the judge an escape clause if he feels that there are extenuating circumstances.
Hon. Members are trying to kid themselves when they say that there is no evidence. The evidence is as clear as anything. Some Ministers at Conservative party conferences have tried to explain how well things are going on the basis of figures that are difficult to interpret. Those figures make the argument clearer than do many of the figures that I have heard quoted at Conservative or, dare I say it, Labour party conferences. We all know that if we do not agree to the reintroduction of capital punishment we shall, as a Parliament, deliberately be sentencing some innocent people to die. For that reason, we should support reintroduction.
Mr. Seamus Mallon (Newry and Armagh) : I shall try to be brief because I realise that many hon. Members still wish to speak and it is important that they speak in this important debate.
I shall concentrate on two points. The first is concerned not with Ireland or the situation in Northern Ireland but with Britain, because I happen to believe that the loss of human life is a tragedy whether the person is killed in Northern Ireland, Birmingham, Glasgow, or wherever. We are talking here about how we best express, through legislation, our regard for the sanctity of human life and for that which will protect the life of those who are charged with enforcing the law and those who happen to break it. The responsibility of society for those who break the law is as great as it is for those who enforce the law.
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It is morally wrong, publicly and through legislation, to take away a person's life. It debases the legislation that allows it to happen. One of our problems in relation to the spill-over from terrorism not just in Northern Ireland but throughout the world is that it has comprised the law. Legislation has danced to the terrorists' tune. The Acts that the House has passed in the past five or 10 years show that the integrity of the law has been debased by the very people to whom we are addressing our message.One cannot defeat terrorism by the use of more stringent law. If it could have been done in that way, the problems of Northern Ireland would have been over long ago. Instead of damaging terrorism, it has damaged the law and people should be aware of that. Sooner or later, the Northern Ireland problem will be over--sooner, we all hope. The British system of law will have to be put together again and, if we agree to the new clauses, the ultimate sufferers might be people here who will have sacrificed what was an excellent system, based on the highest integrity, to pursue something that cannot be achieved by those methods.
Capital punishment also dehumanises the society within which it is used. It uses the method of the terrorist because it takes the brutality of vengeance and violence, which are the hallmarks of the terrorist, and puts them into the court room and legislation. That debasing and dehumanising element is one that can become greater. When I heard about Japan's approach to these matters, I was astounded. What we heard about that country is not good. However Japan's approach is quantified in material terms, such legislation will lead to its ultimate detriment. Alarm bells should ring in this country. It is not so long ago that we saw what stemmed from Japan when the ethic of violence existed throughout its entire body corporate. As we all know, the results were horrific. The conclusions that the Japanese have appeared to draw could rebound on the very values that we want to protect and retain. We should be extremely wary about drawing the same conclusions.
There is another reason why we should consider these matters clearly and with compassion within the Irish element. Many mistakes have been made. One of those mistakes was made in 1916, when people were executed. The poet, William Butler Yeats, summed up the situation better than most when he wrote
"All changed, changed utterly :
A terrible beauty was born."
That was not because a few men took over the general post office in Dublin and started a shooting war. It was because they were executed. As Padraig Pearse said at the funeral of O'Donavan Rossa : "The fools ; the fools ; they have left us our Fenian dead." That martyrdom is the most potent factor within Republicanism in Ireland and always has been. To argue now that we should introduce martydrom by reintroducing capital punishment is bad law and extremely faulty thinking.
References have been made to Albert Brown. I agree with the decision not to execute him. If it had not been taken, it would have been impossible to control Belfast at that time. It would be impossible to control parts of Northern Ireland if a Republican were executed now. That applies to the Protestant community and the Catholic community. It would be deeply wrong if such an execution
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