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that the vehicle has been taken, but seek positively to absent himself from the scene and the commission of the aggravated offence.

Mr. Patten : I gave way to the hon. Gentleman because he felt that his point was important, but it is covered by section 12(1) of the Theft Act 1968. People who get in a car when it is stolen are associated with that act and can be convicted of exactly the same offence.

I shall take a more up-to-date example than one from 1968. In the recent House of Lords judgment in the aptly named Savage case, the court ruled that a person can be guilty of actual bodily harm regardless of whether she --in that case--intended any harm or was reckless about causing harm, so long as she intended the assault. In that case, Mrs. or Miss Savage emptied a beer glass over a person's head, the glass went with the beer and the person was hurt. There was no intent, but she was found guilty and the conviction was sustained on appeal.

The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook made an important point about the minimum and maximum periods for banning and questioned whether that would help or hinder rehabilitation of an offender. A youngster may have committed the offence only once. However, such people must not be favoured, as the hon. Member for Oxford, East said in his powerful speech. If a court decides on a two-year probation order, during the first year the person is mandatorily banned under the Bill and there is nothing to stop the court ruling that during the second year he or she should attend a motor course. I have been to many throughout the country. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, we are funding a great many such courses.

I have referred to some of the powerful speeches made by Opposition Members with particular constituency interests. Among Conservative Members, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) asked in her characteristically robust way why the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats do not see the urgency of this matter. That urgency is self- evident. Several hon. Members who spoke after the opening speakers--I shall not name them for fear of causing inter-party embarrassment--said that it was an urgent matter, and I applaud them. Clearly, there is a gap between the Opposition Front Bench and those who have experienced these problems in their constituencies.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and the police for their warm welcome of the Bill. My hon. Friend raised the important point of what happens under the Bill if a man or woman leaves a child in the car and the car is taken. He gave two examples. I hope that I am not thought too patronising or authoritarian when I say that I do not believe that parents should leave children in unattended cars and they certainly should not leave the keys in the car as well. But should parents do that and should the car be taken away with a child in it, those who took the car could be charged with a much more serious offence under section 2 of the Child Abduction Act 1984, punishable by up to seven years' imprisonment.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton is a member of the council of Justice--an organisation for which I have great respect and which operates under the presidency of Lord Alexander of Weedon. He raised two particular areas where he felt that there might be some

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danger of miscarriages of justice should the legislation go through in its present form. I listened carefully to what he said, and I have some answers.

First, on the "liability for others' acts" point, the Bill contains safeguards--as my hon. and learned Friend knows from his study of it--when the accused can show that the aggravating event occurred before he committed his basic offence or that he was not near the vehicle at the time. However, the general principle of liability for the acts of others to which my hon. and learned Friend referred is not at all out of line with the Theft Act 1968. The basic taking without consent offence is that the taker and any passenger may be punished equally.

That was the point I made when responding to the intervention of the hon. Member for Swansea, East, when I mentioned section 12(1) of the Theft Act 1968. It is also precedented in section 35(2) of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973-- [Interruption.] It is important that those who are concerned about the possibility of injustice pay attention.

That section states that a person convicted of taking without consent is liable to pay compensation for any--and I emphasise that word--damage to the property "occurring while it was out of the owner's possession" and that such damage is to be treated as "having resulted from the offence, however and by whomsoever' the damage was caused."

The precedents are clear for the action which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is taking in the Bill.

Secondly, on the issue of the precedents for making a defendant prove his defence in the way in which the Bill requires, I argue that every year-- certainly since I have been in the House--we have created numerous new offences which have defences attached to them, usually for those who can show that they acted reasonably or that they used due diligence to ensure that they avoided committing an offence. All those defences are for the defendant to establish on the balance of probabilities.

We have traditional defences on, for example, diminished responsibility which allow murder to be reduced to manslaughter, or defences introduced in Acts that have been passed in the last couple of years. The Food Safety Act 1990 is one which has a large number of such defences built into it, as does the recent Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Mr. Lawrence : I hope that my right hon. Friend will appreciate that objection is taken to eating more and more into the principle by which the burden of proof is on the prosecution to establish guilt and not on the defendant to establish innocence. He is perfectly right that in recent years we have been eating into that principle, but if we continue to do so, the principle will go, and that is the civil liberties issue which the system of justice has always been anxious to maintain.

Mr. Patten : I entirely agree with my hon. and learned Friend about the civil liberties issue. If the principle ever was firmly established, it has gone, but the principle's underlying weight is protected by the fact that the defences are there in law. That is the way we have evolved the law over the years, but I shall consider carefully what my hon. and learned Friend said, and I shall read it tomorrow in Hansard .

My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Irvine) was pretty savage about Labour Front-Bench spokesmen and criticised muddled Opposition speeches. The notable

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fellow East Anglian and friend to both of us --my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant)-- was not satisfied and added "nit-picking" to that criticism. He also wanted us to be more severe in our handling of these offenders. A life term is available for those who are convicted of deliberately causing death, whether the conviction is manslaughter--

Mr. Sheerman : Under the present law.

Mr. Patten : I am finishing my sentence. The hon. Gentleman is treating me as though he were talking to someone from Louisiana and wanting to finish the sentence before it has been started. However, I shall complete what I was saying.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West was right about car security and what he said was reflected in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden, who urged us to do more about car security. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I will meet car manufacturers for a return match this Wednesday and there will be some plain speaking.

I pay tribute to the Association of British Insurers, to which we began talking a couple of years ago. It said that it was difficult to use insurance mechanisms to cut car crime, but two years on, it is now using insurance premiums formidably well. We look to the British car manufacturing industry and its European counterparts to do the same as quickly as possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) was concerned about people who reoffend while on bail, and we shall deal as quickly as we can with the reports--and the analysis of them--which deal with that. He and my hon. Friends the Members for Pudsey (Sir G. Shaw) and for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) were concerned about 15, 16 and 17-year- olds and their involvement with the social services. I understand that the social services want to help people, but sometimes one can help people a bit more by nipping problems in the bud and dealing with them at an earlier stage.

Sometimes, to be firm with people can be more helpful than leaving problems until it is too late. It is much better to step in and help people firmly rather than having to punish them at a later stage. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South and others were quite right. The strongest support of all for the Bill came from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), who had a range of interesting ways in which to stoke up the legislation to higher and higher levels of severity.

I hope that there will not be a vote on Second Reading. I understand that there will not be one, but I end on this note : that will allow the official Opposition to say that they did not oppose the Bill because there was no vote on Second Reading. However, should we decide to consider the Bill in a Committee of the whole House, the first set of amendments tabled by the Opposition--should the Opposition win the vote or should we accede to them--would torpedo the Bill below the water line and sink it lock, stock and barrel. They are wrecking amendments of the worst type.

The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and the hon. Member for Huddersfield are trying to have their political cake and eat it. They are trying to say to the general public

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and to their constituents that they have supported the Bill, but, in a few moments, if we resolve to go into a Committee of the whole House, they will then try to sink the Bill. I have a message for them. We have no intention of allowing the Bill to be sunk, and we shall make it as clear as we possibly can to our constituents and to the hon. Gentleman who tried to have their cake and eat it exactly what they have done. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills), That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.-- [Mr. David Davis.]

Question agreed to.

Bill immediately considered in Committee.

[ Sir Paul Dean

in the Chair ]

Clause 1

New offence of aggravated vehicle-taking

Mr. Sheerman : I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 22, after place', insert by the accused or by another person incited by the accused'.

The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Paul Dean) : With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments : No. 3, in page 1, line 23, after vehicle', insert

by the accused or by another person incited by the accused'. No. 5, in page 1, line 26, after vehicle', insert

by the accused or by another person incited by the accused'. No. 7, in page 1, line 29, after vehicle', insert

by the accused or by another person incited by the accused'. Mr. Sheerman : To the cries of "Wrecker Sheerman", I argue that the amendments would not wreck the Bill. Indeed, they would vastly improve it. They would limit the new offence of aggravated taking to cases where the aggravating behaviour was carried out by the accused or by another person incited by the accused. That does not sound unreasonable to me, or, I am sure, to my hon. Friends.

The Bill makes passengers liable to the new offence because of aggravating behaviour by another person who was driving the vehicle. Those people will be liable, even though they were not ringleaders, did not incite, encourage, intend or foresee the behaviour. For example, a passenger screaming to be let out of the car will be guilty of the aggravated offence, if guilty of the original taking. A passenger who pleaded with the driver to stop would be equally liable, as would a younger passenger, influenced by older ringleaders. I cannot understand why the Minister said that this was a wrecking amendment. A passenger will be liable to the aggravated offence, even though he or she was not responsible for the events that made the offence an aggravated one. That cannot be right ; it offends all the normal canons of criminal responsibility. It is a bad law that will lead to miscarriages of justice, as Opposition Members said on Second Reading. If a young person is to be convicted of such a serious offence, rendering him or her liable to a lengthy term of imprisonment, there should be some element of fault in the aggravated behaviour.

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We all know the negative effects of custody on young people. In their White Paper "Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public", the Government referred to custody as

"an expensive way of making bad people worse."

Some two thirds of teenage offenders leaving custody, and 80 per cent. of those under the age of 17, are reconvicted within two years of their release. It is patently daft to imprison for lengthy periods young people who are on the fringe of such activities. It is a recipe for turning delinquents into more serious criminals.

The amendments seek to ensure that the new offence of aggravated taking is linked much more closely to the individual's degree of personal responsibility for the offence. I cannot believe that that could be construed as wrecking the Bill ; it surely improves the Bill, as it focuses it more on the people who took the car and the ringleaders, not those who were on the periphery.

Under the amendments, in order to be guilty an individual will have to have carried out the aggravated behaviour or incited another person to do so. That will not mean that the main offenders will get off. The amendments will also ensure that the prosecution has to prove the guilt of the defendant. They will remove the dangerous proposal to reverse the burden of proof, which would cause grave injustice and is of great concern to many practising lawyers in London.

The Bill as drafted is seriously flawed. The amendments will ensure that those at fault, not those on the periphery, pay the price.

Mr. Anderson : I rise only to adopt the arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman). I shall not expand on them, because we have already given examples of how it would offend against common justice if someone were deemed to be guilty of the aggravated offence when he or she had not given assent to that offence, as aggravated.

I shall argue somewhat against myself by commending to the Government a possible amendment to weaken the defence. It is a purely legal point : a defence is currently provided for the person who can prove, on the balance of probabilities, that the relevant aggravating event occurred before he or she committed the basic offence or that he or she was not--this is the relevant part--in or near the vehicle when the aggravating event occurred.

The phrase "in or near" is relevant, because it makes it seem as though it is a solely geographical matter. That does not cover all relevant circumstances. It is not difficult to conceive of circumstances in which a person participated in the commission of the offence in that he or she encouraged it, without necessarily being geographically in or near the vicinity of the offence. Therefore, the Government may wish to consider strengthening the case for the prosecution by adding to the description of a person being in or near the vehicle when the aggravating event occurred, the following words :

"or did not otherwise participate in the commission of the offence".

Mr. John Patten : I thought that I was right. There is no doubt that the amendments are wreckers--what the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) has just said makes that absolutely clear. I listened with particular care to what the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) said about the workings of the group of amendments. I did so because, when they

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appeared on the Notice Paper, I was at a loss to understand how the Opposition spokesmen could reconcile them with their public stance of support for tough new measures against such people. The answer is now clear : they cannot. The amendments are about negating, not creating, a new offence of vehicle taking. The amendments would emasculate the offence. Their net effect would be to leave the law fundamentally unchanged in practice.

I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett- Bowman), who is learned in the law, nods in agreement. The amendments would erect around each of the what the Bill describes as aggravated circumstances of the basic Theft Act offence considerable and unnecessary evidential difficulties. Should the amendments have their way, it would never be enough for the prosecution to prove that there was danger, damage or death. To the contrary : it would never be enough to say, as the Bill states, that the events would not have occurred if the vehicle had not been taken in the first place. Instead, the prosecution would have to prove the existing basic taking offence.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Swansea, East for his ingenious suggestion on how to improve the prosecution's lot. The prosecution would also have to prove exactly who did what damage at what time, what injury occurred, who was driving and why. The clock would be turned back to the pre-existing law.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary explained, so-called joyriding is habitually accompanied by dangerous driving, damage, injury and sometimes, tragically, death--all of which are already covered by criminal law. The difficulty lies in proving an offence such as criminal damage against one member of a gang, when it is often not clear who has done what or even who was in the driving seat at a certain time. The evidential difficulties are fiendishly complex and trying for the prosecution. There is not only a strong practical case, but a strong moral case, for saying that everyone is equally to blame--exactly as the Theft Act 1968 does in section 12(1). I understand that there may be a worry that we are tipping the scales of justice against defendants and that the aggravated offence is an erosion of traditional legal standards--a point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on Second Reading. I hope that I satisfied him on that matter then. Such concern is misplaced ; the new offence is justified not merely on pragmatic grounds but also on grounds of principle and precedent. I refer the House to the arguments that I deployed on Second Reading. Someone who takes and drives away a car and then aggravates that by damaging, injuring or killing is not justified in then saying that he did not mean to do it. The law will say, "You had no business doing it in the first place." So if someone decides to commit the basic offence, he must accept responsibility when things go wrong, and he has no one to blame but himself.

Defences are provided for people who can show on the balance of probabilities that they had no connection with the aggravating offence. The hon. Member for Swansea, East referred to geographical proximity and to other ways of judging the issue.

I must tell the hon. Member for Huddersfield that either he does not understand his amendments or he must know

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that, if they were agreed to, the Bill would be completely wrecked and the law would return to where it was. I urge the Committee to resist the amendments.

9 pm

Mr. Sheerman : Far from trying to wreck the Bill, we have been trying to improve it by means of these amendments, on which we have consulted the finest legal opinion. I should like a guarantee at this late stage that the Minister of State and the Home Secretary will consult the Law Society and the Criminal Bar Association before the Bill emerges from another place. We are not trying to torpedo the legislation ; we are trying to reflect a view widely held by lawyers. I ask the Minister for such a commitment.

Question put , That the amendment be made :--

The Committee divided : Ayes 40, Noes 149.

Division No. 24] [9 pm

AYES

Anderson, Donald

Ashton, Joe

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

Bermingham, Gerald

Boyes, Roland

Callaghan, Jim

Cummings, John

Darling, Alistair

Dixon, Don

Duffy, Sir A. E. P.

Eadie, Alexander

Eastham, Ken

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Flynn, Paul

Foster, Derek

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Grocott, Bruce

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Hood, Jimmy

Illsley, Eric

Ingram, Adam

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

McFall, John

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

McMaster, Gordon

McNamara, Kevin

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Pike, Peter L.

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Prescott, John

Quin, Ms Joyce

Redmond, Martin

Sheerman, Barry

Skinner, Dennis

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Wilson, Brian

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Tellers for the Ayes :

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie.

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Amess, David

Arbuthnot, James

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Bottomley, Peter

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Bright, Graham

Burns, Simon

Burt, Alistair

Butler, Chris

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Carrington, Matthew

Carttiss, Michael

Cash, William

Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

Chapman, Sydney

Chope, Christopher

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Conway, Derek

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Couchman, James

Cran, James

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Dorrell, Stephen

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Dunn, Bob

Emery, Sir Peter

Fallon, Michael

Fearn, Ronald

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Fookes, Dame Janet

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Franks, Cecil

French, Douglas

Gale, Roger

Goodlad, Alastair

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Gregory, Conal

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Hampson, Dr Keith

Hanley, Jeremy

Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

Harris, David

Hawkins, Christopher

Hayward, Robert

Hill, James

Hind, Kenneth

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Irvine, Michael

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