House of Commons Hansard Debates for 1 Jul 1993

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Council on the Misuse of Drugs. It is ironic that it was published on the same day as the White Paper, because the many changes proposed in that White Paper in relation to the Home Secretary's ability to nominate the chairman of police authorities are pretty irrelevant to the fight against crime. The drug education document is, however, deeply relevant to the fight against crime, but it was virtually ignored.

That Government document reveals that, in the north-west of England, it is estimated that 60 per cent. of 14 to 15-year-olds have been offered drugs, and that a third of them have tried drugs. In the 15 to 16-year-old age group, 60 per cent. have tried drugs. Those figures are horrific. In Wales, one in four of 15-year-olds have tried drugs. In Mid Glamorgan, a survey of 13 to 18-year-olds revealed that 10 per cent. had used drugs in the week before being questioned. In Strathclyde, one in four of those aged 12 to 16 years had tried illegal drugs at least once.

The document also revealed that, in 1991, those in the 17-to-21 age group accounted for 85 per cent. of the increase in the number of drug offences. Around 150 young people die every year as a result of substance abuse.

We know that the use of pills such as ecstasy is increasing greatly. They are freely available in many parts of the country, and there is no doubt that their use is linked to crime.

Mr. Howard : I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about the increasing prevalance of drug use and its clear link with crime. Does he not agree that one of the ways in which effective action can be taken is by increasing the sentences on drug traffickers? Why did he and his party vote against the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which introduced heavier sentences for those traffickers? Does that not illustrate the yawning gulf between what he has said today and the action that he and his party have taken in the past 10 years or more?

Mr. Blair : A Bill is going through Parliament now that will increase the penalties for drug trafficking. It has commanded the full and 100 per cent. support of the Opposition. I cannot comment in detail on the debates of 1988, but I am almost certain that the issue of heavier sentences for drug traffickers was not part of our opposition to the 1988 Act.

I agree that we need strong penalties for drug traffickers, but putting legislation through Parliament to do just that is the easy part. The hard part is settling down to ensuring that we prevent drug abuse, increasing drug education and ensure that young people are not being drawn into a life of drugs and then crime.

Last week, I was in Castlemilk in Glasgow, and visited several people involved in drugs projects. In that part of the inner city, there are whole families whose life is geared to crime. The generations of a family can be virtually dependent on drugs and, of course, commit crimes in order to feed their habit. Drug addicts are three times more likely to have criminal convictions than virtually any other part of the population.

Mr. Tony Lloyd : I congratulate my hon. Friend on the fact that, unlike the Home Secretary, he pays considerable attention to the link between drugs and crime. In areas such as mine, the police estimate that 70 per cent. of crime is drug-related, which is a staggering statistic in its own right.

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The Home Secretary might want to talk tough on sentencing--I am not adverse to tough sentences for those involved in drug trafficking--but he must understand the point that my hon. Friend has just made : if we do not have the necessary education and health programmes, and if we do not have a strategy to deal with drugs across the board--something that the Government have never had--we shall lose not the war on drugs, which is a silly phrase, but a generation.

Mr. Blair : My hon. Friend is right, and makes his point very well. A few days ago, the Association of Chief Police Officers gave a presentation at a drugs conference. It was stated that the drug culture in some inner cities may end in guns, but that it often starts with a much lower level of criminal offences.

The Home Office publication to which I referred reveals not only the size and urgency of the problem but the utter inadequacy of the Government's response. It states :

"Prevention is always better than cure, but a deteriorating drug situation must give urgency to a review of what policies can be put in place to strengthen prevention."

It concludes :

"Half-hearted efforts can offer no prospect of success and the inevitably poor outcome will reinforce pessimistic expectations What is needed to back our recommendations is a commitment to making high quality drug education a tangible reality on a national scale."

It is also pointed out that the Government are currently withdrawing funding for the health education advisers whose job it is to go into schools and youth services to advise young people about the problems of drugs. As the Government are withdrawing the funding, local authorities canot afford to continue such services, and many will be left without any service whatsoever.

In addition, under the community care provisions, the money for drug abuse projects and residential drug care is no longer ring-fenced, although the Government promised that it would be. As a result, residential projects are closing all over the country. A recent survey of 48 residential drug and alcohol projects revealed that they would all suffer severe cuts, all in the cause of saving money. However, we are not saving money ; we are storing up problems for the future in such a way that, in the end, we pay a much heavier price.

Yes, there are enormous problems in our criminal justice system, which has become incompetent to deal with the country's problems, but, because of a perverted sense of ideology, the Government are denying the need to tackle some of the basic underlying causes.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton : The hon. Gentleman has hit on an important point. I share his concern about the closure of residential drugs centres, such as the Priory unit in my constituency. Trendy, liberal do-gooders seem to think that all people can be dealt with in the community, but those of us who have studied the matter for a long time believe that that is fundamentally wrong.

On this issue, the hon. Gentleman has my 100 per cent. support ; and I say it in front of my right hon. and learned Friend. I hope that the closure of residential drug and alcohol centres will be stopped, because their work is exceptional and they achieve far greater success than can be achieved by dealing with people in the community.

Mr. Blair : The hon. Gentleman has made his point well, and I hope that it is taken into account.

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In the few minutes remaining, I shall say why I think the Government are wrong. They pose--

Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere) : The hon. Gentleman said that he did not oppose that part of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 which dealt with drug trafficking. I remind him of one of the parts which he voted against and which his party bitterly opposed, which was the part that gave the prosecution the right to seek a review of over-lenient sentences. That measure has been widely welcomed, and the public believe that it has enabled justice to be done in many cases. Does the hon. Gentleman support the prosecution's right to appeal against over-lenient sentences--yes or no?

Mr. Blair : As I have made clear, I support it. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has been of great assistance in ensuring that bail legislation has been passed which, had the Government's business managers had their way in another place, might have failed.

I was saying why I believe that the Government are wrong, although it is possible to change their position. In the debate on law and order, a wholly false dilemma is posed between personal and social responsibility. The Home Secretary uses language that implies that, if one talks about social conditions, one is excusing crime. That is the essential message that he and many others of his political persuasion give.

The time has come to move beyond that. No one of a sensible persuasion excuses crime, but nor does one ignore the conditions in which crime can breed. The House need not take my word for that. In his 1991 annual report, the former Metropolitan Commissioner, Sir Peter Imbert, said :

"The crime map fits all too closely over the map of disadvantage." He later said :

"The continuing growth in crime is a fundamental concern which, in part, I attribute to the marginalisation of some elements in our society. The notion that there is a link between crime and social deprivation is a compelling one".

Similar points have been made by Sir John Woodcock, the Inspector of Constabulary, and even the right hon. and learned Gentleman's predecessor began to accept the idea.

In a statement on youth crime, the deputy Metropolitan Police Commissioner said :

"Physical security measures need to be supplemented by actions addressing the social, economic and physical conditions in which youngsters grow up".

The sensible approach deals with both sides of the problem. Speaking to police officers across the country, I found that they understand that very well. They have no desire to be put in the position of having to keep the lid on the dustbin of society's problems. In many parts of the country, they believe that that is what they are doing.

To say that we must have tough measures to deal with those who commit crimes is in no way inconsistent with saying that we also have to deal with some of the underlying problems. To use the Home Secretary's language, to say that in drawing attention to this we are blurring the distinction betwen right and wrong is so misguided that if we do not rid ourselves of our blindness about this problem, we shall never tackle it properly.

The nature of what is right and wrong does not change. The problem that we face is not in defining right and wrong but in ensuring that the distinction is adhered to. The purpose of connecting improvements in education,

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employment, housing and family life with reductions in crime is not to blur the distinction between right and wrong but to give it a realistic prospect of success.

The understanding of right and wrong does not arise by instinct alone but from what is taught in the home, at school and in the community, and by what is seen and set by example. Any sensible person should see that. I hope that, in the coming months, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will find areas of agreement in which we can construct an agenda to give the people of this country a real opportunity to reduce crime and once again to make our cities, towns and villages safer for people to live in.

5.48 pm

Mr. David Mellor (Putney) : I warmly congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend, first, on achieving the high office of Home Secretary and, secondly, on the manner in which he addressed the House this afternoon. He has been in action since the very first morning of his appointment, but he made an extremely impressive debut in the House in a major debate. It was all the better because his firmness and resolve had no element of instant solutions or easy answers. He set out a sensible strategy for the future, building on both the successes and the disappointments of the past.

I spent more than five years as a Home Office Minister and I am afraid that one does not have to be in the departmental building very long before one discovers the reality of many of the nostrums that are commonly waved at Conservative party conferences or in public bars. One of the tragedies of my right hon. and learned Friend's job as Home Secretary is that every public bar has a great "Home Secretary" who waves his arms and deals with all the complex problems of crime with a few verbal haymakers. Of course, matters do not work out like that.

I hope that my comments about my right hon. and learned Friend's responsibilities will be helpful. I shall try not to aggravate him as I have done from time to time in the past. My association with my right hon. and learned Friend extends over almost a quarter of a century. Long before he necessarily believed it, I profoundly believed that he would one day occupy one of the great offices of state and it gives me great joy to see him in his present job. When my right hon. and learned Friend was a well- established member of the chambers in which I was a pupil, he sat at an imposing desk and I sat at a rather smaller round table that had been left in our chambers by that most benevolent of socialists, Lord Lever. On one occasion, I so aggravated my right hon. and learned Friend that he fell from his chair, knocked over his desk and upset a cup of coffee over himself. I shall try not to aggravate him quite as much in my speech. No doubt the process of maturation means that he will not be quite so susceptible to such stimuli anyway.

I was a Home Office Minister at the time of the Roskill report and, under the superintendence of the then Home Secretary, introduced to the House the measure that set up the Serious Fraud Office. It was right to do that because nothing could be worse in setting the values for society than that the poor man is run in for a bit of pick-pocketing while the rich man in the City gets away with millions

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through sophisticated fraud. However, it is idle to pretend that the techniques that are effective against the petty criminal will be effective against serious fraud.

The Roskill committee proposed far more radical solutions than the Government are rightly prepared to contemplate. Roskill wanted to change court room arrangements and jury arrangements. There is a paradox here because, by its nature, serious fraud is enormously sophisticated, but people devoid of business experience, let alone experience of how financial systems can be misapplied, sit in judgment on it. Roskill was right to raise that issue and, literally and metaphorically, the jury is still out on that one.

The Serious Fraud Office was set up so that the investigation of serious fraud could be pursued by all the specialist groups that were needed to make an effective contribution to identifying and clearing up such crimes. That requires not just the police but accountants and lawyers who are brought in not just at the end of the process but are continually involved.

It was not easy to persuade the House that the Serious Fraud Office should have the right to investigate financial crimes and require answers to questions, because the right to silence--with which some people disagree-- has been a fundamental entitlement of our citizens for many centuries. It was thought that the nature of fraud and the need to unravel some of its complex mysteries made it appropriate for the powers of the SFO to include the power to require answers. It should be no surprise to any of those who are currently involved in the Serious Fraud Office that, as Parliament has entrusted them with that special power, it is more incumbent on them than on any other officers involved in law enforcement manifestly to conduct their affairs with integrity.

I do not know the rights and wrongs of what my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates) said about the Asil Nadir case. I have here a document that has been thrust into my hands--perhaps other hon. Members have also seen it. It is the filleted, although I hope not too heavily filleted, correspondence of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney- General with my hon. Friend. No doubt further mysteries will be explained when there is a chance to read through it. It is clear that if confidence is to be maintained in the Serious Fraud Office, ready answers to what my hon. Friend said and to the other points that have been made must be put before us quickly.

I do not associate myself with suggestions that we need some great public inquiry, because that would only undermine the body that we now need more than ever, but it is clear that some causes for concern go beyond anything that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire. I hold no brief for Mr. Kevin Maxwell, know nothing of him and probably do not wish to. When he was arrested at 6 o'clock in the morning, why were many press men mysteriously around the house? No one can tell me that that was a coincidence ; those press men were tipped off.

There seems to be an idea that the Serious Fraud Office is not guilty of every charge that is levelled against it. That includes a ludicrous episode of forgery as an April fool joke. I have a sense of humour--I have had to have--but I find that a little puzzling. It is puzzling that it happened but even more puzzling that, apparently, there was no disciplinary action against the person concerned.

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It would be helpful if those points were answered and, although they are not my right hon. and learned Friend's responsibility, they do pertain to law and order. If there have been errors, let them be clearly stated. They must not be allowed to fester and it must not appear that people are being unduly defensive. There should be a review, with a small r, of the manner in which the SFO operates, why some cases have ended in the way that they have and why it sometimes appears that the complexities of fraud cases are made even more complex by a mass of charges which mean that a case takes years to come on, years to dispose of, costs millions and does not have a satisfactory outcome.

I pay tribute to the fact that there is a 65 per cent. clear-up rate, according to Mr. Staples's figures. I do not want to do or say anything that would undermine an office at whose creation I was present. Success has many parents but failure is a bastard child. I am happy to claim to be a parent of the Serious Fraud Office. It would be helpful to have a quiet look at the way matters have shaped up over the past few years. If it is admitted that some things should have been done a bit differently, that will strengthen rather than weaken the Serious Fraud Office.

I do not propose to raise any matters pertaining to cases that are before the courts. However, if I were minded to do so, I would not know how to advise myself on whether what I said was in order. In the context of what my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire and Madam Speaker said, it would be helpful, after reflection, to have some guidance on the sub judice rule as it applies in the House. As I understand it, the remarks in the House by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire could have been uttered outside. It appears from the fact that he was allowed to continue speaking that he could say those things in the House, but that is uncertain because he may have been allowed to go on merely because he was determined to do so, even though Madam Speaker had a right to stop him.

We need to think about that issue. I am not holding my breath until Mr. Nadir returns to this jurisdiction, because I doubt that we shall ever see him again, and answers to some of these questions should not be based on the supposition that he will return. If the sub judice rule precludes Mr. Nadir's case from being discussed in the House and if we assume, as I do, that Mr. Nadir will not come back to our jurisdiction, we are left with the interesting conclusion that it will never be possible to raise his case in the House.

I cannot think that that is what anyone has intended and it would be helpful if that issue, which has emerged in the agony of the moment as such things tend to do, could be reflected upon so that the next time there is such a controversial matter we all know where we stand. It would not be good if people thought, "We had better say what we want to say on the radio. We can get away with it there but cannot say it in the House." The House is the forum of the nation and it must be a place in which we can say what we want to say rather than having to sneak on to the "Today" programme.

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) : I support much of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said, particularly about our capacity to speak here and the instance to which he referred. Does he share my concern at the fact that the Table Office declined to let me table a

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question about a report in a Sunday newspaper two weeks ago that the person who stood bail for Mr. Asil Nadir tipped off the Serious Fraud Office?

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I do not think that was a very fruitful intervention.

Mr. Mellor : I know that the hon. Gentleman's intervention was well meant, but I would not have dreamt of commenting on it. I was not trying to say what was right or wrong, merely that it would be helpful if there were a period of reflection and we knew what the sub judice rule was. Turning to --

Sir Ivan Lawrence : Law and order?

Mr. Mellor : The police. I thought that the Serious Fraud Office was to do with law and order and I am sorry if my hon. and learned Friend thinks differently ; certainly the police have to do with law and order-- but I shall give way to my hon. and learned Friend, who thinks differently. We can assume that the SFO does, so I shall continue.

The police have been the subject of a great deal of work by the Home Office recently. Let us face it, it must be a great disappointment that the tremendous efforts that have been made to improve police pay and conditions have not led to dramatic improvements in the quality of policing and the morale of the police. That is not a criticism of the tens of thousands of extremely effective, committed officers. I have had the privilege to meet many policemen, almost all of whom I warmly admire for doing a difficult job ; never has the task of being a policeman been more difficult. It is not easy to persuade the police of the case for change, but I would strongly urge my right hon. and learned Friend to persist in the course he has set out in the White Paper. There might even be a case for going further which would be supported from these Conservative Benches. Quite plainly, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there may be some structural rather than personal reasons why more success has not been achieved and I would strongly urge my right hon. and learned Friend to continue.

My right hon. and learned Friend has been delivered a very potent package by Sir Patrick Sheehy, and rightly so. I do not think that the old Edmund- Davies formula can continue. Although it is painful and it will be difficult for the police, one hopes that the Police Federation will address the issue with maturity rather than in the way in which old style manual trade unions used to address these matters. How the police respond will be an interesting test for them as well as everyone else.

I cannot help feeling that the Sheehy report represents a close look from a management perspective at the best way to ensure that the police service contains highly motivated, well-rewarded and successful people and that there is an ebb and flow in the service whereby people can move up quickly and people who are not up to it can be moved out quickly. That is an inevitable development. I should make one point about the Metropolitan police. It is right to acknowledge, as my right hon. and learned Friend does, that there is no proper process of accountability for the Metropolitan police. He was right to draw back from the initial interest of his predecessor, whom I warmly admire, but even Homer nods.

The idea of getting local councillors involved in the Metropolitan police simply would not wash in London,

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where the climate has been ruined by all the arguments that emanated from the Labour party before it began to listen to the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) when the police became the subject of political coontroversy. No one in his right mind would entrust the police to some of the left-wing councillors who were sounding off about them. Perhaps things have changed, but I do not know whether they have changed as much as the hon. Gentleman asserts. However, it is not my aim to make a party political speech ; I wish simply to say that I do not think it is possible that that argument could have survived scrutiny, given the background.

Mr. Blair : Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Mr. Mellor : I shall finish this point and then I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman. I wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary would like to tell us a little more in due course, or even in the White Paper, about from where he proposes the 16 people who comprise the proposed body should be drawn.

One must be wary of obvious solutions because they are almost always wrong, but here in the House there are nearly 100 London Members of Parliament. It is recognised that there is something special about the Metropolitan police. Given that it is much larger than other police forces, has national functions and rightly falls under the aegis of the Home Secretary, should we not contemplate giving London Members of Parliament some role in this, perhaps through a new committee? I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will reflect on whether that might be an alternative worthy of consideration.

I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend has not lost for ever his commitment to amalgamate police forces. There is no logic in the present pattern of the police, with some metropolitan forces, some an amalgamation of two or three counties, and others on a single-county basis. I cannot believe that having 43 separate police forces is the most effective way to fight crime. Of course, local feathers will be ruffled and there will be a great deal of nimbyism, but it is worth pushing on.

We all must be deeply distressed every time there is a major terrorist outrage. The IRA will not secure its political aims by bombing and nothing that I say suggests to the contrary. However, we must recognise that just having a stiff upper lip about these outrages and looking like walk-on players in Mrs. Miniver, saying, "Britain can take it", is no more than a starting point in the reconsideration of our anti-terrorist policies.

It is sad but true that, although there is much dedicated police work being done against terrorism, the clear-up rate for major terrorist outrages in Britain over the past 10 years has been lamentably small. If we think back, each right hon. and hon. Member will have his or her own memories of particular outrages. I was appalled by the murder of Ian Gow, for which no one was brought to book ; by the slaughter of the bandsmen at Deal barracks, for which no one was brought to book ; and by the slaughter of the two young children in Warrington.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton : A Member of the House.

Mr. Mellor : Ian Gow?

Mr. Winterton : No, Robert Bradford.

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Mr. Mellor : Indeed. Everyone will have his or her own example, and I appreciate that. Let us not argue about what is the right example but draw a conclusion from it.

Although, of course, we want to express our confidence in the manner in which such issues are approached, it is extremely difficult to say that the results have been anything other than inadequate. We have to ask ourselves what we can do about it.

I shall not go into detail, but we have to ask whether, in setting the leadership of the anti-terrorist squad at commander level, we are giving it sufficient significance. I cannot think of a more important aspect of law and order ; I am sure that even my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) thinks that it is part of law and order that the anti-terrorist squad should have the best and brightest members of the police force. If it is necessary to expand that squad, let it be done. In relation to intelligence gathering, that responsibility has now been given to the intelligence services.

It was a trip down memory lane for me to hear the hon. Member for Sedgefield talk about drugs policy. One of the more interesting problems when I was dealing with drugs policy was the chafing between the police and customs who were both involved in drugs policy. There was a feeling that one could not tell the other something because it would not be handled properly.

It is not necessarily a matter for public response, but we have to take out into the open the question whether we can be satisfied that the new arrangement with the intelligence services and the police is working well and that they are working together effectively. I am worried about some of the rumours about people hissing behind their hands about this and that.

Is there not a case for a unified anti-terrorist agency giving this issue the profile that it deserves? Surely, with so many intelligence personnel presumably liberated from the duties of monitoring what is happening in the Kremlin now that the Kremlin is run differently, is there not a case for looking seriously at whether, in the light of these outrages, we need more effective action?

We rightly rejected mass action that would drive the minority community in Northern Ireland against us. We elected to follow a highly specific policy of going for particular terrorists and of proving offences against them. Of course, intelligence has worked in thwarting a number of outrages, but not enough people have been brought to book. We must ask ourselves before the next outrage what we are going to do about that.

We need to make absolutely sure also that the Government of the Republic of Ireland do not just say that they are with us on terrorism. It is not edifying that, just a few months ago, a Sunday newspaper was able to publish a picture of a notorious IRA criminal fishing in the Irish Republic while on bail, because he could not be extradited. It is not good enough that co-operation has improved--it must be total. After all, we and the Republic of Ireland are partners in the European Community, and we are being invited to do even more to open our b can be made by Dublin, when presumably the terrorist must be known?

More must be done if public confidence is to be retained. Although the IRA will never achieve its aim by further outrages, it is clear that there is a limit to public tolerance to outrages--particularly on the scale of those

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that occurred in the City of London--before the public lose confidence in the ability of those in power to do anything effective.

I do not want public confidence to be lost, but it will not take many more outrages for the public to be sick in their guts and to realise that nothing has been achieved by way of convictions. My right hon. and learned Friend said that the best way to fight crime is to catch and to convict the criminal. That is not being done enough.

Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) : I agree with much that has been said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and I will not quibble with him about the best examples of terrorism. I welcome his concern, even if it could have been displayed years earlier. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has not mentioned one aspect that relates particularly to the City of London. Right hon. and hon. Members will have read newspaper reports of the measures that are being introduced to restrict vehicle access to the City, which I am sure are reasonable and necessary. They may be necessary also in other cities in the United Kingdom.

Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that such measures should be put on a proper legislative footing? The legal basis for the road blocks and road checks that are currently being seen in London is somewhat uncertain. There is a need for not only a national agency and for the proper co-ordination of intelligence of the kind that the right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned, but uniform legislation against terrorism throughout the kingdom.

Mr. Mellor : The hon. Gentleman's question would be better directed at my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. I admit that the hon. Gentleman's point was not the first that occurred to me. Although I do not like the public being stopped without proper legal powers, it is good news that it will be more difficult for a terrorist to drive a clapped-out old lorry carrying tonnes of exposive into the City of London and park it there for a couple of hours undetected--but we cannot win by a ring of steel. That will not work. The terrorists will simply move on to another target. I am calling for more effective action in identifying terrorists. We keep hearing that there are only a few hundred of them. It should not be beyond our resources to identify them. If those in authority who are currently responsible cannot do so, it is time that we expanded the operation to ensure that that is done.

I wish my right hon. and learned Friend every success in discharging his duties. I cannot think of a more difficult post than Home Secretary, because so many and varied matters fall within it. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend can make progress, in line with the speech that he made this afternoon.

6.13 pm

Mrs. Bridget Prentice (Lewisham, East) : It was fascinating to hear the Home Secretary say that he is prepared to crack down on crime-- particularly as a member of a Government who have continually denied the evidence of their own eyes that crime in Britain is spiralling out of control and have denied any responsibility for that.

We on the Labour Benches have pointed to increased car crime and home burglaries, and to the 110 per cent. increase in violent crime, since a Conservative

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Government came to power. Such is the loss of public confidence in the system that the attitude is developing that it is hardly worth chasing the young offender, because nothing much is likely to happen to him anyway. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) said, the British crime survey showed that two out of three crimes go unreported. It is no wonder that the police and local communities feel that property and juvenile crime are at an unprecedented level.

The Home Office claims that young offending has fallen across the country and has rejected Labour party proposals to tackle youth crime, which should be at the heart of a national strategy developed through careful research and effective local initiatives. We want action to prevent young people offending in the first place. We will be tough on crime and on the causes of crime. That requires a dynamic partnership between local authorities, police and local communities. It means also--as my hon. Friend emphasised-- adequate provision for drug rehabilitation centres, youth clubs and leisure activities for the young, to ensure that they are diverted from crime.

The past three Home Secretaries have consistently and deliberately starved local councils and voluntary organisations of the resources to do the job properly. Despite the Government's antagonism, Labour local authorities in London have established more than 30 community safety groups with the Metropolitan police to control and to prevent crime. Meanwhile, the Government stand idly by.

Last year, the Apex Trust was on the verge of going under, until my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield and hon. Members in all parts of the House spoke up for it to ensure that it could continue its work of rehabilitating offenders and finding them appropriate training and employment. In south London, the Apex Trust is working with South Thames training and enterprise council, and it is also doing excellent work with prisoners at Belmarsh.

It is vital to intervene when a young person begins offending. In many places, the simple caution enjoys a high success rate, but some young people need more than that--a package of support and advice that will steer them away from crime. In the 14 years in which a Conservative Government have had an opportunity to do something about the problem, no Home Secretary--including the present holder of that office--has produced any national information or guidance on using the caution, or advice on the best approach to use in some areas as distinct from others.

There is no check either to ensure that the caution is not used as a means of avoiding paperwork and taking up court time instead of as an effective control measure. There is certainly a fear among police officers to whom I have spoken that the Crown Prosecution Service refers cases back for caution when the police themselves would prefer to prosecute.

There must be prompt intervention also when a youngster offends while on bail. The Home Secretary spoke of speeding up the trial process but failed to give any specific examples. It is extraordinary that cases take many months to come before the courts. We want national bail support and enforcement programmes, with regular reporting on the young offender, school attendance checks and work with the young offender's family to ensure that he does not offend while on bail and that he turns up when his case is to be heard. The Home Secretary spoke only with an eye on the Tory party conference, so that he could wring his hands

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there, promise to stamp out crime and make the usual diatribe against those of us who are concerned not only about present crime levels but about preventing crime in future. One would think that a Government so strapped for cash would take the opportunity to combat crime in an economical and common-sense fashion. It costs about £1, 700 to keep a young offender in a secure unit. If the Government concentrated on trying to prevent the youngster from committing crime in the first place, it would be money well spent.

We accept that some youngsters need to be in secure accommodation and we realise that the Government accept that, too. They have said that they will provide secure accommodation for those youngsters. However, in the two years since that promise was made, not one place has been provided by the Government. We need those places if we are to help the young people and ensure that they do not reoffend. The Government have done no research on why supervision orders with residence requirements are used so rarely by the courts and they have failed to take on board the issues raised by organisations such as the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, which has said that the Government are simply seeking the failed solutions of the past. Research has shown that 78 per cent. of offenders with previous convictions who were given approved school orders were reconvicted within five years ; yet we know that those who are put under proper local authority secure supervision are much less likely to offend. On 23 March, the Home Secretary said :

"The police must respond to the needs of local communities and of the victims of crime".--[ Official Report, 23 March 1993 ; Vol. 221, c. 765.]

Such utterances fail to reflect the reality of the gaps in the provision for the victims of crime.

Victim Support has made it clear that it will not have the funding to provide sufficient posts to meet the need that it has identified. It knows that the funding that the Government are providing is inadequate. Next year, Victim Support is likely to find its funding position even more difficult. The Home Office figure of £8.6 million shows a shortfall of £2.3 million. By raising the threshold for claims from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board from £550 to £1, 000, the Government have denied people the opportunity to have some form of support. Victim Support estimates that one in three victims of violent crime who would previously have received compensation will now be excluded from the scheme. That displays a callous disregard for the needs of victims of crime.

The Home Secretary has stated a desire to respond to local community needs. How can that desire be met in London when, in the face of the views of the Association of London Authorities, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and the Police Federation as well as those directly involved in preventing crime in London, the Home Secretary has refused to provide a police authority for London? The Home Secretary is about to appoint a body to act as an advisory board on his behalf on policing strategy in the capital. That is nothing more than an unaccountable quango--yet another example of the Conservative Government placing Conservative people in positions of authority without any recourse to local need, local

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