House of Commons Hansard Debates for 1 Jul 1993

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accountability or what local people want. Londoners will be left without an elected authoritative voice on policing in London. Across the country, the amalgamation of forces will make the police even more distant from the local communities than they are at present. The proposals paraded by the Government in the White Paper on Monday fail to address the scale of the crime wave that has hit the capital over the past decade. All the evidence of escalating crime and low clear-up rates confirms that the present arrangements, whereby the Home Secretary is the police authority for London, have served the capital badly when compared with the rest of the country, where policing has been overseen by police authorities comprising elected members of the community.

The level of crime in London is massive and it is rising. Almost 1 million notifiable offences were recorded by the Metropolitan police in 1992. The Government have failed to take any responsibility for the escalating crime figures, yet crime in London has almost doubled in the 14 years in which they have been in power. In the operational police review undertaken by the police staff associations, a survey of the public revealed that 64 per cent. considered burglary of people's homes to be a priority. It was second only to assaults on women. However, despite the intensive efforts of the Metropolitan police, the Government have made no serious attempt to support them and the local community in dealing with those crimes.

Nearly 200,000 burglaries were reported in London in 1992. In the same year, almost 38,000 crimes involving violence against the person were reported. Mention was made earlier of the use of guns in crimes. That was a relatively stable figure in London until the last couple of years, but we are becoming more and more concerned about the rise in the use of firearms and the escalating violent drug war that seems to be waging in the capital. We are concerned about whether the Metropolitan police have the resources to cope with that new, heavily violent and internationally mobile criminal set. We heard nothing from the Home Secretary to address that problem.

How can the needs of the local community be met in these times of ever- increasing property and violent crime when a basic lack of resources pervades the system, reducing the number of police? Promises to the police have been broken and their budgets have been cut. Since 1991, the number of offences per police officer in the Metropolitan police has risen by almost 33 per cent. Across the country, the increasing work load is way out of proportion to any increase in staffing and the police have considerable difficulties in coping with that.

Last week, I received a letter from a primary school in my constituency-- the Good Shepherd school in Downham. It wrote saying that the school had been subjected to

"petty vandalism, of an ongoing and expensive nature."

The resident schoolkeeper rang for police assistance. During the weekend in question, Catford police station received 17 telephone calls requesting police presence. On that Saturday, the Good Shepherd school could get no response. When the head teacher raised the matter with Catford police station, she was informed that the station was seriously undermanned and that it was 40 personnel down and had been so for nearly two years.

Where is the Government support for Catford police station, the primary schools in my constituency and the others in the area? The Downham area in my constituency has a large number of elderly people who are afraid to go

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out in the evening. If they heard an example like that, they would be even more afraid to go out because they know that the police are not available to protect them.

Mr. Nigel Evans : Does the hon. Lady agree with the measures that have been taken to civilianise the police, so that more police are on the beat now than in 1979? Does she regret the fact that, when the Labour party left office in 1979, the police were 8,000 under establishment?

Mrs. Prentice : I have already said that crime has doubled in the 14 years in which the Conservative party has been in power. The Government have accepted no responsibility for that. The Conservative party can no longer call itself the party of law and order. It is clearly the party of law and disorder.

I assure the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) that we support having police on the beat. We have been asking for that for a considerable time. If the Government spent less time attempting to privatise sections of the police force, perhaps we would see more quickly some response to the call for more police on the beat. I spent eight hours on Monday with a policewoman from Lee Green police station. I walked around my constituency on the beat with her so that I could find out the sort of problems with which the police have to deal ; we did not have to check only on burglaries or the increase in car crime, some of which I witnessed.

Having done that, the policewoman has to return to the station, complete paperwork and deal with matters in the knowledge that, on that very day, the Home Secretary was producing a White Paper that was to give the police little help in ensuring that they could continue to do good work on the beat and visit local schools. That police officer said that she wanted to go into schools as often as possible, to talk to young children as early as possible so that they understood that the police service was there to serve, help and support. The visits were also to ensure that children would be reminded of their own responsibilities and be steered away from the criminal road. I am quite convinced that the police officers in Lewisham, with whom I have been in regular contact over the past few weeks, will not be assured by the Government statements yesterday and earlier in the week.

The Government's ill-advised and ill-co-ordinated responses to crime in our society have failed on all counts. They have failed to achieve a practical and realistic strategy to fight crime. They have failed to involve the local community in that battle. They have failed to understand and meet the needs of young offenders, who require local community support to stop reoffending. Most of all, they have failed to support the victims of those crimes.

6.32 pm

Sir Rhodes Boyson (Brent, North) : There are two major problems in our society. The first is the breakdown of law and order all over the country--in cities and in the country--and the second is our current huge financial deficit. In the long run, the most serious of the two is the breakdown of law and order because people will take the law into their own hands, the vigilantes and the rest will move in and there will be a breakdown of society. The problem

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basically arises because we no longer pass on the accepted values of a civilised society from generation to generation in our schools, churches and homes.

I wish to make nine points. First, religion should not be the substitute for a policeman, but if people believe that they will be responsible for their actions in another life, it acts as a sobering thought. That does not mean that one has to be a Christian or have a religious belief to be moral, but in the society of the 19th century, when 80 or 90 per cent. of the population believed that there was a judgment after death, it was a great help in maintaining law and order. That has gone.

Secondly, untold harm was done in our schools, educationally and morally, by the so-called discovery method. Children go to school to learn what society is about ; to realise that they are the heirs of the past and the custodians of the future and that they can stand on the shoulders of people before them only if they are taught learning, mathematics, science and morality at school. Instead of that we have had pretend learning that one can discover something for oneself, and children in schools today grow up believing that they are the masters of creation and that they can do everything. The infant school discovery method has done untold harm in lowering the standards of mathematics, arithmetic and English because it did not peg people into society. People need to be pegged in society to understand what society is. If people think they can do it all for themselves, selfishness becomes the god of their creation.

Thirdly, there has been a decline of school and youth games. That is especially important to boys. I have never been a girl so I cannot comment on that, but a distinguished lady, my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), is present, so perhaps she can talk about that. After 23 years of school mastering, I know that boys are dangerous creatures unless they are regularly worn out. Sport is great for achieving that. If they are not worn out, they will take things into their own hands. When I left Highbury Grove comprehensive almost 20 years ago, the decline of sport was beginning. Wives now expect their husbands to go to the supermarket on Saturday morning and help instead of being at school taking responsibility for a school team.

Then it was said that there must not be any competitive games and that everyone must compete with themselves. That was left-wing nonsense, but I do not blame the Labour party for that. It is difficult to play tennis with oneself. One would be worn out by one serve following the method of jumping the net. A head of department under me became, in a midnight seance, one of those against competition. We need many sports for juveniles. In my constituency, the private sports clubs are setting up such activities and not the schools. Sport is leaving the schools, and that is bad.

Fourthly, we face a similar problem in youth work. We are short of youth leaders. There are more children wanting to be organised than there are people wanting to organise them. That is a responsibility of society.

Fifthly--people will have divided views on this--corporal punishment has been withdrawn from schools. The idea that everybody grows up abiding the law is untrue. People have become law-abiding and have had a sense of civilisation since the advent of the Peelers. We have the best infantry in the world because we are a bloody-minded people. Unless we organise, it is dangerous. We took the right of corporal punishment

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away from schools and put nothing back. The result is a high crime rate among children at the age of 14 because teachers do not want them in school. The teachers have passed round the cap to get them out because they can teach the other 24 children at the age of 16 if the six who will not behave are not there. Unless we put something back to replace corporal punishment, there will be more juvenile crime at the age of 14 as they become a betrayed generation. Sixthly, there has been a decline in the instance of

apprenticeship. That is a way of pegging one generation to another. Twice as many young people in Germany have apprenticeships than in Britain. A trained journeyman teaches young people the habits of maturity. The youngsters do not run with their own group all the time, but have an adult pattern to follow, with the man who is training them in that job, if not at home. I would like to see the return of apprenticeships, including the boy apprenticeships in the services to train them so that they have the skills and also have that sense of responsibility that a good journeyman brings. There is no substitute in further education for an apprenticeship where a youngster is attached to one person who becomes his friend or guardian, almost for life.

Seventhly, we have suffered from the ending of national service. I am not suggesting that we should bring it back. It took people away from their homes, and, in many cases, gave them a second chance in life. Most European countries still have national service. Our armed services do not want it to return because it takes too long to train somebody. I was in the boy services myself a long time ago and it was a great training ground. We must realise that we lost something when national service ended.

Let me say something that I did not intend to say--I always live an exciting life ; I shall listen carefully to myself. It is about firearms. I once spent time in Switzerland where every man has a gun and where there are far fewer murders than in Britain, not because they do not have guns, but because they all have a gun. In this country it is only the criminal fraternity who have guns and only the law-abiding citizens who do not have guns. That should be considered.

Before the introduction of the Peelers, people had guns under their pillows. We read about that in Victorian fiction. Let me return to the rest of my speech ; hon. Members cannot have the best beforehand.

Mr. James Couchman (Gillingham) : I am trying hard to follow my right hon. Friend's logic, especially with regard to the use of firearms and the general ownership of firearms. I should have thought that the example of the United States was not an encouragement to the universal ownership of firearms. Perhaps my right hon. Friend has some remedy for that.

Sir Rhodes Boyson : That is an excellent intervention to which I have no answer. However, I shall not change my mind. I shall think about and pray for the answer. Europe may be different from America. As an anti- Maastricht man, I shall not go into that point. I must be careful because I am in dangerous territory and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) did not intend to bring me into dangerous territory. I shall pass on and merely nod in his direction.

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Eighthly, there is the question of the police. They are burdened by forms. They do not walk the streets ; they fill up pieces of paper. They do not want to get into trouble by arresting someone and then finding that it does not come off. The great thing is for them to look busy as they walk round the streets. When one asks what one should do at the second coming, the answer is, "Look busy. Everyone will pass you by if you look busy." The police are burdened by written reports, and that has not helped us.

My ninth point is this. If there is a diet of sex and violence on television, sex and violence will increase in society ; there is no doubt about that. If we say that great art, great literature and great poetry uplift, bad ones will downlift--is that the opposite of uplift ?

Mrs. Gorman : Downgrade.

Sir Rhodes Boyson : Yes, the word is "downgrade". I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman). I do not know whether she was sitting here to help me, but she did help me with a graciousness that is very becoming in the House.

I make no apology for saying that I want more censorship of broadcasting. I am not a libertarian ; my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay is more libertarian than I am. I want more censorship of what children see, especially as television is on all the time, even when the parents are not watching.

Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton) : On the subject of the role of the media, does my right hon. Friend share my concern and the concern of my constituents who contacted me yesterday and today expressing shock and horror at the report on the front page of The Daily Telegraph yesterday that the BBC is planning a train robbers' reunion in Rio? Is that not glorification of crime? How can we beat crime if the BBC behaves like that?

Sir Rhodes Boyson : I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I read that article yesterday and I was horrified, especially bearing in mind what happened to the driver of the train. However, two letters in The Daily Telegraph today suggest that the reunion will not happen. That was my reading of the letters, and I hope that it is right. However, if the BBC goes ahead, the House must make its views perfectly clear, not only on behalf of our constituents, but on behalf of our own moral beliefs.

We face a total breakdown of law and order in Britain because of the weakening of the powers of the schoolmaster, of the police, of the courts and of parents, and because of the collapse of the social cements of religion, of patriotism and of controlled and responsible behaviour among the younger generation. Boys, girls, men and women are not naturally good. They need to be taught the difference between good and evil, and between right and wrong. They also need to be taught about original sin.

I became a Tory--I do not suggest that all Labour party members should do the same--the day I discovered original sin. I realised that man was not perfectible in this life. Even I am not perfectible in this life, although my children may be. I discovered original sin and what it means in moral law. Alas, in recent years, many schools have betrayed their responsibilities and have taught skills without values. The family has been under continual attack and the Church has in many instances ceased to be

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a saviour of souls for eternity and has preferred to become a branch of the welfare state. We have forgotten original sin. Britain is becoming a dangerous society for the young, the old, the handicapped and the vulnerable to live in. Unless drastic action is taken, vigilante groups will arise because frustrated people will take the law into their own hands, as has happened recently, for their protection and for the protection of their neighbours. That may be a dangerous statement to make with lawyers sitting round me in the House. Moral law is superior to statute or any other law because it gives a moral base to human behaviour. Men and women came into society for their own protection, and they put down their own weapons to be protected by the group, by the locality and by the country. Once those things no longer defend them, they have every right in moral law to take up their weapons again. That is the dangerous situation that we now face. Either our people, via the police and the courts, give full protection, which they do not do now, or society as we have understood it for the past 150 years will break down in Britain.

6.45 pm

Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : The Home Secretary began this debate--his first major debate on crime--with a sober and careful speech, to which I listened with great attention and with some respect for his outline of the Government's priorities. The tone of his speech was strikingly less triumphalist than the tone of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) whom he has replaced, and it was all the more welcome for that. A note of humility from any Home Secretary at the end of 14 years of Conservative government which have seen a doubling of recorded crime rates is certainly not out of place.

I have no doubt that many hon. Members agree with the Home Secretary that the country would be a more tranquil place if we lived in a society in which the criminal and not our neighbour was frightened. It may be Utopian to believe that we can achieve a society in which criminals are automatically frightened. None the less, for a Home Secretary embarking on a difficult role, it must be right to have high objectives.

It was only when the Home Secretary came to the end of his speech and indulged in a little partisan exchange with the Labour party about who was to lead the crusade against crime that I found myself deeply out of sympathit of perception between political parties about the causes of crime and the proper Government responses to crime. As a member of a third party in the House, I ask the Home Secretary to remember the wise words of Sir Robert Peel, a Conservative of some distinction in these matters, who said as long ago as 1835 : "Between the dissenters and the established church there is an enormous ground of infidelity."

Translated into the terms of this debate, there is an enormous ground of people who are not persuaded that Conservative Home Secretaries or Labour Home Secretaries are necessarily the people who will prescribe the cure to an endemic and growing problem. The Home Secretary spoke of one of the issues to which I attach high importance and in which I want to promote

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his interest beyond what he said today. I stress the importance of crime prevention in tackling opportunistic crime, especially crime against property, which is a scourge which makes life in many communities insecure and fearful.

I do not believe that the Government have begun to appreciate the value of crime prevention measures or the scale of help that they can deliver in local communities to those who live in fear that their home will be broken into, their car stolen, or their handbag snatched ; that they will be mugged in a dark corner, or that their property will be vandalised.

The Government have backed a number of worthwhile, well-publicised schemes of crime prevention--the safer cities scheme, for instance--and I am glad to learn that they have in mind 40 new projects. But let us get this into perspective.

According to the Government's own figures, in 1992, only £16 million was spent by the Home Office on crime prevention, out of a total of nearly £7 billion spent on the criminal justice system. Out of a total of 125,000 police, only 750 are dedicated crime-prevention officers.

The arrangements for training in crime prevention are exiguous. They are conducted from a training centre in Staffordshire which is a mere Portakabin. It can train--if that is what is being done there, and it is a pretty limited amount of work that is done--only 1,000 officers a year.

Mr. Harold Elletson (Blackpool, North) : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that very few of us on this side of the House have any respect for his concern about crime prevention or for his party's concern about law and order when he is the only representative of his party who can be bothered to turn up and speak in this important debate? There have been no other Liberals on those empty Benches throughout the entire debate. It is an absolute disgrace that the Liberal party treats the whole issue of law and order with such obvious contempt.

Mr. Maclennan : The hon. Gentleman will be listened to with respect, if he succeeds in catching your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and addresses any of these issues in a slightly better-tempered manner than he has just displayed. It must be regarded as poverty of argument that leads the hon. Gentleman into personal abuse. The job of the police is not simply to enforce the law after it has been broken. I believe that, in the minds of the public, it is exceedingly important that they should play an ever- growing part in preventing it from being broken. They cannot do that on their own ; they require the co-operation of local communities and local voluntary groups, and I believe that the Government can do a great deal more to promote this.

It is not simply a matter of dedicated schemes, although those are important ; it is also a matter of collating the evidence of what is effective. That is something which, with considerably fewer resources than those of a Government Department, the Liberal Democrats have already attempted to do, producing a handbook based upon the experience of local authorities, in which they have played some part, in dedicating schemes to tackling particularly perceived threates to society by criminals.

This is the kind of thing that can best be done and disseminated at local level, but it can be done with even greater authority if the information is collated nationally, and the Home Office is well placed to do this. Even the

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process of collection of such information would be a stimulus to local authorities and local police forces to come together in this valuable work. I was glad to hear the Home Secretary say that he has it in mind to pick up this idea.

He also spoke of the need for a partnership between the police and the public, and the important part played by individuals in society in combating crime. I am 100 per cent. in agreement with him on that general proposition. A society that turns its back on crime leaves individuals at much greater risk, and we all have a responsibility. It is easy to say that ; it is more difficult, when confronted with a criminal act, to respond.

One of the features of the society in which we live that is different from that of our parents is that there are now fewer people in positions of authority below the police who, as in the past, have the capacity to defuse potentially criminal behaviour. We see fewer park attendants, fewer bus conductors, fewer people who have the respect of the community because of their role within it. Those people provided a form of service that perhaps modern technology has made unnecessary, but a gap has been left. I believe that the gap can be filled only by personal respect for the need to participate in the fight against crime.

The Home Secretary also spoke of the need for an effective criminal justice system and a greater concentration of the system on bringing the guilty to justice. It is certainly true that there is widespread concern about the effectiveness of our criminal justice system at this time. There is widespread concern among the police that their efforts to catch criminals do not always lead to prosecutions being pursued effectively. There is widespread concern that perhaps the rules of evidence are not sufficiently adapted to secure convictions.

There has been questioning of some of the fundamentals of our criminal justice system. That, no doubt inspired by evidence of miscarriages of justice of a peculiarly appalling kind, led the Home Secretary, as he told us this afternoon, to change his views entirely about capital punishment.

That widespread concern about the criminal justice system led to the setting up of the royal commission under Lord Runciman. No doubt, when its report is published, we shall wish to debate its recommendations. I do not think, therefore, that it is sensible in this debate to trail the debate that would more naturally follow the publication of that report. But that the new Home Secretary is aware, at least, of these concerns is very much to be welcomed.

I particularly welcome what the right hon. and learned Gentleman had to say about capital punishment, for, by nods and winks, some Conservative leaders sought in the past to suggest that, if only capital punishment were restored--that was something favoured by Conservative leaders--perhaps the whole tenor of our attitude to law and order would be changed. I am quite sure that the Home Secretary's attitude towards that is right. It is good that he made it so clear that capital punishment cannot play a helpful role in strengthening the forces of law and order in our society.

The Home Secretary dealt at some length--in a particularly contentious manner as between himself and the Labour party--with the need to give the courts the powers to deal with offenders effectively. He touched on a

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matter that will be covered in part by the royal commission, but if he focuses exclusively on amendment of substantive criminal law, he will miss the need to which he in his great office of state can respond better than any other member of the Government--to complement the law with other urgent Government action where such measures are necessary.

The exchange between the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) and the Home Secretary at the end of the debate was one of the more profound exchanges about law and order to which we have listened for some years. The dialogue was more genuine than we have heard for some time.

I hope that the Home Secretary will acknowledge that instant criminal law reform to deal with problems that have been headlined by the tabloid press, which no doubt are real--joyriding, dangerous dogs and so on--will not be the test of whether he has succeeded as Home Secretary. The volume of legislation on law and order will not prove his abilities as a great Home Secretary. I draw his attention to the comments of Sir Robert Peel, who, in a debate in the House in 1844, said that there were many matters of morals which he knew to be wrong, but which could not be put right by legislation. That is as true today as it was 150 years ago.

We are having this debate because, I suppose, there is a new Home Secretary, not because there is a coherent package of measures to tackle the problem of expanding crime. We are caught in the middle of a series of proposals for change in respect of policing, some of which are of considerable importance.

We shall return to the subject of law and order in detail in the autumn, when the Government announce their conclusions on the Sheehy report, which was published yesterday and which drew together the different strands after hearing what the police and others had to say. What has been said so far cannot give great pleasure to the Government, whose proposals have been universally condemned from the police forces. None the less, I should like to make a few general points about policing in this country.

We have to take seriously the risk of an over-centralised police force. I have no objection in principle to amalgamation of police forces where the case is made out. My noble Friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead presided over the largest ever programme of force amalgamation in 1966-67, reducing the number of forces to 155 at the time of the Willink commission to 51 in Great Britain and 43 in England and Wales.

The rules for amalgamation that were laid down in schedule 3 to the Police Act 1964 seem sensible. They were established by Mr. Henry Brooke, the father of the present Secretary of State for National Heritage. They provided that the Home Secretary must publish any plans for amalgamation, and that if there was any objection from the police authority or local council, a public inquiry must be held. The report of the inspectors should then be laid before Parliament, together with a draft statutory instrument for implementation. The procedure ensures that the Executive must justify its plans before an independent panel, and seek the approval of Parliament and of local people.

The White Paper says that the Government will simplify the statutory procedures. It appears that they wish to abolish them. The Secretary of State may have it in mind to force through amalgamations without a public

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inquiry. I do not think that that is wise. My reasons for that are established over many years. It is not a partisan point. The procedures exist, are perfectly satisfactory and should be adhered to.

The second strand in the Government's thinking about the police which has been revealed is their wish to establish greater control over local police authorities. It has perhaps over the years been an aim of Home Secretaries to take greater power over the police. The Government's proposals to appoint and pay chairmen of police authorities are misconceived and should be abandoned, as they are causing great anxiety throughout the police service, as are the proposals for political appointees to police authorities. The view that expenditure on police authorities should be capped by central Government follows the same line of thinking. It is presented as giving greater freedom of expenditure to police authorities, but in reality it is cash-limiting police expenditure, and as such will have a damaging effect on the ability of local police authorities and chief constables to set their own objectives.

The success of the police in working with the public in attacking crime in rural areas, in areas where ethnic minorities predominate and live in fear of racial attack, and in deprived inner cities where drug abuse is endemic and is blighting the lives of our families, depends not on the Home Office setting targets of achievement, which have to be adhered to in a rigid bureaucratic way, and achievement of which will lead to adjustments in the pay of police officers. That system of incentives and promotion cannot be responsive to the local communities that the police serve. It cannot be apt to tackle the disparate circumstances of the heterogeneous societies that make up this country.

Local policing has been the core of policing in this country. Community policing, commended by Lord Scarman and implemented increasingly throughout police forces, is the best hope of reducing the role of the criminal, and we shall wish to look at the Government's proposals for the future of the police with those considerations in mind.

I do not believe that the drastic proposals that the Home Secretary adumbrated in reports published this week will command the support of the police or public when they are properly understood. They seem to import into the management and remuneration of policing concepts that may be familiar and appropriate to business and commerce but are not appropriate to the greatest public service in this country, which depends on the police enjoying the confidence of, and being able to react to, the local community.

The Home Secretary, in embarking on his job, has a number of great assets and difficulties to contend with. He has a splendid Home Office research and planning unit, which has produced some first-class research and advice. The hon. Member for Sedgefield drew heavily on the document on drugs that was published earlier this week, and it is a powerful indictment of the view, if that view persists, that the problem of drugs can be effectively tackled by passing ever more punitive legislation against those who are involved in dealing. We must have severe, condign punishment for those who engage in the drug trade, but let us not believe for one moment that that is enough.

The unit has produced valuable work on juveniles, bail, victim support and the unit fines, which the Government

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have so cavalierly abandoned. Let the Home Secretary pay great attention to the work that it has produced, digest it and, where it is sound, disseminate it.

The Home Secretary also draws on the asset of the police--the bravery and hard work of officers, and the intelligence and dedication of some of our outstanding chief constables. He has at his disposal a probation service that plays a major role in preventing recidivism and in seeking to protect the public from reoffending. He has an incorruptible judiciary--not something that we should take for granted, even in Europe. He has, I believe, local communities who are, as he said, perhaps in a new mood-- ready for change, ready for participation in crime prevention and willing to work with the police to prevent crime as much as possible. I hope that he is successful and, as he embarks on his different role, I wish him well. 7.13 pm

Sir Ivan Lawrence (Burton) : I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not match the eloquence of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan). The public want to hear the House debating this topic, which is probably the most important subject of this Session.

I am delighted that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has made such an immediate impact on the subject by raising the debate and, for example, by giving the police the right to use side-handled batons in trials, which they wanted and which are an important element in the protection of women police officers who, with the silly little truncheons that they have at present, simply cannot defend themselves against men carrying knives. This debate, and my right hon. and learned Friend's actions since taking office, has inspired us.

I am delighted to see the Minister of State in his place ; if he fills his office with as much distinction as he filled his previous post he will be a credit to the Conservative law and order team. I was a little disappointed with the speech of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). He did not show the confidence that I would have expected--

Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) : This is petty stuff.

Sir Ivan Lawrence : I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was present for the speech of the hon. Member for Sedgefield, who lacked a little confidence in his presentation and did not live up to his previous best performance.

It must be embarrassing for the Opposition to say that they have a policy for tough law and order when they must live down the fact that for so long they have opposed every strong law and order measure that the Government have introduced seriatim over the months and years. The hon. Member for Sedgefield always voted against the Government. It appears that, even now, the Labour party will oppose some of the important law and order measures that are being taken. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating ; if the hon. Gentleman supports the Government, we can increase our respect for him in home affairs.

Mr. Michael : If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, will the hon. and learned Gentleman comment on the Government presiding complacently over an increase of 121 per cent. in recorded crime ?

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Sir Ivan Lawrence : That is the sort of ridiculous statement that one would expect from the Opposition. Such a comment is fallacious and unreasonable. It is fallacious because it is based on the fallacy that there has been a massive increase in the amount of crime committed. But with 16,000 more policemen and another 12,000 policemen on the beat, because civilians have been substituted for police office work, it should not surprise us if more crime is detected.

One hundred thousand neighbourhood watch schemes offer 5 million households some protection and observation of crime, so it should not surprise us if more crime is detected. With 5 million more cars than we had a decade ago, it should not surprise us if more young people are tempted to commit auto- crime. If insurance companies insist on claims being reported first to the police, it should not surprise us if more crime is reported. In addition, the courts, the police service and the judicial system have made themsleves more attractive to women who have been seriously abused, raped or sexually assaulted and encouraged them to complain about attacks, so we should not be surprised if more of this crime is reported. Everybody now has a telephone, which they never used to have, so it is easy to report crime.

It is clear that we are witnessing a massive increase in the proportion of recorded crime, but the British crime survey reveals that the increase in recorded crime is roughly double the rise in actual crime.

Mr. Michael rose --

Sir Ivan Lawrence : Is the hon. Gentleman going to keep interrupting my speech?

Mr. Michael : I thought that the hon. and learned Gentleman, as Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, would aspire to some objectivity. Perhaps he will tell us whether he thinks that the rise in crime and reduction in reporting, which is perceived in communities up and down the country and which has been reflected in the comments of Labour Members and some Conservative Members, is in the minds of the public?

Sir Ivan Lawrence : A lot of it is panic engendered by the media and much is concentration on the limited areas where there has undoubtedly been an increase in crime--burglary and auto-crime. However, 94 per cent. of all crime is property crime and only 5 or 6 per cent. is violent crime. It is still much safer to walk the streets of Britain than those of practically every other country in the western world. The chances of being robbed, mugged or violently assaulted are about half of what they are in Australia. The chances of being murdered are half what they are in France. If we consider the number of countries where the crime situation is very much more serious than it is in this country, we put the matter into perspective.

Reference has been made to the success of some crime prevention programmes and, as the Home Affairs Select Committee discovered, it is a fact that there have been substantial improvements in the crime situation in particular areas. That is especially true in areas where the safer cities projects have been reducing crime. There is also a closer relationship between the police and local communities. Estates in Manchester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and all over the country have not experienced a mere 5 or 10 per cent. reduction in crime ; burglaries have become

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practically unknown, where there used to be burglaries daily ; they now see practically no car crime, when there used to be a lot of it ; and they now see hardly any muggings. Those are substantial successes. As in all things, we seem to concentrate on the things that go wrong and do not concentrate so much on the things that go right.

We all use London Transport. London Transport has cleaned up its act massively in recent years. It has had tremendous successes in policing the underground and in making it safe for all to walk around. The hon. Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) and for Sedgefield do not do the House much credit by concentrating on the things which do not appear to be going right, while forgetting entirely the successes that have undoubtedly occurred.

When the Select Committee on Home Affairs visited Washington, we asked the law and order authorities there how we could deal with the hard core of 200 or 300 persistent juvenile offenders in this country. They laughed at us and said, "Is that all you've got?" They told us that practically every town and city in the United States has a hard core of 200 or 300 persistent juvenile offenders. They wanted to know what we could teach them.

The Opposition's criticisms are also unreasonable. After all, we could have less violent crime if we brought back capital punishment. The objection to capital punishment is not, on the Conservative Benches at least, that it would not deter. The objection is that it is too risky and that there are too many problems about bringing it back. However, it surely cannot be said that some people would not be deterred from committing murder if they knew that, at the end of the day, they would suffer the death penalty. That is what the overwhelming majority of the British people believe.

We could have much less crime if we had a police state. However, we all agree that that would be totally unreasonable. We do not advance law and order if, whenever we try to introduce restraint, for example, through the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Public Order Act 1986, through changes in the Criminal Justice Act 1991 or in prevention of terrorism legislation, half the House persistently refuses to agree with us. The attitude of consensus which the hon. Member for Sedgefield shows is not convincing when he does not support the measures to which I have referred in a consensual way. One of the paradoxes of the present law and order system--and this may be a side effect of the misleading statistics--relates to the police. The police are our main weapon against crime. We have more police. They are better equipped, trained and led. We have given them more powers. However, we still have too high a level of crime, whether or not it is rising, and we have a falling number of arrests and convictions.

What can we do about the police? If we think about it, the conclusion is that there must be something wrong with the organisation and management of the police which can be improved so that their best practices can be more widely spread. That is precisely what the Government have done this week. They have tried to bring more locality to the police.

The Government want to involve local business men with the police. They want to ensure that the local police report to their local people. We want to encourage the local policeman to be there for longer periods. We also want to ensure that the budget is tailored to the local needs

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