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Mr. Howard : Magistrates and judges must use their discretion. One of my objectives is to remove as many as possible of the fetters on that discretion.
The hon. Member for Sedgefield has said that he wants to be tougher on crime, and that he wants to catch more criminals. However, at the same time he criticises my policy of building more prisons. Perhaps he can tell the House where the courts would put the extra criminals if they were caught and convicted through the hon. Gentleman's approach to being tough with crime. The fact is that he has not got a clue.
Prison, of course, is only part of our strategy. I will review the national standards for punishment in the community, which will continue to play an important part
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in our strategy. It must be effective and rigorous. Courts must always be free to send dangerous, violent and habitual offenders to prison. That is the protection that the public demand, and that is the protection that I am determined to provide. Prison sentences should be a real punishment. That is why I have said that conditions in our prisons should be decent but austere.Mr. David Shaw (Dover) : My right hon. and learned Friend is getting a lot of silence from the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). Is he aware that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) recently made an important announcement--important from the point of view of the Opposition--of a major policy on how to deal with young criminals ? The hon. Member for Brightside proposes that young criminals should be tracked, and that tracking should be the new Labour party policy on how to deal with young criminals. Can my right hon. and learned Friend say how tracking will reduce crime, because there is no evidence whatever that just keeping track of a criminal will reduce crime ?
Mr. Howard : I am not sure about that particular suggestion-- [Interruption.] --but in answer to my hon. Friend, I have a good deal more respect for the views of the hon. Member for Brightside on matters of law and order than I have for the hon. Member for Sedgefield.
I said at Blackpool that prison works--and it does. First, it deters many people from crime. If the sanction of prison were not available, who can possibly doubt that many more would be tempted to commit crimes ? Secondly, while they are in prison, criminals cannot commit further crimes against the public. That can have a real and quantifiable effect. Our research into a sample of burglars given community service orders in 1987 suggested that, had they been in prison for a year, we could have prevented between three and 13 crimes per burglar.
A recent survey in Watford showed that just 25 burglars admitted between them to committing 1,124 offences--more than 44 offences per burglar. Of course prison is expensive. Of course it does not prevent all criminals from offending again, any more than fining, cautioning or punishment in the community.
What are those who oppose prison saying ? Are they saying that society cannot afford to protect itself ; that, to save money, dangerous criminals should be allowed to walk free ; or that, because prison does not always stop offending behaviour, we should never send criminals to prison, irrespective of the rest of the public ? Those questions are particularly relevant to the small group of persistent juvenile offenders with whom the law as it stands simply cannot deal effectively.
Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale) : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that those who say that, if persistent young juvenile offenders are locked up, they will learn how to be criminals completely ignore the fact that those youngsters have learnt everything there is to learn about crime, without ever having been in custody?
Mr. Howard : I fear that there is a great deal of truth in what my hon. Friend says. We are all familiar with the problems caused by that group, who terrorise their local communities and offend again and again, in spite of all attempts to contain them. That is why we will introduce a
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new secure training order for 12 to 14-year- olds, which will provide the education and discipline they need, while protecting the public from their criminal behaviour.We intend also to raise from 12 months to two years the maximum sentence for detention in a young offenders institution for 15, 16 and 17-year-olds, so that courts have the flexibility they need to deal with that age group.
Mr. Geoffrey Hoon (Ashfield) : Returning for a moment to adult offenders, is the Secretary of State criticising the judiciary for not sending enough people to prison for long enough? Is that the import of his remarks about sentencing?
Mr. Howard : It is clearly necessary to use words of only one syllable to explain matters to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon). I have said--and will say again for the hon. Gentleman's benefit--that my measures are intended to increase the number of criminals caught and the number of criminals convicted. In such circumstances, the courts will want to send some of those criminals to prison. That is why it is necessary to provide additional prison accommodation. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question.
Mr. Mark Robinson (Somerton and Frome) : My right hon. and learned Friend has criticised the Opposition for attacking the six new prisons that he has announced, but are they not being only consistent? The last time that a Labour Government were in power in in 1979, they cut capital expenditure on prisons by 20 per cent.--at a time when the prison population was rising.
Mr. Howard : My hon. Friend is right. That is why we had to engage in a massive prison building programme, which we did shortly after we were returned to office.
We have a packed agenda of measures to tackle crime. Contrast that with the Opposition. The hon. Member for Sedgefield has been shadow Home Secretary for 16 months, but we have not heard one policy from him. All we have heard is a single sound bite--tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. The hon. Gentleman resembles nothing so much as a cracked record, going endlessly round repeating a meaningless mantra.
What proposals does the hon. Gentleman have for getting tough on crime? The nearest he has come to a reaction to my proposals is to describe them as gimmicks. Last week, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) described them as born of rhetoric.
Gimmicks? Rhetoric? Are my proposals for the increased use of DNA gimmicks? Are they simply rhetoric? Is cutting down on cautioning a gimmick, or rhetoric? Are my proposals for longer sentences for young offenders or for secure training units gimmicks or rhetoric? Is my proposal to deal with the misnamed right to silence a gimmick or rhetoric?
It is time that the hon. Member for Sedgefield faced up to his responsibilities. It is nearly two months since I announced my 27-point plan at Blackpool. It is time that we and the country knew where the Opposition parties stand on those important matters. Do they agree with them, or do they not? The time for prevaricating, evading and trivialising is over. We want answers from the hon. Gentleman, and we want them this afternoon.
The Government stand four square behind the police. We give priority to the victims of crime. We want the criminals, not law-abiding members of the public, to live in
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fear. We are putting more police officers on our streets. We are building a partnership between the police and local people to prevent crime. We are cracking down on bail bandits, squatters, trespassers and all those who break the law. We are protecting the public from juvenile offenders who blight their communities, and we are toughening up punishments to step up the war against crime. That is what the British people want. That is what the Government will provide. That is what the measures contained in the Gracious Speech will achieve, and I commend them to the House.4.12 pm
Mr. Tony Blair (Sedgefield) : That was the speech that we expected of the Home Secretary. He never fails to disappoint us in these matters.
Two things are clear. There is no greater public concern at present than rising crime. It is the elderly, the weak and the most vulnerable who suffer most, not just from the commission of criminal offences but in the daily round of intimidation, harassment and abuse that is the lot of many people, not only in the inner-city estates, but in towns and villages throughout Britain. It is the first right of any citizen to live free from fear in safe communities. However, the second thing that is clear is that up to now Government policy has singularly failed to deliver that right. We have had 14 years of Conservative promises of effective action and tough rhetoric, 14 years of the Government claiming that they will put the victim back at the heart of our concerns--14 years of new laws and talk, and 14 years of failure. That is the record on which the Government now stand.
The Government are right to signal, as they have done in virtually every Queen's Speech since they have been in power, that fighting crime should be at the heart of any new legislative programme. The question is, however, whether the Government now have a strategy to fight crime that is any more effective than the strategies which have gone before.
Mr. Graham Riddick (Colne Valley) : Will the hon. Gentleman respond to the question that was put to him by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary? The hon. Gentleman wants more criminals to be caught ; yet he has criticised the fact that the Government intend to build more prisons. Where would the courts put the extra criminals who are caught?
Mr. Blair : I have not criticised the notion that those who are a danger to the public should be sent to prison. What I have criticised and will adumbrate at length in my speech is the notion that prison works as the centrepiece of the Government's strategy. There is no evidence that prison works as the main element of a strategy to fight crime.
Mr. Howard : Can the hon. Gentleman cite a single statement of mine in which I have said, implied, or hinted that prison is the centrepiece of my strategy? I have said repeatedly that prison is an important part of the strategy, along with all the other measures that I am proposing. Why must the hon. Gentleman rely on misrepresentation to make his point?
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Mr. Blair : It is pretty rich for the Home Secretary to accuse me of misrepresentation after what he did to the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown).
I find it extraordinary that the right hon. and learned Gentleman tells us that prison is not the centrepiece of his strategy, and that it is just an element of it. That was not how the Home Secretary sold his speech at the Conservative party conference. That was not what his political advisers were telling the press on 6 October. That was not what he was saying night after night during the Conservative party conference. The Home Secretary said--it was the centrepiece of his speech--that prison works. The truth is that he is now running away from that statement, because he cannot sustain it.
We believe that there should be four elements of a successful policy on crime. The first is a strong criminal justice system which protects the innocent and which convicts the guilty. The second is a comprehensive strategy to prevent crime and promote safer communities. That is vital, given that only one crime in 50 results in a conviction. Thirdly, we should develop local and accountable community policing. Fourthly, it must be recognised that there are underlying causes of crime which must be addressed and which require a co-ordinated policy across Government Departments, rather than the subject being left to the Home Office.
Added to those elements should be a prison service regime which is, of course, disciplined and challenging but which is also humane and dedicated to the reform of those who are in prison. The average term of imprisonment on any basis, although it has risen during the past few years, is still around two to three years. Therefore, prisoners and how they conduct themselves after leaving prison will be a vital component of whether we are successful in fighting crime.
Mr. Jonathan Evans (Brecon and Radnor) : During the hon. Gentleman"s earlier remarks, he said that it is the weak and the vulnerable who are often the victims of crime. In considering the causes of crime, does he at least accept that it is an unacceptable excuse for a criminal to say that poverty is the cause of crime when the victims are often poorer than the criminals?
Mr. Blair : I accept that absolutely and unequivocally. There is no excuse for crime. We do not believe that poverty, unemployment or any of those matters is an excuse for the criminal. We do say--I will deal with this later in my speech--that any sensible strategy should take account of the influence of social conditions in the breeding ground for criminality. I will attempt to establish that, not by referring to what Labour people have said, but by referring to what policemen and Conservative politicians have said.
Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : Does my hon. Friend agree that the Home Secretary's failure to mention the incidence of racial attacks and the resurgence of racism and fascism in Europe was a most startling omission? In that context, does my hon. Friend support the introduction of a new law to outlaw incitement to racial hatred?
Mr. Blair : As we have already said, we believe that a new law would send the important signal from Parliament that racial attacks should not be tolerated and that those
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responsible for them should be weeded out and brought to justice as soon as possible. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.Let us be quite clear that we are not saying that all the measures advocated by the Home Secretary are wrong. We have not said that, nor have we criticised every measure that he has introduced.
Mr. Michael Bates (Langbaurgh) rose --
Mr. Blair : May I continue for a moment?
The Home Secretary will recall that we co-operated in getting the latest Criminal Justice Act, which dealt with drugs and drug trafficking, through the House so that it gained Royal Assent before the summer break. As and when he publishes the details of his proposals, we shall comment on them. Our criticism is that they focus on only one element of a successful strategy to fight crime--the criminal justice system. Whatever lip service the Home Secretary pays to crime prevention--since the conference, he has started to introduce it to a much greater extent than before--he effectively ignores it and has downgraded it. He ignores the causes of crime and, in relation to the police and the policing of our communities, his proposals would make matters worse, not better.
Mr. Bates : Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of the abolition of the right to silence--yes or no?
Mr. Blair : I did not intervene on that point when it was mentioned earlier, but the hon. Gentleman and the Home Secretary must show why the royal commission's conclusions, which abrogate the right to silence but retain it in the police station where there are no proper safeguards for the accused, were wrong. Everyone agrees that there should be a duty of co- operation. The question is at what point that duty arises and under what conditions. I support the royal commission's recommendations in this respect, which were to ensure that-- [Interruption.] Would hon. Members please listen?
The right to silence is used in two quite different respects. One is at trial and leading to the trial and the other is at the police station. At the present, the so-called right to silence applies throughout. The royal commission's proposals were that it should be abrogated, that one should be able to comment on silence once the charges are known and that there should not be an ability to have ambush defences. If people remain silent at trial, there should be an ability to comment on that fact.
The royal commission found, however, that there was no evidence that if the right to silence at the police station were removed it would lead to more convictions of those who were guilty ; and it did believe that it might lead to injustice for those who were innocent. The Home Secretary must show how the royal commission's proposals, which were worked out after detailed consideration, are wrong. I do not think that that is an unreasonable proposition.
The right to silence is a complicated and difficult issue. It has formed the subject of previous royal commissions, and a working party from the Home Office was set up a few years ago to look into it. To deal with such issues with throwaway lines at a Tory party conference says something about the responsibility of the person who occupies the office concerned.
Mr. Gyles Brandreth (City of Chester) : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intrude on his
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adumbration. While he is being specific, will he give us his views on the Bail (Amendment) Act 1993? He has also had time to study the proposed changes. Does he support them?Mr. Blair : We gave our answer when the Home Secretary announced the details of his proposals the week before last. We said that we support changes that would make it more difficult for people to offend on bail. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) co-operated in getting legislation through the House to toughen the measures relating to bail.
While the Conservatives were telling us that juvenile offending was declining and that the Criminal Justice Act was a good Act, we were pointing out the problems. We have said throughout that any strategy to fight crime must deal not only with the criminal justice system but with prevention, causes and policing. While the Conservatives have a one-sided, one-club policy, it will not work for the reasons it did not work before.
Let us reflect for a moment on the history of the Government's crime policy because that history is in the process of being rewritten fairly dramatically. It must be clear that the Government do not start from a position of any great credibility on crime. Their record is appalling by any standard.
Apart from the period 1988-1990 when crime actually fell, it has risen by 124 per cent. since 1979. Violent crime has gone up by 113 per cent., burglary by 179 per cent. and car crime by more than 200 per cent. Since 1990, the so-called party of law and order has presided over a rise in crime of more than 50 per cent. Meanwhile, the number of offences leading to a conviction has fallen. After 14 years, the Government are clearly in bad need of an explanation. In the past few days, two have been tendered. The first, by the Prime Minister in opening the Queen's Speech debate, is that all western countries have experienced a similar rise in crime. That will not do. In fact, on any comparable basis, Britain is at top of the crime league in Europe and the western world, and has been throughout the 1980s.
The other and most extraordinary claim is that somehow the party's previous leader, in the 1980s--the noble Baroness Thatcher--missed out on crime as an issue until the firm hand of the present Prime Minister was brought to bear upon it, and that she ignored crime as an important issue because she was too busy concentrating on other things.
Let us leave aside the inherent implausibility of the notion of Baroness Thatcher as a weak-kneed liberal who was rather soft on crime. It is nonsense. In fact she put crime at the heart of what the Conservatives were talking about in the 1980s. Their rhetoric was on the same lines as "back to basics".
Crime was a recurrent feature--one of the central planks of the 1979 Conservative manifesto. Eleven years ago, the noble Lord Whitelaw said :
"For the past 20 years the courts have been dangerously hampered by the law we are seeking to mobilise our whole society in the battle against crime Criminal behaviour has been too readily excused." Sir Leon Brittan said :
"There is today a great wave of anger against the wanton violence which disfigures our society. It is real, it is genuine and I share it to the full."
The present Foreign Secretary said in 1986 :
"It's time to bring the victim back to centre stage".
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A former Home Secretary, the noble Lord Waddington, said : "If you want the fight against crime to be pursued with all vigour put your trust in the Prime Minister and the Government".Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
In the 1980s the prison population rose and there were no fewer than 60 pieces of Home Office legislation. The truth is not that the Conservatives have had no policy on crime in the past 14 years, but that their policy has failed despite the hype given to each succeeding initiative.
Central to that myth is the Criminal Justice Act 1991. Contrary to what the Conservatives now say, it was not the culmination of the strategy pursued over 12 years ; it represented a shift in policy due to recognition that the strategy of the 1980s had failed. That is why the present Education Secretary when he was at the Home Office put out in April 1990 a press release headlined,
"Fewer young adult offenders imprisoned"
which stated :
"I am pleased to be able to announce that the number of" young people
"given custodial sentences has fallen I feel very strongly that criminal prevention is often the key to dealing with young offenders. Time spent in prison sometimes only serves to reinforce the criminal tendencies of some young people With punishment in the community young offenders can be confronted by their offending behaviour and taught to appreciate the consequences I am hopeful that our new initiatives aimed at reducing further the adult prison population will enjoy similar success".
That was, of course, why the Act represented a major change in policy.
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
The problem of the Criminal Justice Act was twofold. First, it went too far in certain key aspects, particularly the exclusion of previous convictions, and the desire to use it as a vehicle for cutting costs led to the wrong messages being given to the courts. In addition, the programmes of crime prevention that the hon. Gentleman rightly stressed, which are an integral part of the package, were not developed, so that the strategy also failed. The basic reason for the change in strategy was that, until then, there had been a huge rise in the prison population. But the crime rate had risen at the same time. What we have now under the new Home Secretary is not a new strategy but simply a reversion to the old one. It lunges from one extreme to the other and we never get a balance.
Ten years ago the Home Secretary told us that we must make more use of prisons. Three years ago we were told in a White Paper that prisons were an expensive way of making all criminals worse. Now we are told that prisons work. That is why the Government's policy has failed over 14 years.
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) : In giving an historical account, the hon. Gentleman alluded earlier to the importance of breadth and co- ordination in policies to tackle those problems. Will he say whether Labour has any policies in this area?
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Mr. Blair : Had the hon. Gentleman been listening a moment ago, he would have heard me say that we put forward policies on many of those issues long before the Home Office had woken up to the importance of the difficulties.
Mr. Clappison : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blair : No, I shall give way in a moment.
The sensible, balanced policy is that prison is necessary but it does not work as a strategy to fight crime except in the limited sense that a criminal who is caught, convicted and imprisoned cannot commit a further crime while in prison. I do not understate the importance of that, but let us set it in context. In only one out of 750 offences, excluding motoring offences, will the criminal go to gaol. That does not mean that there should not continue to be prisons, but simply that we should not kid ourselves or the public that to cut crime all we need to do is force up the prison population. The Home Secretary seems desperate to deny that he ever laid emphasis on prison.
Mr. Howard : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blair : In just a moment. The Home Secretary was running around Blackpool telling people that he had discovered the new slogan of the 1990s, "Prison works". Now he wants to deny it. He did not deny the slogan when Jeremy Paxman questioned him on "Newsnight". The first question to him was, "You say that prison works ; tell me a country in which it has worked." He did not say, "That is not my policy ; I don't know where you got that idea from, Jeremy." He said, "The United States of America." And he was pleased with himself and repeated it a couple of days later.
Mr. Howard : The hon. Gentleman is being absolutely absurd. Of course prison is an important part of our policy. That does not mean that it is the only part or the centrepiece of our policy, but it is an important part.
Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of building new prisons? If so, would prison be the centrepiece of his strategy?
Mr. Blair : I have made it clear that prison should not be the centrepiece of a strategy, for the very reason that I gave. The Home Secretary puts that question as though I had not already made the position clear, as I have on many occasions. Prison is necessary ; those who ought to go to prison should be put there, and if that means more prisons, more prisons must be built. [ Hon. Members :-- "Ah!"] We have never said anything different from that. We have disagreed with the notion that prison works as a strategy for cutting crime, which is where the Home Secretary has fallen down.
Several hon. Members rose --
Mr. Blair : I shall give way in a moment. I enjoy conducting a seminar.
When the Home Secretary was asked on "Newsnight" to say where his policy has worked, he gave as an example the United States of America.
Mr. Howard : The hon. Gentleman simply must get his facts right. I was asked on "Newsnight" a specific factual question. Jeremy Paxman asked me, "Can you name one country where the prison population has gone up and the crime rate over the same period has gone down?" The
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factual answer to that question is the United States of America. He did not ask the question which the hon. Gentleman suggests that he asked. It was a different question and I gave a specific and entirely accurate answer.Mr. Blair : The notion that the interview was merely an attempt to elicit various pieces of factual information that were unrelated to overall policy or strategy is an absurd bit of wriggling. The Home Secretary said that prison worked. If he reads his speech again, he will find that it contained barely a word about crime prevention : it was all prison, prison, prison.
The Secretary of State and his political advisers briefed the press like mad with the new slogan, "Prison works". When he was asked for an example of where that occurred, he said the United States. Now he wants to run away from that because the notion that the United States should serve as an example of criminal justice strategy has been greeted with incredulity by everyone.
I believe that I am right in saying that a couple of nights later the Secretary of State repeated the line that the United States was an example of where that policy worked. He did not tell Mr. Paxman that he was only giving pieces of factual information and that no policy conclusions should be drawn from them. That is absurd, and he knows it.
Several Hon. Members rose The Home Secretary did not even get his facts right. Over the past 12 years, the prison population in the United States has risen threefold. In the US, there are now more than 1 million people in gaol. That is proportionately six times as many as in Britain. The cost is more than $22 billion per year, and some states now spend more on prisons than on education. Yet violent crime has carried on rising. That is why everybody in the United States, from the Attorney-General and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation downwards, is saying that we need to consider causes and prevention as well as dealing with the criminal.
Mr. Clappison : The hon. Gentleman is coming to an interesting point in the debate. He must accept that there has been much improvement in community penalties and disposals in the past 14 years. However, for serious and persistent offenders, where other methods have been tried and have failed, there has to be a sentence of custody. Courts have to be free to protect the public by giving that sentence of custody where appropriate.
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that courts should have the power to send 12, 13 and 14-year-olds to secure accommodation if they are persistent serious offenders? Courts do not have that power now. Does he support longer sentences for 15, 16 and 17-year-olds who commit serious offences? At present, the courts can only give them one year. What is his policy on those two matters?
Mr. Blair : We have given our policies on juvenile offenders at length. I believe that it was the Oppositon who first said that it was important that there should be secure accommodation for persistent juvenile offenders who are out of control. Our disagreement with the Government is that we want that policy to be built into existing provision so that the range of provisions in local communities will include secure accommodation as well as other measures.
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Three years ago, the then Minister of State, Home Department--now the Secretary of State for Education--promised a further 60 places of secure accommodation, but not one has yet been built. The idea that the Conservative party can talk about these matters with any credibility is utterly absurd.
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