House of Commons Hansard Debates for 11 Jan 1994

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fight against crime. Yet the wave of crime against which the Government say that they will wage a campaign has been escalating for almost 15 years--since the Government came to office. The Home Secretary told the House what he intended to do to deal with criminals in the 12-to-14 age bracket. Every one of those criminals was born and brought up under this Government, and every one is a child of the society that this Government have created.

The Home Secretary talked about what he would do with criminals aged between 15 and 17. Those criminals, some of whom commit serious crimes, have spent every sentient moment in the society created by this Government. They have been imbued with the values created by this Government ; they are the creatures of this Government. Every criminal in his 20s--I say "his", not to be sexist but because most criminals are men--has spent his entire adulthood in a society created by a Government whose Prime Minister for many years said that there was no such thing as society. Crime is higher under this Government than it has ever been before.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) repeatedly asked the Home Secretary what the Bill would do to reduce crime. The answer is nothing. There is nothing in the Bill that will cause a single crime fewer to be committed after the Bill has been enacted than before it was introduced. The Bill certainly contains one or two useful provisions, such as the one, cited earlier, that deals with child pornography. It contains many damaging provisions, some of which my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield has listed. He has also explained why, rightly, we shall oppose them.

What the Bill mainly contains in its enormous length is futile provisions which will do nothing one way or the other, but which will impose burdens on the police, who are severely burdened already, and burdens on the courts and on juries when they are called on to deal with criminals--provided that those criminals are caught. The Bill was proclaimed by the Home Secretary in his speech at the Conservative party conference, and he praised it again today. Yet it is not about reducing crime ; it is about what the Government will do with people who are accused of crime when they are arrested, charged, tried and, possibly, convicted.

The problem is, of course, that most criminals are not caught. Most offenders who have committed reported crimes--we know that a large proportion of crime is not even reported--are not caught. Almost three quarters of those responsible for crime that the police know about are never caught. Many crimes are not reported, because the victims see no point in reporting them.

The Royal Automobile Club has published, just in time for today's debate, figures about car crime. They show that car crime in Greater Manchester, part of which I represent, is No. 2 in the national table for car crimes. Yet we are only talking here about the 118 per 1,000 who report such crimes. Every member of the public knows that many people whose cars are broken into and who have the contents of those cars stolen never report those crimes. They do not think it worth while because they know that the police, despite their best endeavours, are extremely unlikely to apprehend the perpetrators. They do not report the crime even for insurance purposes : they will not claim on insurance, because that will affect their insurance benefits.

The national crime total is dreadful, but the rate for my constituency is far worse than the national rate. In the C

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division of Greater Manchester police, which broadly covers my constituency, the reported crime rate is 250 per cent. of what it was when the Government came to office. That increase is far higher than the increase in the country as a whole.

The clear-up rate in C division in 1980, when the Government had just come to office, was a creditable 45 per cent. Today, it is only 28 per cent. I do not criticise the police for that in any way. They do their very best in circumstances that, in large areas of crime, have gone beyond their control. Dealing with car crime, with burglary and with certain kinds of violent crime is beyond the best efforts of the police. They do not receive sufficient resources, and they have far too many burdens. The Bill will increase the burdens without increasing the resources.

Mrs. Bridget Prentice (Lewisham, East) : Given the statistics for his constituency which my right hon. Friend has outlined, he will not be at all surprised to know that the figures in London are just as bad, if not worse. The clear-up rate in London is a mere 16 per cent. The Metropolitan police feel unable to deal with rising crime in London because of the lack of resources and the lack of commitment from the Government to help them to do so.

Mr. Kaufman : I recognise not only the problems of crime in London, but the grievances of the Metropolitan police about the way in which they are unable to give of their best, as they would like to do, in dealing with that situation.

The burdens on the police are not only more onerous, but more obvious. A dozen years ago, drug dealing was almost unknown in my constituency ; now it goes on blatantly in the streets for all to see. There is a public house in the Longsight area of my constituency to which, at a Sunday lunchtime, parents would bring their babies, sit in the garden and have a drink. Today, overt drug dealing takes place outside that pub, in such a way that respectable citizens will not patronise it any more. That is the kind of thing that is happening today.

Even the most innocent developments affect crime. On one estate in the Gorton area of my constituency, the council has introduced an experimental system--which it is seeking to introduce in other parts of my constituency- -for the use of wheelie bins for domestic refuse. People are now unwilling to use them, however, because, if they wheel them out and then go off to work, the bins are on the pavement to tell burglars that houses are vacant and someone can break in. Crime today is operating in a climate in which it is made to seem routine. Therefore, it is not surprising that more and more young people are succumbing to its temptations. In Greater Manchester, the rate of known crime committed by those aged between 10 and 16--the children of this Conservative Government's society--is 42 per cent. above the national average for boys and 49 per cent. above the national average for girls.

Those figures relate to Greater Manchester, but the figures for C division, which covers my constituency, are inevitably worse. That is not surprising, because, apart from the pestilential amusement arcades, which the Secretary of State for the Environment has forced the

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planning committee of my city to accept against its wish, there is too little available to occupy the time of young people in my constituency.

We have campaigned for youth facilities on the Anson estate, on which my constituents claim there is too much crime, but the Government offer no assistance. The Victoria swimming baths have closed down, but, despite an excellent campaign by local residents on behalf of themselves and their children, the Government do nothing to help. The Abbey Hey amateur football club, which is run in an area of great deprivation and unemployment, needs new changing rooms, but the Government do nothing. The Trinity Baptist church tries to provide facilities for youth in an area of high unemployment, but the Government do nothing to help.

It is no good the Government saying that Manchester city council should provide the necessary funds, because the Government have made it impossible for that council to do so. They have cut their grant to the council, and they have stopped it raising money not only by borrowing, but through local taxes, which are too high in any case. The Government have slaughtered the urban aid programme, which could help some of the projects I have mentioned. They have killed off section 11 funding in a multi-ethnic area, where we have case after case after case of racial harassment. Although the Secretary of State has introduced a Bill that contains all kinds of trivial minutiae, he says that he cannot find space in it to create an offence of racial harassment, which many of my constituents ardently demand.

Mr. Howard : The right hon. Gentleman has, possibly inadvertently, entirely misrepresented what I said about racial offences. I said not that there was no room in the Bill for any matter of that kind, but that I had not yet seen any measure put forward which I thought would reinforce the effectiveness of our present laws. The real problem we face with our present laws relating to racial harassment is not that those laws are inadequate but that it is extremely difficult to apprehend and convict those responsible for offences which I deplore as much as the right hon. Gentleman or anyone else.

Mr. Kaufman : The problem with that intervention is that, several years ago, when the present Foreign Secretary was Home Secretary, I tabled an amendment to the then Criminal Justice Bill to create an offence of racial harassment. That right hon. Gentleman opposed it, not because it would not work but because it was only declaratory and was therefore not worth introducing.

In the several years since that Bill went through the House, the Home Secretary and his predecessors have had the opportunity to think about this matter. They have not done so, because if they had, it would be contained in the Bill together with so many trivia, let alone the damaging elements which are contained in it.

Mr. Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South) : Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Kaufman : If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not give way, because 40 other hon. Members wish to speak, and I do not want to take up the time of other Back Benchers.

Next week, we shall welcome the Secretary of State for National Heritage to my constituency, to open new facilities at the Bangladesh community centre. He will hear

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a positive story about self-help by that community, but what he may not hear, because my Bangladeshi constituents, in common with all my constituents, are extremely courteous, is that we are having to send out begging letters to continue the funding of that centre. I have sent one out myself, just as I now spend a great deal of my time sending begging letters for many worthwhile causes in a constituency of acute deprivation and poverty, which is afflicted with a high crime rate.

That poverty is demonstrated by the fact that Manchester, taking the index of poverty as the receipt of housing benefit, is the most poverty-stricken city in the country, with 52 per cent. of households receiving housing benefit. Last year, during the Olympic bid, the Prime Minister spent a great deal of time proclaiming to the world that Manchester was ahead in so many worthy aspects of activity--as indeed it is. He did not say that Manchester was a national leader in poverty, yet one of the reasons for that is the reign of office of the Government. The poor are the Government's target. The man on £30 income support goes hungry and is pursued, as has happened in my constituency, for alleged misuse of giros, while Mr. Roger Levitt gets community service for swindling the country and the people of millions.

It is not only the physical infrastructure of my constituency which is being undermined. My constituency is No. 32 out of 634 in terms of high unemployment, with a rate of 18.2 per cent. compared with the national average of 9.7 per cent. The unemployment rate for males is 25.4 per cent., compared with the national average of 12.8 per cent. In my constituency, 37 per cent. of those unemployed are aged under 25--31 per cent. above the national average. Being unemployed does not mean that someone is a criminal. The overwhelming majority of the unemployed would never dream of committing a crime, but unemployment creates a society in which crime is more acceptable. The unemployment rate in my constituency is double the national average, and the Government are responsible, but instead of helping, they have inflicted damage on my constituency every day of the year.

Lady Olga Maitland : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Kaufman : I will not give way, because I am about to finish, and other hon. Members should have the right to make speeches. What we have before us is a ponderous piece of legislation, accompanied by slick slogans. Neither the legislation nor the slogans will help my constituency. The only hope for my constituency is the kind of approach to values that my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield outlined in his speech--a new dedication to an orderly and caring society. We will not get that from this Government or this Bill. We shall have to wait for a new Government.

5.38 pm

Sir Ivan Lawrence (Burton) : The concern expressed by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) about rising crime would be more convincing if he had not voted against every measure of crime prevention that the Government have introduced from the series of Criminal Justice Acts to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Public Order Act 1986 down to the prevention of terrorism Acts. Some people may listen

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to what he had to say, but if one starts off on the assumption that he is saying something good while consistently voting against practical measures which have been shown to be successful, I am afraid that that is not impressive stuff.

Every law-abiding adult in Britain is concerned about the level of crime. He wants and expects the Government to do something about it and we are doing just that in the Bill, which should be welcomed by everyone. The Labour party is going to abstain. It is all over the place on the subject. It opposes for opposition's sake. If the Opposition want to give the nation the impression that they are not serious about law and order, it is their business but it will not do them much good when they stand at the next general election. The argument of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) that, after 14 years, the need for such legislation shows what a failure the Government have been is arrant nonsense to anyone who thinks about it for a moment. Apart from the trendy liberalisation in the 1960s, which I agree ought to have been reversed sooner, we have spent more taxpayers' money on crime prevention, policing, the courts, lawyers and prisons than would have been possible under Labour and we have given the police more powers and better equipment, training and leaders. All those measures have undoubtedly reduced crime from the level that it would have reached if those measures had not been taken. [Interruption.] A moment's common sense and examination of all the statistics will prove that.

The hon. Member for Sedgefield thinks that he is clever to ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary for a commitment that the new measures that we propose will reduce crime. Of course, that is what the measures are likely to do. If we stop some of the 50,000 people on bail from going free to commit more offences, it will reduce crime. It is clear that the stop-and-search measures that the City of London police have introduced has reduced crime, because statistics show a reduction of 18 per cent. over the past year alone.

If the world crime wave continues to grow, we may achieve a cut in the growth of crime, but not a cut in the present figure. We shall simply have to wait and see. A sensible Opposition would realise that there can be no guarantee of bringing the figure down but that action would still be required to do what was likely to reduce crime. In a worldwide crime wave, the measures that we have proposed-- [Laughter.] It is no use guffawing. The fact is that Britain is still one of the safest countries in the western world in which to walk the streets. Unlikely countries such as Australia, Norway and France have a much higher record of crimes of violence and murder than we have in Britain and the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) ought to recognise that.

It is also true--

Mr. Tony Banks rose--

Sir Ivan Lawrence : If the hon. Gentleman would forgive me, I shall try to get my speech over as quickly as possible.

As was conceded by the hon. Gentleman, it is true that the apparent increase in crime is due to the increased reporting of crime. That is the consequence of more telephones, neighbourhood watch schemes, more police officers, more detection devices and more consumer-friendly police and courts which encourage more women to

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come forward with complaints about offences. That is a substantial improvement for which the Government receive sparse thanks from the Opposition.

But the system is not perfect and it needs constant improvement. The Government have rightly targeted areas where legislation may be expected to improve matters. For example, there are too many persistent, hard core, juvenile offenders who go on and on offending and whom the courts are powerless to stop with existing legislation. In Birmingham, a 13-year-old appeared in court four months ago charged with no fewer than 225 offences of burglary and car crime. A senior Birmingham police officer said that if he could lock up six such offenders, he could reduce crime in the city centre of Birmingham by 18 per cent. and reduce car crime by between 30 and 40 per cent. We are giving the courts the power to do just that. It is no use saying that giving the same money to local authorities would have the same effect. We have seen in the past few weeks what local authorities do if given money. Too often, they spend it on rewarding juvenile offenders with extravagant holidays overseas. That certainly does nothing to reduce the incidence of crime. In the two years that may be served under the secure training orders on which the Government are legislating, young offenders will be removed from bad influences of family and peer groups and from temptations. They will be educated, trained and disciplined so that they can be reprogrammed away from a life of crime. That seems to be a sensible aim, which looks likely to succeed because it is wrong that we are unable to do that at present. The Opposition cannot make up their mind about it.

In the past year, 50,000 people who were arrested committed offences while on bail. We can stop some of that happening by giving the courts power to refuse bail in more circumstances. We have taken two new steps to reduce bail offences and now we have proposed another five steps. Cannot the Opposition make up their minds on that, either ?

There has been a growth of computer pornography, which corrupts children and demeans women, and we are giving the police more powers to deal with it.

Terrorists sometimes slip through the net because of inadequate police powers to stop them. We are strengthening the state's defences by creating two more offences, which already exist in Northern Ireland and are thought to be useful, and we are extending police power to stop and search, as the City of London police have proved is useful. Is the Opposition neutral on that one, too ?

People in rural communities are fed up with mass trespassing by ravers, new -age travellers, squatters and hunt saboteurs, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) so eloquently said, so the Government are doing something about that in part V of the Bill, which is widely welcomed- -but not by the Opposition.

Mr. Tony Banks : I recognise the hon. and learned Gentleman's senior position as Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, but does not he see that there is some inconsistency in the Bill if protesting against fox hunting on private land is to be made a matter of criminal activity ? Why should not it be the case that those hunt

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protesters have to be told by the owners of the private land that they should not trespass on that land and that if they still do that it will be a civil rather than a criminal offence ?

Sir Ivan Lawrence : The intention to disrupt must be there, which the hon. Gentleman will see is written into the Bill. That takes the offence out of the civil area into the criminal area, where most people think that it ought to be.

It is all very well to introduce laws that cover every likely offence, to give the courts better authority to deal with crimes and to remove persistent offenders from circulation, but there is also something wrong with a legal system that fails to convict those who have been caught. It would be for other debates to consider what can be the reason for releasing so many offenders with a mere warning or caution that they must not do it again and for failing to prosecute 250,000 offenders a year against whom the police consider they have adequate evidence to proceed. For the moment, the Government are addressing the question of how we can ensure that more people who are guilty of crime are convicted of crime. The greater the likelihood of offenders being convicted and punished, the more that potential offenders are likely to be deterred from committing crimes. Weak responses encourage crime. Tough responses tend to deter it. It is truly astonishing that 60 per cent. of all those who plead not guilty in Crown courts and magistrates courts are acquitted. Are so many innocent people being arrested, charged and brought to trial? With 30 years of experience in the criminal courts, I do not think that is what is happening. The Government propose to do something positive about convicting more of the guilty, and that is welcomed by everyone except the Labour party.

DNA samples provide almost incontrovertible evidence, if samples can be taken. The Government are extending the right to take samples in some cases and those who are caught will have substantial evidence against them. That includes many rapists. Those who are innocent will be proved to be so by that sensible measure, which I again understand that the Opposition oppose.

Mrs. Golding : Does the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that if, as he says, there is a need for people to be encouraged to go to the courts to give evidence and for people to be able to give evidence freely in cases, children ought to be given greater protection? The report by Judge Picot recommended that greater protection be given to children. Some progress was made in the Criminal Justice Act 1988, but it is certainly not working.

Children are still shouted at in courts and frightened. They have to meet their accusers. Their addresses are given to the people whom they accuse in court. That is not the way for children to give evidence in court. The Bill ought to include something about that. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that children need further protection in court?

Sir Ivan Lawrence : I agree that children need protection. The Government have introduced proposals which give children that greater protection. If it is not available in every case, that may well be the fault of the judge who is presiding, not the fault of the Government. There is a problem with witnesses in cases involving children. If people are not given a fair trial, they may be convicted even though they are innocent. That is why such matters cannot be dealt with in the black and white manner that the hon. Lady suggests. However, I agree that we must

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constantly look to make sure that children are properly treated in our courts and adequately protected when they make complaints. The next matter on which I wish to speak is the right to silence. Now that we have tape-recorded interviews to protect the innocent against miscarriages of justice--particularly those which stemmed from false confessions alleged in the past by the police--the time has come to remove the absurdity of the right to silence, which we retained only because there was no other way of guaranteeing the truth of the confession.

I was pleased and a little surprised to hear the hon. Member for Sedgefield say that he would support the amendment of the right to silence in cases in which the accused refused to give evidence in court. However, the absurdity that someone caught almost red-handed or with marks or substances on him which require some explanation has nothing to say and, at the express direction of the judge, is protected from any adverse conclusion that may be drawn from his silence ought to be removed precisely because it is so absurd. Jeremy Bentham, the 19th century civil libertarian par excellence, thought so. The police think so. Most judges think so. The House should think so if it is serious about stopping the acquittal of the guilty. After all, there is no great deal about making an adverse comment about a defendant's silence. If there is a legitimate reason for that silence, the defendant can explain it when he gives evidence. The defence counsel can explain it. The judge will have to remind the jury of that explanation when he sums up. The jury may well accept that explanation.

Mr. Geoffrey Hoon (Ashfield) : Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Sir Ivan Lawrence : I cannot give way any more. I have given way enough. Please forgive me.

Opposition to abolition of the right to silence is out of date. Its passing should not be mourned any more than it has been in Northern Ireland. In answer to a point made by the hon. Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. O'Brien), I would say that of course there may well have to be a change in the ethical rules which bind solicitors. Solicitors should no longer be able to give blanket "make no comment" advice. It would be wrong and misleading to say that to a client in the new circumstances envisaged by the Bill. It would be iniquitous if a solicitor stopped an innocent client from giving an explanation in the first instance that would exonerate him. In deference to others who wish to speak, I shall not refer to the several other sensible proposals in the Bill. The Bill is not the only piece of legislation that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary intends to introduce to reduce crime. There is now a Bill in the House of Lords aimed at improving the efficiency of the police and the courts. Other Bills will be forthcoming. The Government have been criticised for not including provision for the independent review tribunal in the Bill. However, the longer that we have to think it through in detail, the less likely it is to go wrong. Opposition Members might accept that there is a commitment to introduce it and that we shall perfect it. Other action which does not require legislation on cautioning, victims and other matters has been and will be taken.

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It may be that the Bill can be improved in Committee. Several measures will be candidates for inclusion. For example, I believe that the Bill would benefit from the reintroduction of capital punishment. I believe that innocent lives would be saved by that measure. I also believe that action should be taken against television violence, which corrupts our young people. It may well be that some action should be taken against racial attacks and harassment. I hope that before my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary makes a final decision against any such action he will consider the report of the Home Affairs Select Committee, which is even now considering the matter and may have some positive proposals that will satisfy him.

I do not believe that the Bill would benefit from a reduction in the age of consent for homosexuals. That would encourage the incidence of homosexuality by allowing the proselytism of the young by older homosexuals. I shall not support a reduction if it is suggested in an amendment.

In so far as the Bill goes, there seems to be no earthly reason why it should not be given a Second Reading or why the Opposition should abstain on it. They only make themselves foolish by doing so. I cannot really complain about that. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on taking this firm step against lawlessness and crime so soon after he has taken office. He will have the support of not only Conservative Members but most of Britain.

5.55 pm

Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : The Bill is lengthy and not all of it is uncontroversial. Some of its provisions are sensible and should command the support of the whole House. But, in other respects, it constitutes a seriously retrogressive break with recent reforming penal legislation. Although the Bill is large, I believe that, reviewed in the round, it has missed the mark. Although the Bill tackles serious problems, they involve small numbers of offenders. It tackles the problem of hard-core juvenile offenders who number perhaps several hundred, of rave parties and of murderers who reoffend, of whom there was only one last year. All those matters are writ large in the Bill. Yet some of the most major and pressing problems such as the thousands of other juvenile offenders who roam our streets committing crime for kicks, the men who burgle hundreds of homes while on bail and the drug pushers will remain largely untouched and uncontrolled.

There are two tests by which the legislation will be judged, although the Home Secretary was loth to admit it. They are its effect in reducing the level of crime and its effect on public confidence in the criminal justice system. The need to restore public confidence was the reason for setting up the royal commission. Our system of criminal justice cannot function effectively until that confidence is restored. The loss of faith in institutions lies at the heart of our general anxiety about the levels of crime that we now suffer. We face a great problem of increasing crime and disorder and yet declining faith in the ability of the state to combat it and provide our future security. Public confidence in the system of criminal justice has been eroded by past miscarriages of justice and spectacular reversals of convictions based on false confessions and unsound evidence. It has been brought further into

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disrepute by the seeming impotence of the system in the face of rising crime. An ever smaller proportion of crimes are cleared up by the police. An ever larger number of cases are dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service before they reach the doors of the court. In 1992-93, 193,774 Crown cases were discontinued.

Judges, Home Secretaries and the police have been moved to argue in public over aspects of penal and sentencing policy. Most recently, Lord Woolf attacked the present Home Secretary's attitude to prisons. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor, has called the backlog in our courts a national disgrace. Some spokesmen for the police have called for the resignation of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Barbara Mills. It is clear that the different parts of the criminal justice system are not at ease with each other. That is the Home Secretary's problem. It is his responsibility to listen to the concerns and to act to strengthen the system.

The core concern of the royal commission was the prevention of miscarriages of justice. Therefore, it is surprising that the Bill has altogether avoided the issue. I would not have expected the Government to adopt the proposals of the commission without further thought, particularly on matters on which the commission was undecided. However, I expected the Bill to provide new procedures for reviewing serious miscarriages of justice. I am glad that the Bill reflects the conclusion of the royal commission on corroboration of confessions and in particular the need for strong judicial warnings that great care is needed before convicting on the basis of confessional evidence alone.

People sometimes confess to crimes that they did not commit. Often they do so of their own volition to protect others or to achieve notoriety. But others do so against their better judgment because they are too weak in the face of questioning or because they seek an escape from the interview room. Others, unfortunately, have had their confessions written for them.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 provides comprehensive but not infallible safeguards against false confessions. We need a new body to scrutinise claims by convicted men and women who are innocent of crimes. My party recognises that fact and gave evidence to that effect to the royal commission, and I hope that that will happen quickly.

The better management of trials is also required, but, disappointingly, the Bill fails to make the requisite procedural change--the disclosure of the prosecution case in full to the defence--which can so often result in a guilty plea.

There are many omissions from the Bill and a stack of proposals from the Law Commission is awaiting enactment. I draw attention in particular to its most recent report calling for the reform of the law on personal violence, on which the Bill is largely silent. Perhaps the Government will repair some of those omissions later in the Bill's proceedings.

In its practical effects in reducing crime, there could be some modest gains. The Bill criminalises holding and distributing computer child pornography, a measure that has been made necessary by advances in technology that have outpaced the law. But why does the Home Secretary stop at child pornography? A whole industry is sprouting

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up, publishing on computer material that would be illegal if it were on paper or video tape. Anyone with a computer and telephone can receive it in their home and the law cannot touch them or those who peddle it.

The proposed creation of a DNA database, a recommendation of the royal commission, could provide a significant new resource for police detectives. It is fingerprinting for the 21st century at a time when one third of all men has a criminal record by the age of 35 and one in four by the age of 21. I am concerned about over-reliance on such evidence, given the large margin for error which forensic scientists have identified in profiling DNA samples. Nevertheless, it is an important step forward.

The changes to the bail system to prevent persons who have offended while on bail from being bailed again and to allow for the reconsideration of bail if new information comes to light will help to reign in some of the bail bandits, so long as they are caught. Bail is a privilege that is too often abused. In one week last November, of 537 suspects arrested as part of Operation Bumblebee in London, 40 per cent. were currently on bail. Some of them had been bailed for other offences 10 or 15 times already in the year. Improvements in the system of granting bail have been made through bail information schemes, which seem to hold out the best chance of a more rational system in the future. But the Bill will restrict bail automatically only for those accused of serious crimes of violence who have a record for the same offence. They are the least likely to offend while on bail. Those most likely to do so have a recent history of burglary and car theft, and the Bill will not prevent their crimes.

The two most controversial parts of the Bill are the centrepiece proposals on the treatment of younger juvenile offenders and the abolition of the so- called right to silence. I oppose both those sections absolutely. I see no benefit to be gained in either and the danger of much damage arising from both.

The Home Secretary has presented the secure training unit as a tough answer to a tough problem. It will cost the nation some £30 million a year to bring to heel an estimated 200 or so 12, 13 and 14-year-olds. That is £150,000 each per annum--more than it costs to live in the Savoy. Never have a Government cowered so abjectly or lavished such wealth in the face of so few children, while the Bill passes over the juvenile offenders who cause most damage. This new penal edifice will be no more successful than its predecessors--the borstal and approved school. It may be intended to convince the nation that something is being done--ministerial visits, photocalls and contract signings. I doubt that that will persuade many members of the public. We must be aware that those who, at a young age, are already behaving in that manner are not only young people with a criminal record but children in need of behavioural correction. The public need protection from them not only for the period when the juveniles are held in custody but in the future. Recidivism is the measure of the success of any corrective regime to which offenders are sentenced. That was the failure of the approved schools and it will be the failure of the secure training centres. Such treatment can be provided for the handful of juveniles who will fall into the category defined by the Bill without the creation of a whole new penal edifice.

We already have facilities for treating persistent juvenile offenders and straightforward changes to the law

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would enable those under 15 to be dealt with by existing institutions and some measures that are being sought by local authorities, to which reference has already been made. Secure units at local authority care homes have a relatively high success rate in preventing reoffending among their charges. Admittedly, with 60 per cent. not reconvicted within two years of their release, it is far from perfect, but it compares to a reconviction rate of 53 per cent. among former inmates of young offender institutions. The existing system needs to be underpinned, not undermined.

May I call in aid the words of the then Home Office Minister in 1991, now the Secretary of State for Education, who said : "I think that there is considerable agreement between the political parties that one of the best forms of crime prevention is, if possible, to stop young people going into detention in the first place".--[ Official Report , 29 January 1991 ; Vol. 184, c. 920.] It could be argued that the Secretary of State for Education is in a better position to tackle juvenile crime than the Home Secretary appears to be.

If juvenile crime is to be tackled, we must start at the cradle, not at the third conviction as the Bill proposes. It falls to us all--parents, teachers, youth leaders and everyone who comes into contact with the young- -to help young people to face up to the responsibilities that they must shoulder as members of society. But the Bill provides no new initiative to strike at even the immediate causes of juvenile offending.

Drugs and alcohol abuse are among the biggest contributors to crime. A report by the British Psychological Society in 1990 found that the average age at which known young offenders start drinking regularly is 14. They drank up to seven pints of beer a night. The more that they drank, the more they used drugs. Typically, they started by sniffing glue at 13, smoking cannabis at 14, and taking cocaine and LSD by 16. It found that 42 per cent. of those convicted of robbery and 23 per cent. of those convicted of car theft were drunk or on drugs when they committed the crimes.

Where is the war on drugs? Where is the programme of research into patterns of drug use and their relationship to crime? Where are the reviews of policy on the treatment of heroin addicts? Where is the programme on drugs education? Nothing in the Bill even strengthens the powers of the police and licensees to prevent the sale of alcohol to young people. I see no sign that the Government are prepared to give as high a priority to tackling drugs and alcohol abuse as they are to cracking down on ticket touts and building prison ships. My other bone of contention with the Bill is the abolition of the right to silence, which is better termed "the freedom from self incrimination". Some countries protect that right under their constitution. In an earlier incarnation in 1986, speaking in a debate on the Financial Services Act, the Home Secretary described the right to silence as the fundamental principle of the criminal law. It still is, but he made a bombastic pronouncement at the Conservative party conference last year about that ancient principle, which he called "a charade". However, it enshrines the presumption of innocence until proof of guilt.

The principle can be abused but jurors are usually aware of that and it is the best mechanism that we have for putting the onus of proof on the prosecution. If we abolish that requirement, we risk the greatest charade of guilt by innuendo. A criminal conviction relies on positive proof of

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guilt, not on a lack of proof of innocence. That requires positive facts, such as would be provided by DNA profiling or the evidence of witnesses. An inference drawn from silence is not a fact but an opinion. Mere opinion should have little weight in deciding guilt or innocence.

The slogan that has been used to justify that provision of the Bill is

"the innocent have nothing to hide."

Although that is true, the innocent might have nothing to say to prove their innocence. A man suspected of a crime might have no witness to confirm that he was at home alone when the offence of which he is suspected was committed. Are we to expect him to prove the unprovable? Or are we to continue to leave it to the prosecution to prove that he was not at home but out thieving?

The Bill also contains a number of curious innovations intended to deal with hunt saboteurs and rave parties. Conservative Home Secretaries are generally drawn from the school of thought that holds that most social evils can be purged by creating a new offence. The Bill is a testament to that grand tradition, which visited upon us the legislation on joyriders and on dangerous dogs, neither of which has rid society of those menaces. I shall not oppose a new offence of aggravated trespass but that new offence would not stop hunt saboteurs, whose real concern is with the hunter and not his land. The blood sport issue will go away only if the House chooses to resolve it directly. Until then, the conflict will continue. A substantial part of the Bill is also taken up with the extension of the prison and courts escort privatisation programme. That saw the light of day in the 1991 Act, even before the Woolf report into the disturbances at Strangeways had been published. I doubt that anyone was surprised that in the 600 or so pages of that report the word "privatisation" did not appear. The main problem facing the country is that privatisation has denied us accountability and openness. We are not even allowed to know the salary of the chaplain at the Wolds prison. The record of Group 4's management speaks for itself. Prison does not work : for too many it is a temporary halt, an occupational hazard in a career of crime. For others it is the start. Our prisons are not equipped to do the job of correcting offenders, and the support provided for released offenders is nowhere near adequate. The Home Secretary's belief in prisons in inappropriate, and it is not shared by his predecessors or by Lady Thatcher who, when she was Prime Minister, said that the Criminal Justice Bill was designed to ensure that the severity of the sentence matched the seriousness of the crime and the need to protect the public. I entirely agree with that, and it has been the policy of my party since its foundation. In building upon the hasty and stupid abolition of unit fines, the Bill is extremely retrogressive.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Madam Speaker has ruled that until 8 o'clock speeches will be confined to 10 minutes.

6.10 pm

Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale) : I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and I waited for some constructive suggestions by the Liberal Democrat party on how to solve the problems that the Bill tries to tackle. Sadly, I listened in vain and was disappointed. As my speech will be limited to 10 minutes, I shall not comment on the speeches of other hon. Members.

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I welcome the Bill and wish to speak mainly about juvenile offenders, but at the outset I shall comment on one or two other matters, the first of which is public order. The British Horseracing Board and the Jockey Club warmly welcome the proposals in clauses 52 to 55 which, they believe, will help the police and the racing industry to deal with the sort of incident that occurred at the Grand National in April last year. The fact that those proposals will also deal with the wilful disruption of other sporting activities should not detract in any way from the importance of that.

During the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), there was an intervention about trespass. The Bill makes it plain that disruption must be intentional and not accidental. It would be rather strange for those who wish to argue in favour of people who want to walk in the countryside or ramble or make a peaceful protest to say that it should be the other way round. If trespass and disruption were accidental, a person walking a dog which strayed into a field and chased ewes that were about to lamb could be committing a crime. The Bill has got the matter just right, and I hope that there will be no substantial change on that in Committee.

I should now like to deal with the stop-and-search powers relating to terrorism. There was a moment of great poignancy during my time on the Select Committee on Home Affairs when during an evidence session we asked the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Sir Peter Imbert, whether he felt that he had sufficient powers to deal with terrorism. A note arrived to say that two more bombs had gone off in Oxford street. Sir Peter said, tellingly, that if over the next week or so he set up a number of stop-and-search barriers around the west end of London, people would fully understand why that was being done but that two or three months later public sympathy would begin to wear thin. For a long time there has been a need to clarify police powers to stop and search vehicles in relation to potential terrorist activity. In that context the measures in the Bill are important and welcome.

The third issue with which I should like to deal is ticket touting. I have campaigned for a long time to make the sale of tickets outside football grounds an offence. Lord Justice Taylor, now the Lord Chief Justice, recommended that in his report on the Hillsborough tragedy, and it is essential to do it because of the problems that arise from all our soccer grounds becoming all-seater stadiums. Without such a measure it would become ever more difficult for football clubs to operate crowd segregation which, sadly, remains an important element of reducing or eliminating disorderly and violent conduct in soccer grounds.

The criminal justice reforms are the centrepiece of the Bill, and I have no great difficulty in accepting them. The decision to extend DNA and to treat it, in effect, in the same way as fingerprinting is welcome and is roughly in line with what previous Home Affairs Select Committee reports recommended in the previous Parliament. The measures to deal with people who commit offences while on bail are important. People will ask whether the measures will reduce crime, and the proposed changes to deal with offending while on bail are the clearest example of how crime can be reduced. Whether they will reduce the overall growth of crime in recent years makes it difficult for Ministers to say categorically that crime figures will go

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down. However, if the number of offences committed by people who have already been charged with an offence is reduced, the overall level of crime will be lower.

I have no difficulty in accepting the proposals on the right to silence. My view, which I think is shared by most people, was adequately outlined in today's editorial in The Daily Telegraph, which states :

"It is not intended that defendants should be forced to answer." That is the case. The editorial goes on :

"But when they refuse to help the police when interrogated or to give evidence in their own defence, a counsel or judge would be allowed to draw the jury's attention to that fact. It is difficult to see how this might increase the chances of the innocent being convicted. Juries are already at liberty to notice an accused's silence and to attach whatever weight to it they like."

If I am disappointed in any way by the Bill, it is that it does not go far enough in implementing some of the royal commission's recommendations. I remain concerned, as do the police, about the number of trials that have collapsed because of the defence requirement for prosecution disclosure, the so-called fishing expeditions. More needs to be done to deal with that, and it lies behind some of the statistics that have been bandied about in the debate as to why so many trials have collapsed.

The Select Committee on Home Affairs has not yet completed its inquiry into computer pornography, but it is clear to us that there is a gap in the law. The Bill's provisions seem to conform to what the police have recommended to strengthen the law.

My substantive comments are on juvenile offending. Last year the Select Committee on Home Affairs published an in-depth report on the issue after looking at the problem from every possible angle. Nothing in the Bill conflicts with what we said in our report. I stand by everything in our report, and nothing in the Government's proposals is at odds with it. On the contrary, the strengthening of custodial sentences available to the courts for teenage offenders was one of our central recommendations, and will be welcomed by the courts and the country.

Secure training orders can be made to work, but it would be wrong and foolish for anyone to claim that they are a panacea for the problem of juvenile delinquency. The problem has plagued generations over many centuries, but only a blind fool would not accept that there is a clear gap in the current provisions for dealing with the hard core of persistent juvenile offenders at whom most of our inquiries to try to find a solution are directed.

During our inquiries we visited Northern Ireland where institutions similar to those that the Government have in mind already exist. The training school at Lisnevin has provision for about 40 youngsters. It provides security, not just for the public against whom youngsters might offend, but gives those youngsters the security of a stable environment that many of them have lacked.

I believe that we can get it right. There is a clear place for challenging activity for youngsters, but it must be set in the right context. Equally, there is a need to avoid turning the secure training units into oppressive borstals or approved schools. What some of those youngsters need is love, care and concern, and that is what has to be provided.

My time is up, so I shall finish by saying that to me it is a tragedy that the issue has become so partisan, with arguments about whether the idea is good or bad. The best people to make the young offenders secure training units work are those in voluntary sector organisations such as the Children's Society and the National Society for the

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