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10.38 am
Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth): I shall start by underlining the fact that we are dealing with the fear of crime, and the daily reality of crime for our constituents. The Minister acknowledged as much at the beginning of his speech, but he went on to show massive complacency about a small drop in recorded crime. He said that the Government continued to put the criminal in the dock, but the proportion of offenders going into the dock has decreased under the Government. Crime used to be something that happened to someone else; now it affects us all. People have less and less faith in the ability of the criminal justice system to cope.
In the past 15 years--when recorded crime has doubled--the number of people convicted or cautioned has fallen by 7 per cent. Far more offences are committed in Tory Britain, and more people are getting away with those offences. Those are the facts, despite the rhetoric of punishment that the Minister has used today. He suggested clarity in sentencing with some tough talk about sentences. We wait to see the reality, because the implication is that the courts have been failing us. However, the confusion caused by the Government is what has undermined confidence in the criminal justice system. The public expect protection, but they are not receiving it from the Government. The greatest deterrent is being caught, and as I have just said, the figures show that that deterrent has been reduced during the years of Conservative Home Secretaries.
The public expect a prison system that works, but what will the Government do? How long will it be before they propose measures that will make prison more effective, instead of cutting useful occupation in prison? Education is being cut in prisons throughout the country.
The Minister tells us that he has left the "nothing can be done" tendency. That is a change for the Government. He should read the press statements of his predecessors
and the past few Home Secretaries because, year after year, they have said that crime is something that we simply have to expect.
The Minister exposed his real attitude when he described the proposal that the Crown Prosecution Service should be made to listen to victims as "plain daft". It is not plain daft. It is an obligation that should be placed on the Crown Prosecution Service. Extremely belatedly, the Government, who might have accepted amendments to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, have suddenly found that there is a need to put pressure on the Crown Prosecution Service to listen to victims.
Mr. Maclean:
The hon. Gentleman should not inadvertently mislead the House by misquoting my remarks. I did not say that it was plain daft for the CPS to listen to victims--that is what it should always do, and that is what happens. What I described as plain daft was the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that the victim should be dragged to court to make a victim impact statement, in which circumstances the victim would be eligible for cross-examination by the defence. I am sure that that would have a great effect on the victim.
Mr. Michael:
The Minister has misdirected himself. The suggestion about victim impact statements came from the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock), not from me. During scrutiny of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill I suggested that the Crown Prosecution Service should be obliged to pay attention to the impact on the victim when deciding whether to downgrade or drop charges. That proposition is not plain daft; it is plain common sense. The Minister should listen when constructive suggestions are made. His hon. Friend has left the Chamber, but I am sure that she will be very interested to hear that he described her proposal as plain daft. Our proposal was not plain daft; it was plain common sense.
I, too, want to congratulate the police, not least on keeping going, even under the present Government. I want to praise the partnerships between police and local authorities and local people, but they are little to the credit of the Home Secretary. The Minister was in Committee on the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill and on the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill when he turned down the proposition, supported by local authorities and the police, that such partnership should be set in statute. They wanted Government support for such local partnership, on which they have worked so hard.
Lady Olga Maitland:
If the hon. Gentleman is as supportive of the police as he says he is, will he explain why, throughout Committee proceedings on the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, he and his colleagues consistently voted against every single measure to be tough on crime? I can suggest only that he is soft on crime.
Mr. Michael:
The hon. Lady should not take her briefings from Tory central office. I am sure that she would not want to mislead the House, and the suggestion that the Labour party voted against tough measures is untrue. It is a lie. I hope that the hon. Lady will have the strength of character to withdraw that suggestion, because it is totally untrue.
I shall develop that argument later, because there is a great deal to be said about Labour's record of being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, and those arguments need to be placed on the record during the debate.
Let me respond to some of the Minister's comments. He spoke about targeting crime. That policy complements local partnerships, which we have urged for years. It has nothing to do with the Home Secretary's performance indicators, which are introducing strain and confusion for police forces locally. It is ironic that the Minister, who a few moments ago rejected the idea of placing a statutory duty on the police and local authorities, introduced a statutory responsibility for them to follow the Home Secretary's nationally decided performance indicators. The Minister appears to be criticising not only Conservative Back Benchers but the Home Secretary in his responses to the debate.
The Minister today said one thing that shows a welcome dawning of light. He said that most young people do not commit crime; yet the Government have continually denigrated young people and described them as a problem rather than the strength and opportunity of our future.
The Minister's speech might have impressed someone who had been living in exile for 16 years without access to newspapers or radio and television, but it will not have impressed the people of England and Wales. He even had the temerity to refer to the victims helpline. Do hon. Members remember that one? It followed the cones hotline. Last year, over Christmas, it closed down, despite the fact that Christmas is the time of special stress and danger in respect of domestic violence.
The Minister says that he wants the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to come closer to one another. We have tried to persuade him to follow that policy for the past few years, but he has refused to do so.
I want to draw the attention of the House to the curious history of the current debate. The topic is "The Government's policy against crime". Yesterday, I was telephoned by a journalist who wanted to know more about the topic. In his quest for knowledge, he had telephoned the Home Office, where an official told him:
Those people with short memories may have forgotten what the debate was about when first announced. The topic was supposed to be "The success of the Government's policies to combat crime". I am told that such a topic, if tabled by the Opposition, would have been ruled out of order as obviously being ironic. Somewhere along the line, it changed to "The Government's policy against crime." I am not surprised that the Minister wants to speak about the future, not the past. I bet the Government had a problem getting the title past the House authorities. Which policy would that be, Minister? Walking with a purpose, perhaps?
I am surprised that the Minister reminded the House of the Home Secretary's document "Partners Against Crime", because not only was that a theft of the title of a Labour party document published earlier, but it was not about partnership. It offered three aspects of volunteering, not of partnership.
We support the work of neighbourhood watch and of special constables, but those are not aspects of partnership; they are aspects of people volunteering to
help with crime in their community. Welcome though that is, it shows little understanding of partnership to give that title to the document.
Today's debate is a remarkable own goal, as the Conservative party tries desperately to steal Labour's clothes and appear interested in a subject of public concern on which the Government's record does not stand scrutiny.
Let us consider the facts. Recorded crime is more than 100 per cent. higher than in 1979; robbery in England and Wales is 403 per cent. higher than in 1979; home burglary is 159 per cent. higher than in 1979; theft from motor vehicles is 194 per cent. higher than in 1979; criminal damage is 184 per cent. higher than in 1979.
No wonder the Government changed the title and deleted their claim to success in the fight against crime. That is only recorded crime. The "British Crime Survey" shows that actual crime increased two and a half times as fast as recorded crime between 1991 and 1993--the most recent figures available. Only one crime in 50 ends up with a punishment by a court. Only one crime in 750 ends up with a custodial sentence.
A complacent Home Secretary, whose mantra is "Prison works", is indeed wise to avoid debating the success of Conservative policies on crime. What grounds for complacency are there in a country where the risk of being burgled is one in 12, the risk of a vehicle being broken into is one in six and the risk of a person being assaulted is one in 46?
The Automobile Association recently surveyed its members about their experience of crime. One in 14 of drivers in the survey had experienced a car being stolen. Six out of 10 victims of thefts from vehicles did not claim on insurance and presumably did not report the crime. Many of those surveyed feel that the police are unwilling or unable to reduce car crime activity.
Confidence in the criminal justice system is seriously in question. A survey of members of the Police Federation of England and Wales showed that 87 per cent. of the 73,000 officers who replied were not at all satisfied or not very satisfied with the criminal justice system. Only 9 per cent. gave the lukewarm response that they were "fairly satisfied".
The Police Federation has expressed anxiety that proper debate on law and order should not become a purely party political matter. It states:
I pay tribute to the work of individual chief constables and police forces. Dyfed-Powys police force, one of the smallest in this country--which the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) will know as well as I do--has said that it wants to tackle crimes when they
start to happen and use new technology to nip things in the bud. That is an example that the Home Secretary should examine carefully.
I welcome the Minister of State's statement today that a national tier of police will follow the pattern of regional forces, with local forces in the driving seat. I welcome the fact that the intelligence services involved in police work will be accountable to the police--that is an extremely important principle--but will the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), spell out how the accountability will work in practice? In his opening speech the Minister of State outlined the right principles, but in such matters the devil is in the detail, so when he replies to the debate will the Under-Secretary tell us how the scheme will work in practice?
The Minister of State has clearly discovered two other Labour themes: the need to work with families and encourage parental responsibility and the need to work with young people across Government Departments. I participated in a project in which I worked with children and their families in the mid and late 1970s. The report has been on the shelf ready for the Conservative Government for the past 15 years and I recommend that the Minister take it off the shelf and look at it.
I welcome the Minister of State's conversion, but on those two topics, as on others, we shall judge him by his actions--just as we judge the Conservative Government on their record on law and order policy after 15 years of being responsible for it. Their policy has left many people in Tory Britain afraid to leave their homes at night and afraid when they are inside their homes. Women and the elderly feel particularly vulnerable and parents are frightened to let their children out alone. All too many people are terrorised by nuisance neighbours and too intimidated to report offences to the police. In his opening speech the Minister of State did not make one suggestion to tackle those problems.
The court processes are expensive, inefficient and outdated. The cost of criminal legal aid has rocketed. The proportion of cases discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service has almost doubled. I am delighted that the Home Secretary has finally woken up to that fact and that his Cabinet colleagues have recognised the need for new guidance. We have been consistently telling him about those problems for many years. Cases are also taking longer to come to court.
People are desperately concerned about not only crime but disorder. Fear in the streets and in public places inhibits and restricts people's lives and undermines their sense of security and their ability to take an active role in the community. Those points have been stressed, above all, by my hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, who has made positive proposals on how to tackle those problems. But instead, the Conservatives have chosen to tackle the victims.
This week, the Home Secretary took a further step towards cutting £700 million from the cash available to compensate the victims of violent crime. Each time that unsavoury and sleazy development is mentioned, the Minister trumpets platitudes about how good the scheme remains, but those are weasel words. The simple truth is that the Conservative Government are cutting the cash available to victims of violent crime by £700 million.
No Conservative Member of Parliament will ever again have the slightest credibility when pretending to be interested in the victims of crime.
The same is true of the victim support scheme. Earlier today, the Minister of State had the cheek to claim credit for the increase in finance for the victim and witness support schemes, but he planned to cut the cash available for those schemes until the Labour party embarrassed him into maintaining the figures for development. In 1996 the Minister will give Victim Support just enough money to maintain the schemes developed by the end of this year. The growth was encouraged by the Home Office, but it will grind to a halt. The figure involved is less than £11 million which, as the Minister of State acknowledged in his speech, is a minimal proportion of the Home Office budget.
"No, it wouldn't be a Government debate--you'd better talk to the Opposition."
"For many years a consensus existed between the parties on this topic. The police and the public would welcome its return."
We would also welcome its return because, despite the activities of the present Home Secretary and his immediate predecessor, the present Chancellor--the two most partisan Home Secretaries in history--we have continued to try to make constructive suggestions about how to tackle crime. In that context, I welcome the Home Secretary's development of a strategy for police intelligence and a comprehensive database. That proposal follows years of frustration, when the Home Office and its Ministers refused to accept policies and strategies urged on them by chief constables.
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