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Mr. Maclean: Which tough measures did the Labour party leader vote for in the 1980s and which Bills on law and order did he vote against? Will the hon. Gentleman give us the answer so that we can make a proper judgment?

Mr. Michael: I shall come to that in a moment, but I shall first deal with the Government's tactics.

The Government's second tactic is even more unprincipled; it is to lie. I know that Ministers would not wish to mislead the House and that the information given to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) must be a tactic of Conservative central office rather than a Member of Parliament, but the Home Secretary has been heard to claim that Labour has voted against measures to fight crime and has failed to introduce positive proposals for action against crime. I am sure that no Minister would make such claims in the House because they are two big Tory lies. On the rare occasions when the Home Secretary makes a sensible, coherent proposal,

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the Labour party supports him, as I have already made clear today. The Home Secretary's record on voting against proposals is one on which any court in the land would convict without hesitation.

The Morgan report on crime prevention is a Home Office report; we proposed that it should be implemented, but the Home Secretary refused. In our document, "Partners Against Crime", we suggested a detailed strategy and a statutory framework for crime prevention, with local authorities working closely with the police and other agencies. The Conservatives paid lip service to it, but voted it down. We proposed early intervention when young people first start to offend, but the Tories voted it down. The Labour party proposed action to tackle those who offend on bail, with bail support and enforcement in every part of the country, but the Conservatives voted it down.

The Labour Front Bench ensured the passage of the Bail (Amendment) Act 1993, allowing the prosecution right of appeal against the granting of bail--Ministers would have allowed that measure to fall. The Labour party demanded additional support to allow the expansion of the victim support and, particularly, the witness support scheme. When Ministers refused to give the police better protection, it was the Labour party that co-operated with the Police Federation for a cross-party presentation of side-handled batons and other alternatives. The Labour party called for rigorous trials but, after long prevarication, the present Home Secretary simply allowed them to be used.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Timothy Kirkhope): Why, then, did the Labour party vote against the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Public Order Act 1986, the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and the Criminal Justice Act 1991, and why has it always opposed renewal of the prevention of terrorism Acts?

Mr. Michael: That was a well-rehearsed intervention. It was well scripted, but the Minister knows the answers. The present Leader of the Opposition and shadow Home Secretary offered a cross-party agreement to deal with the problems highlighted in the prevention of terrorism Acts. It was turned down by the Home Secretary for partisan reasons. The Minister can read Hansard for himself to see why we voted against those measures. I know that Ministers do not want to listen to the truth being put on record in the House.

The so-called Tory commitment to effective crime prevention is illustrated by the measures that the Tories voted down during the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill in 1993. They include cutting offending while on bail through bail enforcement and support schemes, the expansion of witness support and victim support schemes, making the Crown Prosecution Service consult victims before dropping or reducing charges and putting assets seized from drug users to immediate use in the fight against drug abuse. They opposed proposals for faster action when youngsters first get into trouble by cautioning them, and, after the first caution, for new court orders to make courts more effective in stopping youngsters before they get deeply involved in law breaking and in speeding up the criminal justice system to get quicker court sentences for persistent young offenders.

The Labour party has made so many constructive proposals to tackle crime, yet time and again the Conservatives have voted against them. They voted

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against the establishment of an independent body to investigate miscarriages of justice. After years of prevarication, it was eventually included in the Criminal Appeal Act 1995--but in a half-hearted way by a Government who did not really believe in it. They voted against creating an offence of racial harassment and stiffer penalties for racially motivated crime. They voted against abolishing the year and a day rule so that we have to waste private Members' time this year to implement a measure that the Home Secretary could have accepted in Committee or on the Floor of the House.

We proposed tighter controls on dangerous weapons and the Government introduced a Bill that did not mention drugs, drug-related crime, weapons or violence. I am not surprised that Ministers wish to gossip among themselves. They do not like the truth of their appalling record of failure in the fight against crime--their failure to accept positive proposals from the Labour party, their failure to think through their own proposals and their failure to listen to Labour Front Benchers when we discussed the issues.

The Government failed to accept the ideas of statutory limits on prison overcrowding. They failed to establish an elected police authority for London, they failed to accept our proposal for a national drug prevention strategy, yet now they have informally proposed precisely the same strategy.

Let us consider another aspect of Conservative failure. The centrepiece of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was the creation of privatised secure training centres. Where are they? That was a smokescreen for lack of Government action in expanding the existing system of secure accommodation. In 1991, Labour extracted a promise of 65 extra secure places, but not one has been provided.

Let me spell that out because, with others and long before I entered the House, I campaigned for secure places to be made available to end the scandal of youngsters aged 15 and 16 being remanded either in inappropriate adult prison accommodation or in unsuitable, insecure local authority homes because there was nowhere else for them to go. In February 1991 the then Home Secretary promised the House that he would end that scandal and we welcomed and supported an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act 1991. However, the Government have reneged on that promise. Not only has it not been fulfilled, but the number of secure places has fallen by 18 since 1991. The present Home Secretary could not be tough on a paper bag in a thunderstorm.

The Minister spoke about dealing with crime, but he made no mention of the scandal of those who are harassed and intimidated by violent and abusive neighbours. My hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary is the first senior politician to make genuine, straightforward proposals to tackle that scourge on modern society. If he had the sense of the average Llanelli rugby player, the Home Secretary would have picked up the ball, accepted the constructive suggestion from the Opposition and gained credit for himself by taking action on it.

The police have backed Labour's proposals for tough action on criminal neighbours contained in "A Quiet Life". Local authorities are in favour of it. Members of Parliament and councillors, who have experience of the frustration, anger and misery created by violent neighbours, have welcomed the proposals, yet the Home Secretary has refused to tackle a problem that affects families up and down the country.

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Let me quote the president of the Police Superintendents Association, Mr. Brian Mackenzie, whom the Minister quoted in his remarks. In the presence of the Home Secretary he said:



    This seems an eminently sensible suggestion and we hope you will feel able to work with the Opposition in developing it".
Has the Home Secretary worked with us in developing it? No, he has simply rejected it and chosen to ignore the nature of the problem.

The 1995 Queen's Speech was a great disappointment for those of us looking for measures to combat crime. The promise of 5,000 police officers over three years has been greeted with some scepticism, to put it politely. Why should we trust such a promise from the Prime Minister when he broke his promise to the electorate in the 1992 general election? He promised an additional 1,000 police officers, yet their number went down and there is still a shortfall of some 1,300. When the Home Secretary has fulfilled the Conservative 1992 election promise, we might take more seriously the Prime Minister's inflated promise in 1995.

The position is crystal clear. I do not know whether the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have shared the truth with the Minister of State, but I shall let him into the secret: there is no new money.

In the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994, the Home Secretary was absolutely adamant that he wanted to give up control over police numbers. Hansard is full of speeches in which he declaimed his new-found belief in the right of chief constables to take their own decisions over the use of resources. He said that it was not for the Home Secretary or the Government to tell chief constables how many police officers to employ and that his job was to hand over the cash and let them get on with it.

It was an incredible performance for those who had followed the right hon. and learned Gentleman's career. Here was the arch-nationaliser, the architect of the poll tax, the Minister who laid waste to local accountability in one public enterprise after another, presenting himself as the defender of local decision making. But we knew what he was doing. He was abrogating responsibility before cutting the cash in order to blame others for his own decision. Then the Prime Minister--another rudderless ship blown here and there by events--announced that an extra 5,000 police officers would be provided by his desperate Government.

We can imagine the panic at the Home Office, where they would say, "But Minister we do not have the money." It is no use applying to the Chancellor as there is no sympathy there. What was to be done? The answer was to cut the cake differently and hope that nobody would notice--to steal from the capital allocations the cash need for revenue allocations and hope that nobody would notice. I am sorry, but anyone with half a brain has noticed. I am sorry for the Minister and others who have to plough on with the farce.

The simple fact is that the Government are willing to steal from tomorrow to survive today. To put it another way, for those who understood Mrs. Thatcher's

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rudimentary approach to economics, it is as if a family were to steal from their mortgage on their home and melt down the lead on the roof to pay for the food on today's breakfast table. That is the fast track to ruin. That is why the Minister would not answer the straight question: by how much has the capital allocation for police forces been changed for next year? I am not surprised, because it has been cut. Sooner or later there will be a day of reckoning for that theft from tomorrow. The Home Secretary hopes that he will have moved up the greasy pole or, more likely, into opposition, by the time that day of reckoning arrives.


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