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Mr. Forman: The hon. Gentleman is making important points about fear of crime, because we must differentiate between fear and reality. Does he agree that national and local media could make an important positive contribution by reporting the sentences that courts eventually mete out to persons convicted of crime--often against the person--as fully and factually as they do the original crime? Often, there is an unsatisfactory disparity between the banner headlines given to the original crime and the lack of publicity given to the subsequent court sentence.

Mr. Straw: I agree. One problem is that the media capture the original incident but there is no follow through. As we know, the effects of crime on victims such as PC Hammond can continue for years. It would be advantageous if the press were to report sentences, where they are appropriate or inappropriate, although such is the increasing delay in the criminal justice system that it is months, and sometimes years, after a crime is committed that the perpetrator is sentenced--if he ever gets to court.

Lady Olga Maitland: The hon. Gentleman has been reciting a worrying catalogue of fears about crime. Bearing that in mind, will he explain why he and his party have consistently voted against every Government measure to tighten up the fight against crime? Surely its voting record gives lie to the old claim that Labour is tough on crime. The truth is that Labour is weak on crime and is the criminal's friend.

Mr. Straw: That was an absurd contribution, delivered badly. We will take no lectures from Conservative Members who, during the term of this Government, have presided over the fastest and largest increase in crime under any Administration since the war. Moreover, the factual basis of the hon. Lady's question was entirely wrong. The Secretary of State could, if he wanted to, explain why, in 1988, he voted against a proposal to ban the sale of knives to under-16s, when we voted in favour.

Despite the best efforts of the police, during the past 16 years, there has been more crime, and more people have got away with crime. Recorded crime in Greater London increased by 47 per cent. between 1980 and 1994, while the number of people who were cautioned or convicted fell in absolute terms by 2.5 per cent. I am all in favour of better press reporting of sentences. I am even more in favour of more offenders being caught and punished for their crimes.

Leaving aside cautions, the number of people pleading guilty or found guilty in Greater London between 1979 and 1994 fell by more than one third, or 31,000 offenders. A Home Office research study published last month, "Anxiety about Crime", found that the public were more worried about burglary and rape than about the illness of a family member, road accidents or job loss.

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As crime across England and Wales rose in the 1980s, the response of some police forces, overwhelmed by the task facing them, was to appear to retreat into concern about serious crime alone. All too often, people who reported non-violent street crime such as theft from cars, vandalism, criminal damage, graffiti or general loutish behaviour were met with a response that appeared to suggest that the police were too busy to deal with their problems. In some cases, the next time residents experienced such behaviour, they saw little point in reporting it.

There must be some scale for determining the resources that the police should devote to the detection of particular crimes. It is plainly right, to take an extreme example, that the top priority for any police force should be the investigation of homicides, which should necessarily involve more effort than the investigation of the theft of a Mars bar from a local sweetshop. For too long, insufficient attention has been given to disorder on our streets and to the powerful connection between unchecked disorder and much more serious crime. The Home Office study found that levels of disorder measured by perceived problems caused by noisy neighbours, poor street lighting, teenagers hanging around, drunks, tramps and drug misuse was predictive of fears about burglary, theft from cars and mugging, and a general feeling of not being safe.

There is some recognition of the connection between crime and disorder by the Metropolitan police and local authorities. It is reflected in the Commissioner's reforms away from a purely reactive, firefighting service to problem-solving, sector policing. It is reflected also in the excellent work of all Greater London local councils in partnership with their local police. The Metropolitan police and London boroughs would be the first to acknowledge that much more needs to be done before there is a significant improvement in the quality of life for individuals and families, and before we rid of the streets of fear.

The existing criminal justice system does not deal effectively with disorder or apparently petty crime. For that reason, last June, I presented, with colleagues, the document "A Quiet Life", which gave Labour's proposals for community service orders and new composite offences of disorder, to give local police and local authorities much more effective powers for dealing with persistent disorder and criminal anti-social behaviour. I am in no doubt that, if those proposals were on the statute book, they would greatly help to improve the quality of life of thousands of Londoners.

I am sorry that, instead of recognising the sense of those proposals when they were first published, Ministers unwisely sought to rubbish them. Eight months later, Ministers acknowledge that existing arrangements for dealing with neighbourhood disorder are wholly inadequate by making proposals for change in the Housing Bill--but they are complicated half-measures, too little and too late. Disorder and quality of life issues do not appear among the Secretary of State's key objectives for the Metropolitan police or other forces. It is time that the right hon. and learned Gentleman recognised the importance of disorder as an issue and the impact that it can have on the peace and quiet of neighbourhoods and on the daily lives of Londoners.

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Mr. Cohen: Does my hon. Friend agree that community safety orders could make a contribution to tackling racial harassment, not just in London but throughout the country?

Mr. Straw: I agree with my hon. Friend. It is worth noting that, when we published our community safety proposals, the warmest welcomes came not only from the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales but from the Commission for Racial Equality.

Mr. Barry Jones (Alyn and Deeside): My hon. Friend was absolutely right when he referred to the problem of young men hanging around. Does he agree that that is not simply a problem in Greater London, but that there is barely a town or a village in our nation that does not have the same problem, and that the people who suffer the most from it are the elderly and women? There is a fear and a worry abroad. If my hon. Friend's proposals were accepted, that would go a long way towards helping to get rid of the problem.

Mr. Straw: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Ministers do not appreciate that much of the behaviour that causes fear of crime does not feature in the criminal statistics. As loutish behaviour and disorder on the streets have increased, so too, rationally, has people's fear of crime.

Ms Hodge: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the ways in which we could tackle disorder on the streets would be to increase, rather than decrease, police strength? That is why the decline in the number of police officers is so catastrophic for the people of London. Does he further agree that it is not simply police strength, but the cut in overtime that police officers are able to perform, that matters? Some 620,000 hours have been cut from those that police officers walk the streets of London. Does he agree that that adds to the disorder?

Mr. Straw: I accept a great deal of what myhon. Friend has said. She is right to mention the need to increase the number of police officers. I am proud to say that, while the number of police officers in London has increased by 300 a year since 1979, during the Labour Government, between 1974 and 1979, the number increased by 500 a year. Those are the facts.

Mr. Howard: Is the hon. Gentleman talking about numbers or about establishment, bearing in mind that, in 1979, the numbers below establishment were 10 times what they are now? Is he now prepared, at last, to admit that there are more police constables in London than there have ever been? As to his repeated allegations that there was a reduction in numbers last year, when will thehon. Gentleman--if he wants to contribute to honest debate--compare like with like? The strength in December 1994 was 27,611, while the strength in December 1995 was 27,719.

Mr. Straw: The right hon. and learned Gentleman suggests that I was making an allegation about police numbers, but I was not. I was merely reading out the annual report of the chief inspector of constabulary--

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his own chief inspector--who drew attention to the fact that, in 1994, there were 27,611 officers in the Metropolitan police and that, by the end of year that we are talking about, the number had dropped to 27,480. If the Secretary of State is worried about the fact that that was only a part of a financial year, we can examine the figures for 1992.

The figures provided by the chief inspector of constabulary show that, in 1992, there were27,812 officers in the Metropolitan police and that, by March 1995, and contrary to the Prime Minister's pledge to increase police officers in London and elsewhere, the number had decreased by more than 300, to 27,480. Those are the facts that have been provided by the Home Secretary's chief inspector of constabulary.

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