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Petty Offences
34. Mr. Bernard Jenkin: To ask the Attorney-General what estimate he has made of the number of cases the Crown Prosecution Service has prosecuted for petty offences, with special reference to petty theft, vandalism and public disorder. [35538]
The Solicitor-General: The Crown Prosecution Service does not keep records for these individual offences but in the year ending March 1996 the CPS took proceedings in respect of 769,023 defendants for summary only offences. The prevalence of the offence is treated as a factor in favour of prosecutions.
Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Is he aware of the tendency among the forces of law and order to think that small offences do not matter but that small offences which start to go unnoticed begin to drag an area down? Unless we can prosecute people for small offences the larger ones will follow. Can he assure the House that the Crown Prosecution Service pursues cases of petty theft, vandalism and other small offences just as vigorously as it pursues those involving major, high-profile offences which, of course, get much more publicity?
The Solicitor-General: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. The Crown Prosecution Service takes into account a number of factors before deciding whether prosecution is in the public interest. It considers not only the interests of the victim, which are important, the victim's vulnerability and the likelihood that an offence will be repeated, but in particular--this may strike a chord with my hon. Friend--in cases where the offence is not serious in itself, it considers whether it is widespread in the area where it was committed.
Mr. John Morris: Is the Solicitor-General satisfied that the Crown Prosecution Service has adequate resources and is properly staffed to prosecute? What financial cuts are now being imposed on it? Why is information offering early retirement with enhanced pensions being circulated to experienced staff as young as 31 to 38? Is that at the Treasury's suggestion? What effect will that have on the service? What will those early retirements cost?
The Solicitor-General: I can assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the Crown Prosecution Service has adequate money and adequate staff. Notwithstanding a 2.9 per cent. cut in its budget for this year, its funds and the number of its staff are greater than they were when I became Solicitor-General in 1992. As for his comments on early retirement, information on retirement conditions is being circulated to people at grade 7 and to senior executive officers simply because employment legislation requires that everyone in a class in which there may be staff reductions should be familiarised with their options.
Mr. Batiste: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the public and the police have considerable concerns that the work of the Crown Prosecution Service, even on minor cases, needs to be much improved? That could give rise to outright opposition to a proposal to extend the CPS's rights of audience. Will he make a decision about its rights of audience in the near future?
The Solicitor-General: The future of the application for rights of audience for the Crown Prosecution Service lies not with me but with judges designated under the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. The judges concerned have an application in front of them now. My hon. Friend mentioned the CPS's standing in the eyes of the public and the police. I should tell him that the police--whom I meet frequently about specific cases and matters of policy--almost without exception are full of praise for the Crown Prosecution Service's professionalism and expertise. On occasions the public are misled by biased and partial reporting in the media, but if the truth were to be told, they would share the view of impartial observers that the Crown Prosecution Service is doing a very good job.
Crown Prosecution Service
35. Mr. Flynn: To ask the Attorney-General what new proposals he has to improve the work of the CPS. [35539]
The Attorney-General: Current initiatives include team working, the promulgation of further charging standards, the setting up of a Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate and close co-operation with the police--aimed at simplifying paperwork wherever possible and helping the police to ensure that files delivered to the CPS contain all the evidence necessary to secure a conviction.
Mr. Flynn: What can the CPS do about a case--of which I have given the Attorney-General brief notice--that happened in my constituency last week, when a man was sentenced to community service after he had attacked Mr. John Marsh, an ambulance driver who was on duty attending an injured woman? A friend of the injured woman attacked Mr. Marsh and inflicted on him injuries so severe that he will probably never work again. The sentence was community service. Since 1980, crime has doubled but clear-up rates have dropped from 40 per cent. to 26 per cent. Are not soft sentences and poor clear-up rates an incentive to criminals to commit more and more vicious crimes?
The Attorney-General: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his question. If he will give me the details of the case, I will examine it together with my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, to see whether we consider that the sentence was unduly lenient--in which case we can refer it to the Court of Appeal under the provisions that were introduced by this Government and, despite being opposed by the Opposition, are now almost universally recognised as being of real value.
Sir Ivan Lawrence: Will my right hon. and learned Friend reconfirm that he does not recommend that the Crown Prosecution Service gives the right of audience in the higher courts to its employees? The result would be to wipe out the junior Bar and lead to the fusion of the two professions--which neither solicitors, barristers nor anybody concerned with the right movement of the criminal justice system in this country wants.
The Attorney-General: Decisions on such matters are for the Lord Chancellor and the four senior designated judges. Personally, I am implacably opposed to fusion.
Mr. Llwyd: A recent criticism of the CPS is that victims of crime feel estranged from the prosecution system. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman lend his support to the Director of Public Prosecutions' initiative in establishing officers with each branch, whose job it will be to liaise with victims and potential prosecution witnesses?
The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the value of Victim Support, which is strongly supported by the Director of Public Prosecutions. There is a strong initiative within the CPS to ensure that it works closely with Victim Support, to give every assistance to victims.
Northern Ireland
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Sir Patrick Mayhew): With permission, Madam Speaker, I will make a statement about the events of the past 10 days in Northern Ireland, and about the way forward.
Throughout that period, massive and completely unacceptable civil disorder has occurred on both sides of the community--totally wrongful in character and unjust in its consequences for all its victims. In the course of that period, two men have tragically lost their lives.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary has been stretched to the limit of its ability to maintain order and preserve life. Violent manifestations of sectarian antagonism have occurred. Intimidation, including intimidation of RUC officers and their families, has been rife. The Killyhevlin hotel at Enniskillen has been gravely damaged by a bomb, with many people shocked and injured.
All that represents, without doubt, the worst setback for many years--a return towards what so many people in Northern Ireland and far beyond had prayed was over for good. It has been a black period for Northern Ireland, with deep fears and anxieties generated on all sides. Trust and confidence have suffered greatly. In this statement, I will examine briefly with the House what has happened, and what the way forward from here now should be.
At the outset, however, I want to say three things. First, I warmly commend--as I think the whole House will--the maintenance by the loyalist paramilitary organisations of their ceasefire. It is of critical importance that it should continue. Secondly, if the people of Northern Ireland are to be helped to move back from the abyss, and move forward to a better future, all of us who claim a right to speak on these matters must seek to be objective and fair. To seize on what is no more than a partisan perception and proclaim it as an established truth without examination is immensely dangerous and damaging.
Lastly, I want to say that the scene, grave though it undoubtedly is, does have a crucially positive element. We have in place a democratic process of political talks, for which a large majority of the electorate has voted. I shall return to that aspect and to its paramount importance.
Sir Hugh Annesley, Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, yesterday gave an extensive interview to the BBC in which he described the background to those events and the events themselves. I have placed a transcript of that interview in the Library. I commend it strongly to the House. It sets out the facts.
Unprecedented efforts had been made by the Government, Church leaders, the RUC and others to secure an accommodation in Portadown. The Chief Constable makes it clear that, ever since January, he personally, and his deputy Chief Constable, Mr. Flannigan, had tried with both sides at Portadown to negotiate a compromise. I pay special tribute to the entirely independent efforts of the Church leaders, who strove for two days and nights to bring the two sides together--sadly, without achieving success.
The Chief Constable is required by law to consider the likelihood of serious disorder if a notified march proceeds. He has to make an operational, professional and impartial judgment. That judgment, under our clearly established constitutional arrangements, is for him alone.
On Thursday 6 July, the Chief Constable had duly decided to order that the return stage of the Orange Order parade at Portadown, which was to take place the following day, should be re-routed away from the Garvaghy road. A lawful order was accordingly made to that effect. That decision was made because he anticipated serious organised disorder--not limited to Portadown protesters--if the intended return stage of the march went ahead. A counter-march planned by the Garvaghy road residents also had restrictions placed on it, although, in the event, it did not take place. I wish to make it clear that, in taking that operational decision at that time and in those circumstances, the Chief Constable had and retains the Government's full support.
Over the next four days, serious disorder occurred in Drumcree and many other parts of the Province. There was a clear and reprehensible intention to overstretch the capacity of the RUC to maintain public order. At Drumcree itself, the Chief Constable has said in his own language that the most insidious, despicable and disgusting threats were made to his officers in the front line, to the effect that their wives or families would be got at. Elsewhere, the RUC was fiercely engaged. There was intimidation of officers' families and other civilians, with widespread blocking of roads and attacks on property.
The RUC, with full support from the Army, did its duty with great resolution in responding to this critical situation. At the request of the Chief Constable, two further battalions were brought into the Province in support of his force. However, despite the sustained efforts to which I have referred, it proved impossible for the two sides in the local community at Drumcree to reach an agreement.
On the morning of 11 July, after considering a number of options and having awaited the outcome of the on-going attempts at mediation, the Chief Constable decided that a limited parade down the Garvaghy road was the option most likely to prevent loss of life. He has made it clear that it was foreseeable that, by the night of 11 July, some 60,000 to 70,000 Orange marchers would be invited by the Orange Order to converge on Drumcree, and an attempt had already been made to get through the fence. In that event, he foresaw that they would overrun the wire, obliging the police and the military to withdraw and to attempt to protect the Garvaghy road estate. He concluded that there would be serious risk of lives being lost, including on the Garvaghy estate, and he has said that he would not in any circumstances have
The police have responded proportionately, and with great courage and professionalism, to the attacks.
The police investigation into the bomb attack on the hotel at Enniskillen is now under way. While it is too early to say which organisation was responsible, it seems clear that preparations for that attack began well before the events at Drumcree.
The events surrounding Drumcree and the march on the Lower Ormeau road in Belfast on 12 July have underscored the potentially destabilising effect of controversial parades. There are no immediately obvious answers. Over many months, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler), has been seeking to avoid conflict in this year's marching season. As I said in the House last week, I now have in mind a general review that will make recommendations about the better management of future controversial parades.
I therefore confirm today that the Government intend to establish a review based on evidence that any interested party will be free to summit. I envisage that the review will examine the current arrangements for handling parades and marches in Northern Ireland. I shall announce further details of the review later, including the name of the chairman and detailed terms of reference.
Recent events, however, are but a symptom of the much deeper divisions that plague Northern Ireland. Along with all politicians who are committed to a peaceful solution, we must continue to seek to overcome them.
That can be achieved only in a talks process that can address all the issues and is committed to securing an agreed outcome that respects the aspirations and principles of both parts of the community. I referred earlier to the democratic process of talks that is in place. It is now more imperative than ever that it begins to address the substantive issues that lie at the heart of the divisions that have had such terrible consequences. I am pleased that the process continues tomorrow.
For our part, the Government are fully committed to the talks process. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I will be meeting the leaders of each of the parties involved over the coming days to hear their views of the way forward and to emphasise our commitment to the talks process.
I shall also be making arrangements, in consultation with the Irish Government, to meet them at an intergovernmental conference to discuss the mutual security interests between our two countries, and to demonstrate the reasons behind last week's decisions. On that basis, we intend to rebut very firmly the quite unjustified and unwarranted criticism that has been made of the Government and the RUC. In particular, my purpose will be, in the presence of the Chief Constable, to rebut any suggestion of political interference in his operational decisions.
"traded one life for the Garvaghy Road".
In that decision also, the Chief Constable has the Government's full support. We also share his regret at what he described as
"an outrageous attempt by one side to impose their will on the other by the sheer weight of force."
I recognise, of course, that the nationalist community, or many of its members, are bitterly critical of this decision, but it was taken very much with the safety of the Garvaghy road residents in mind. I am in no doubt, however, that, under the circumstances, it was the right decision. The violence that followed in many nationalist areas was no more justified or acceptable than that fomented by loyalists earlier in the week. Once again, the security forces came under intense attack from gunfire, as well as petrol bombs and other missiles.
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