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Mr. Howard: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he has no proposals for automatic life sentences for second serious violent offences?
Mr. Straw: I am glad that the Home Secretary asked that. In the past I have spoken of my concern about the breadth of the categories of offences that would trigger that proposal. I have no difficulty at all about those offences of serious violence which result in homicide or about sexual offences, but I have some reservations about the breadth of section 18 wounding. It would be sensible to discuss that matter in Committee, and we shall do that.
We shall ensure that the Bill receives a Second Reading when it is debated next week. In Committee, we shall scrutinise the detail and try to improve the Bill as a whole. We shall make final decisions on its separate specific elements once they have been fully considered.
One other measure in the Bill has our whole-hearted support: that relating to the calculation of time spent on remand. One thing that the Home Secretary told the Tory party conference last year has certainly come true: "Release from prison--", he said, "it comes too soon." Those words were ringing in the ears of 541 hardened criminals as they walked free in August, months--in some cases years--before their sentences should have come to an end. There are few better illustrations than that bizarre spectacle of the chaotic way in which the Home Secretary has administered the Prison Service. Clarification of the law is long overdue, and we shall secure it.
The legislative programme is as significant for what has been omitted as for what has been included. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has been Secretary of State for three and a half years. He has presided over a Prison Service in persistent crisis, a youth justice system in disarray, mounting public fear about crime and rising anxiety about the fracturing of our society. However, he has notched up one achievement to his credit that we would not dream of taking away.
Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North):
Do not be so generous.
Opinion polls record that the Conservative party is even less trusted on law and order now than it was three and a half years ago, when the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) was Home Secretary.
It may be the growing realisation that the Home Secretary's principal powers of persuasion are to drive voters into Labour's hands that led the chairman of the Tory party to make an otherwise extraordinary decision about the timing of debates at Conservative party conference a few weeks ago: those stars of the political stage, the Secretary of State for National Heritage and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, were put on at prime time, with live coverage; but the Home Secretary's speech was delayed until live television coverage had been switched off--his place taken by Oprah Winfrey. Even Sky abandoned him. I had to surf the radio waves to hear his familiar tones crackling through the medium wave of Radio 5 Live. Those
members of the British public who, like me, were able to hear the Secretary of State, if not see him, would have heard him promise action on paedophiles, stalking and sex tourism. With regard to a Bill for a paedophile register, he said:
If Conservative Members want to know why the Tory party has lost the plot on law and order, they should consider what followed. First, the Minister of State announced 10 days ago that the stalking Bill was to be left to the lottery of the private Member's Bill procedure. Only last week, we learned from The Times that the Bill to introduce a paedophile register would also remain outside the Government's programme. As soon as I found out about that change of position, I wrote to the Secretary of State to offer our co-operation to get the measures through. He wrote back almost as swiftly as I had sent the letter--rejecting the offer.
At 11.30 am last Wednesday, as Her Majesty was about to read her speech, the Secretary of State's senior officials and aides were briefing heavily on his behalf that there was no way in the world that the Secretary of State would allow these measures in Government time. It was to be the private Member's Bill route or nothing, and that position was repeated by Ministers in all lunchtime interviews.
At 3.30 pm my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition repeated the offer that the Secretary of State had rejected the day before. We then witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of an impromptu meeting of the legislation committee of the Cabinet taking place on the Treasury Bench, followed by the public humiliation of the Secretary of State as the Prime Minister overruled his decision of the previous day and announced that the two measures would, after all, be in the Government's legislative programme.
Mr. Howard:
The hon. Gentleman knows how preposterous is the version of events that he has just given. The truth is that the offer made by the Leader of the Opposition across the Floor of the House bore no relation to the offer that the hon. Gentleman made in his letter to me. The offer that he made in his letter to me was that the Labour party would treat these Bills in the same way as in the last Session it treated the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Bill and the Security Service Bill, both of which took seven months to reach the statute book. We do not have seven months for these Bills to reach the statute book, so we could not possibly have acceded to his offer. The Leader of the Opposition made an entirely different offer of a fast-track procedure for these Bills, and that was why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister accepted it.
Mr. Straw:
I have the letter with me that I wrote to the Secretary of State. The offer that I made was exactly the same as the offer that my right hon. Friend made. Indeed, my right hon. Friend made the offer because I had made the offer the day before and the Secretary of State had refused it.
So far as co-operation is concerned, the Secretary of State just made a very unwise intervention. I will, if I may, offer him this gratuitous advice. It does not do for
the Secretary of State to talk about the delays that took place on the Security Service Bill. He knows that we co-operated fully on that Bill. It was given its Second Reading on 10 January. It then went to Committee. Its Third Reading took place on 14 February and it was committed the very next day to the House of Lords. What happened next? For no reason to do with Opposition Members, but everything to do with Government business managers, the Conservative party then delayed the introduction of that measure for three further months. That was why it took seven months. It would have taken four months if they had followed our timetable.
Mr. Straw:
This must be the last intervention.
Mr. Howard:
Does the hon. Gentleman not appreciate that if a Bill has to be slotted into the main legislative programme without any offer of fast-track procedures that is precisely what will happen? That is why, in the absence of the assurance that we had from the Leader of the Opposition, it was sensible to say that a private Member's Bill would be the best way forward. It was only the assurance of the hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that made things different. Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that?
Mr. Straw:
What I do understand is the advice that my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Healey once gave, and which I now give to the Secretary of State:
Do not this sorry shambles and the dreadful display that we have just seen from the Secretary of State show how vacillation and indecision have again taken over the current Administration? They say one thing; they do another. The talk may be tough, but the action is weak and ineffectual. Indeed, in some cases, they say one thing and then do nothing.
One has only to consider the three-year saga on identity cards. First, we had the flagship policy from the Prime Minister, in April 1993, of compulsory ID cards. Then we had the holding policy from the Secretary of State of voluntary ID cards, followed by a diversionary argument about whether the Union flag should appear on the cards, and whether they were voluntary or compulsory. Then we had the intervention of the Tory right-wing leadership challenger, the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who said that any kind of ID card was a bad idea. So now we have no ID cards, just the fig leaf of a draft Bill that the Secretary of State did not even bother to mention.
"I intend to bring it in."
Of the proposed stalking Bill, he said "I will make sure" that women get protection from stalking.
"If you are in a hole, stop digging."
I am delighted that in the end we have ensured that the Secretary of State's clear promise at the Tory party conference will be now be backed by action and, as I said in my letter, we shall co-operate fully on these Bills, as we did last year on two important criminal justice Bills--the Security Service Bill and the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Bill. Indeed, so much did we co-operate that the Secretary of State and the Minister of State put their thanks on record.
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