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7.33 pm
Mr. Robin Corbett (Birmingham, Erdington): People in my constituency and elsewhere do not understand what the Government claim they are doing to make their lives safer. People know that crime has doubled, and that
violent crime has doubled and then increased by a fifth, because they are the victims of such crime. No measure proposed in the Queen's Speech deals with their concerns.
It is unclear how 22 new prisons and an extra £500 million a year to keep convicted criminals in prison longer will make the lives of my constituents safer. If I could choose how to spend £500 million to deter, prevent and detect crime, I am not sure that I would build new prisons. How many closed circuit television schemes would £500 million provide? That would stop the present ludicrous practice of schemes having to compete against each other for funds--a process that shows the great need for such schemes in many parts of the country.
In Erdington high street, traders, who already pay the business rate, must now raise £50,000 to enter a lottery to get a matching amount out of the Home Office. On Friday, I attended a meeting of a group of people from Erdington neighbourhood watch. It was one of several such meetings that I have had across the constituency in the past few months. Those people are concerned about changes made in the organisation of West Midlands police. They believe that Erdington police station delivers a worse service at a time when crime along the high street has grown. For long periods, the police station is run by what they describe as "green jumper" civilians rather than police officers. They are worried that liaison between the police and neighbourhood watch groups is to be passed to a civilian, so that there will be even less contact between the police and the public whom they serve.
In the Birches Green and Stockland Green areas of my constituency, we have held public meetings involving the police and city council officers to discuss ways of building partnerships to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour. Work led by Birmingham city council, for which no specific grant is available, has been innovative and ambitious in building and developing a community safety strategy. The aim is to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour, to reduce the fear of crime and to improve responses to issues of public concern. The strategy is broader than mere crime prevention, and enables the council to examine social and economic causes of crime and anti-social behaviour.
The city's track record led to Home Office funding for a three-year study to evaluate that work. The report was submitted in June, and it is believed that it makes the case--made as long ago as 1991 in the Morgan report--that more progress could be made in community safety if local authorities had a statutory responsibility to deliver those services.
I shall briefly mention three steps that have been taken under that initiative. First, in May, a community partnership day in Druid's Heath brought together community groups, residents, city council departments and other agencies, and led to the drafting of a neighbourhood action plan to respond to the concerns of local residents about policing, youth provision and drug misuse. Secondly, the city council, West Midlands police and the West Midlands probation service have signed a tripartite agreement that lays the foundations for an expanded inter-agency commitment to community safety. Thirdly, and interestingly, community safety packages are part of the curriculum in all schools in the city. They encourage citizenship and responsibility among secondary school students and are entitled BRUM--being responsible, understanding and motivated.
The Government must understand that community policing will succeed only if it involves the community. People should take more responsibility for what goes on in their areas, with back-up from the police, the city council and other agencies. People also need to feel that the criminal justice system and the police are on their side. It does not help when, at the Government's behest, guidelines are issued to the police that lay down when they should and should not charge people with assault.
In a recent case, Mr. Leonard Watts was punched in the face during a vicious road rage attack. He took the driver's registration number, and drove straight to the police station despite a cut and bleeding mouth. He was told by the police that they would not investigate the matter because, under those guidelines, the injuries were not serious enough to warrant a charge.
Neither Mr. Watts nor anyone else can understand that: it must be wrong on several counts. It means that in some circumstances the police, rather than the courts, decide the punishment. It means that, unless someone can afford a private prosecution, which can cost up to £1,500, the thugs can walk free. It means that, while violent crime is still rising, perhaps thousands of such incidents will simply vanish, although reported, because the police feel unable to bring charges. As Graham Wright, senior law lecturer at the university of Central England, said,
A shopkeeper in my constituency spotted two young thieves in his shop, chased them, apprehended them, retrieved the goods and held them until the police arrived. In front of those two young villains the police said, "You have got the goods back. What's the problem? See your solicitor." How are young people supposed to be turned away from crime when they hear police officers saying such things? Why should the police deny the courts the opportunities to act on behalf of the community to turn these and other young people away from crime?
Even those working in the criminal justice system do not understand what the Government are about. Prison officers in Birmingham's Winston Green prison have written to tell me that the prison board is considering contracting out to the private sector the administration of finance, personnel and prisoner services in all 126 prison establishments and at Prison Service headquarters. Management estimates that that puts 2,510 jobs at risk. In their letter, the officers state:
Increasing the number of police officers and building more and more prisons to keep more and more people locked up for longer will not, on their own, make our
communities safer and it is wrong to pretend that they will. Community safety is best assured when communities relearn what living in a community is about and learn that some things can be done only by acting together. In one sense, it is rediscovering neighbourliness and recognising that the cost of crime for all communities is high and rising in economic and social terms.
Mr. David Martin (Portsmouth, South):
This debate is a useful opportunity to raise some concerns that should be addressed in the new Session, either in the legislation proposed in the Gracious Speech or in other parliamentary ways. Many improvements that I have in mind for my constituents do not require legislation. I shall give two examples. I welcome the proposed health care Bill, which will offer doctors opportunities to set up even better and more diverse services for patients and build on the significant improvements that have been achieved in recent years, but I should like two more specific developments in the national health service as soon as possible.
First, more needs to be done to meet the reasonable concerns of people who do not want to share non-emergency wards with the opposite sex. Mixed-sex non-emergency wards are relatively new in the NHS. No doubt some hon. Members will remember the time when such wards would not have been introduced. At that time, single-sex wards were considered the only way to be treated in hospital. I am aware of the costs which it is claimed are saved and the shorter waiting time for beds in some cases, but the patients charter gives the patient a right to be told before admission whether it is planned that he or she should enter a mixed ward. If a patient prefers single-sex provision, those wishes should be respected where possible.
For the sake of respecting the dignity and comfort of patients, and to meet the concern of many people on this issue, which has been expressed to me and in petitions recently raised in Portsmouth over a longer time and in the local newspaper, more effort should be made in Portsmouth and nationally to provide real choice and separate provision, without unreasonable delay in admission or treatment. If necessary, the patients charter should be strengthened to make that clear.
Secondly, I urge the Government to make it clear that health care must include an automatic reminder for breast cancer screening for women over the age of 64. They currently have a right to such screening but, as there is no regular recall, many do not realise it, let alone take advantage of it.
I support the promised provisions of an education Bill which will strengthen teachers' powers of suspension, exclusion or expulsion of badly behaved pupils. The Home Office should be concerned to know where such pupils go and what they get up to when they are not at school. That was mentioned by the hon. Member for
Hammersmith (Mr. Soley). The problem is already noticeable in Portsmouth and arises from truancy as well as from suspension or expulsion. The answer is that such pupils make nuisances of themselves on the streets.
The Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Education and Employment must consider providing places which such pupils must attend. They could be called attendance centres or attendance units, but whatever they are called they should quickly provide some hours of the day that are more unpleasant than those at school. The centres should also be constructive and reform young people so that they can return to their schools and not make nuisances of themselves as before. Having to do something else when they are expelled, excluded or suspended from school would be not only a deterrent to persistently bad school behaviour but prevent children from roaming the neighbourhood with nothing to do but make trouble.
I welcome the inclusion in the legislative programme of Bills to deal with paedophiles and stalkers. Paedophiles cause immense suffering to children and their families, and the more information there is about particular people the better so that parents and the authorities have a better chance of protecting children from their evil activities. The criminal law has been added to over the years in an attempt to meet the curse of stalking which, with respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), goes well beyond the actions of Romeo pursuing Juliet. There have been some spectacular successes when there has been the will to bring a prosecution using existing law, but there is no doubt that further measures are required. They should improve present procedures, which have proved too costly or cumbersome to protect those who are literally terrorised by people who are often disturbed and violent.
I have considerable sympathy for the Government in attempting to square the circle on the proposed provisions for gun control, and considerable contempt for the opportunist party politicking of the opposition parties. The powerfully argued case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) will take some answering and I hope that I shall hear some answers in due course. In any change in the law, there has to be proper compensation for all those responsible people whose hitherto lawfully held weapons are to be banned and for clubs and businesses whose lawful activities will be made impossible.
I am pleased to see that the Home Office will be busy in this Session. I hope that means that there will be no more legislation on the extension of drinking hours late at night in densely populated areas in my constituency such as Southsea and Portsmouth. I do not welcome such legislation and I have consistently opposed it over the years. Residents in those areas will welcome the absence in the Gracious Speech of any such measures. Hopefully, there will be no parliamentary time to bring in any more.
"There is a danger that the true crime picture will be distorted."
Chief Inspector Barry Evans, chairman of the West Midlands branch of the Police Federation said:
"We believe this is a cost-cutting exercise."
Whatever the reasons, it has gone down badly with Mr. Watts and many others.
"This revelation has angered the thousands of loyal, hard working Prison Service staff, who have responded to numerous changes and challenges in recent years and helped the service through difficult times."
I hope that I shall not be alone in endorsing what they say next. They state:
"We believe that the functions concerned should only be undertaken by public servants for reasons of integrity and confidentiality in such a sensitive, demanding and, at times, dangerous, area of public life."
I hope that the Minister will comment on that in his winding-up speech.
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