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8.48 pm
Mr. Michael Stephen (Shoreham): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) who made some profound points that we would all do well to ponder. As he rightly points out, drugs are a scourge of modern society, affecting the entire western world. They are at the root of so many of our social problems, particularly crime.
I sometimes feel that our debates on home affairs are conducted in a vacuum, because the criminal law is only one constraint on human behaviour. Not so many years ago, there were other powerful constraints, most of which, sadly, have fallen away, leaving only the criminal law as our defence against deviant behaviour. We all know that the criminal law is not up to the task.
What are those constraints? They include respect for others and the realisation that every right has a reciprocal responsibility. There was respect by men for women, but when one can read articles and see photographs in a family newspaper that a few years ago one would have found only on the top shelf of a seedy newsagents, is it any wonder that respect between men and women has weakened?
There was respect between parents and children. In the 1960s, as teenagers became more financially independent, respect began to break down; given some of the half-baked left-wing ideas in our schools, is it any wonder that respect between parents and children has weakened?
Respect for religion used to be a powerful constraint on human behaviour. People really worried about what would happen to them when they died. They regarded the
laws laid down in the Bible as rules by which they should lead their own lives. Perhaps bishops and the other clergy would do better if they spent more time trying to reinforce belief in religion and the laws laid down in the Bible, rather than dabbling in politics, as they so often do.
Respect for the police has also been undermined. Is it any wonder that young hooligans laugh at the police when a policeman who seeks to impose reasonable corporal punishment on some young hooligan is dragged into court and fined?
Is it surprising that young bullies in schools laugh at their teachers when, only last week, a teacher who made a brave attempt to stop bullying in her school was criticised and will be dragged before a tribunal?
It is all upside down. Why has it happened? There is one common denominator. I shall not seek to blame it all on them, but they must take a substantial share of the blame. They are the television editors and producers. When people with low standards of personal behaviour are portrayed on our television screens every day, is it any wonder that young and impressionable people imitate that behaviour?
It is no answer for the television producers to say, "We just reflect society." They do not, and they know it. They know that they are in charge of the most powerful medium ever invented for moulding ideas and changing behaviour. Why else would people pay tens of thousands of pounds for a few minutes advertising time on television? They must accept their responsibility.
Television has another charge to answer: it is often the thief of time--the time that parents should be spending with children, husbands should be spending with wives and communities should be spending together.
Television has also served to undermine respect for Parliament. The main responsibility for undermining respect for Parliament among our constituents must rest with us. If we spend our working day trying to make out that other Members are crooks or incompetents, as we so often do, is it any wonder that the public begin to believe that we really are crooks and incompetents? We all know that it is not true, and that hon. Members on both sides of the House work extremely hard and conscientiously for their constituents.
Television trivialises and sensationalises everything. I doubt very much whether the well-informed and thoughtful speech of the hon. Member for Blyth Valley will be broadcast on television. I doubt very much whether any of today's proceedings will be broadcast on television, except perhaps an ill-tempered exchange across the Dispatch Box. If respect for Parliament, the monarchy and all our institutions is undermined, is it any wonder that crime and lawlessness are increasing?
We should also consider the rise of single-interest pressure groups. Many of them are responsible, but some are not. Some say, "Elected Parliaments and Governments are a complete waste of time. If you want to get anything done, you should take the law into your own hands. Go and sit down in the road. Go and smash lorries. Go and sit in trees. Don't care about democracy." Their activities are extremely dangerous, because the liberty of British people rests here in the House, and in our hands as their elected Members of Parliament. We cannot abdicate our responsibility to single-interest pressure groups, or, indeed, to judges.
Expectations of what Governments and Parliaments can do have run far ahead of their ability to deliver, and that causes disillusionment. To some extent, we are responsible for raising expectations that we know cannot be delivered. We should think carefully before we do it in future.
The general breakdown of society is often blamed on my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Thatcher. That is nonsense. In so far as our problems stem from increased prosperity--we have more cars, videos and everything else to steal--perhaps she is responsible. [Laughter.] However, when we consider that that phenomenon has been taking place since long before my right hon. and noble Friend became Prime Minister--it has been happening for 30 years, not just in Britain, but throughout the western world--it is easy to see how silly was the laughter from the Labour Front Bench when I suggested that the responsibility did not rest on the shoulders of my right hon. and noble Friend.
Governments can do only so much, and this Government have done it. Funding for the police has increased by 100 per cent. since we came to office. More prisons have been built to protect society against dangerous criminals, and new powers have been given to the courts and the police.
I have, however, one criticism of my party, and that is that we listen too much to the siren voices of the left-wing criminologists and other do-gooders within the criminal justice system, who were in and out of the Home Office almost every day. Fortunately, we have got rid of them, and we now have a Home Secretary and a ministerial team who are determined to roll back the liberal ideas that have done so much damage to our country.
Some judges say that prison does not work, but, with the greatest respect to them, that is none of their business. [Laughter.] I hear more silly laughter from the Opposition. There was a time when the judges imposed a self-denying ordinance on themselves. They did not descend into the political arena to take part in party political debate, because they knew that their value to our society rested upon the fact that they were impartial and were seen to be so. If the judges forfeit their impartiality, this nation will be losing a priceless asset. I warn the judges of the danger of departing from the very wise rule that they once imposed on themselves.
Mr. George Robertson (Hamilton):
Not surprisingly, I shall not follow the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) down the strange alleyways in which he seemed to find himself.
I intend to speak about Dunblane and firearms, and it is probably the first time that I have done so without the presence of my opposite number, the Secretary of State for Scotland. It is a strange occurrence, but I am sure that the Minister of State will be a good substitute. The
Secretary of State is in Luxembourg, fighting the cause of Scottish beef in the various channels available, and we wish him well in that regard if not in any other.
I find this speech slightly awkward on another count as well. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) made an allegation about a deal between the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Home Secretary. In military circles, I think that that is referred to as friendly fire. I am not in any position to know whether deals were done or not. Perhaps the Minister will address himself to that point in his winding-up speech.
In this debate, we are considering a number of pieces of legislation, some of which we have seen and others that we have yet to see. Inevitably, the focus of attention has been on the Crime (Sentences) Bill, for England and Wales, and the Government's more poetically entitled--one might say even literary--Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Bill for north of the border. The debate has also concentrated on the Firearms (Amendment) Bill, which apparently we are to see for the first time later this week, and which we shall certainly speed on its way to Royal Assent before Christmas.
The issue of firearms is, of course, serious. It crosses normal party divisions and arises out of a horrific event which took place on 13 March in the town where I live and which the Secretary of State for Scotland represents, and a 200-page report by Lord Cullen that has taken seven months to produce. The issue is serious, sober, and crosses party boundaries. I for one was much saddened by the approach taken by the Home Secretary in his opening speech. His tone--and, indeed, the content of his speech--was not what the British public would have expected on a subject that has carried the country with it. I hope that when he reflects on what he said, and on how it sounded to the House and the country, the Home Secretary will regret the way in which he put it forward.
The Home Secretary said that his proposal for a partial ban on handguns on a whipped vote through the House of Commons would somehow allow the people of Dunblane--by that, I think that he means the parents of the murdered and injured children, the injured teachers and the family of Gwen Mayor--to draw a line under the events of 13 March. As somebody who knows those people and lives in the same town, I have to tell him that a partial ban on those weapons of destruction, those easily concealed, easily carried and all too easily used handguns, will allow no line to be drawn. Nor will such a ban draw a line under the real fear in the wider community that the remaining 40,000 handguns--20,000 of which are semi-automatic repeater pistols--will continue to represent a serious danger to public safety.
Although we shall be debating the matter again when we see the Government's precise proposals, I should like to make three simple points in considering what has been said in this debate. Dealing with the menace represented by handguns is not some sort of sop to the parents of Dunblane. Their feelings are deep, profound and understandable to any human being, but they were not the only reason why people were shocked to learn that on 13 March 200,000 handguns were held in homes all over Britain. Thus the demand for a full ban on the civilian use of handguns comes from every part of Britain and every kind of person, not simply from one small community that was afflicted by evil on that day in March.
The hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle), who participated earlier in this debate but has since evacuated the Chamber, said that the Dunblane parents and those who spoke for them were hysterical and emotional. He referred specifically to Mr. Les Morton, one of the bereaved fathers who spoke on the day that the Cullen report was published. His comments touched a new low for a Member of this House. He is an individual known for hysterical response on occasions. I am glad, however, that Tory Members dissociated themselves from what he said on that day. I only wish that the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister had done so publicly as well, as that might have mended some of the wounds caused by what the hon. Gentleman said.
This issue naturally concerns emotion and the point that must be grasped is that it has been under consideration for the past seven months. None of us was absent from the debate that took place in the country. I accept that we were waiting for Lord Cullen's report. Lord Cullen is a learned judge who was chosen in consultation with this side of the House. I helped to write the terms of reference that he worked towards, and I asked the parliamentary question that led to his appointment to look at the circumstances surrounding the shooting. But he is not a royal commission. Neither is he some oracle nor the fount of all knowledge. We saw what went on at the hearings in the Albert hall in Stirling. The Secretary of State and myself gave evidence to the inquiry and saw the evidence as it piled up.
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