House of Commons Hansard Debates for 4 Nov 1996 (pt 10)

Mr. Alex Carlile: Muggers.

Mr. Straw: Yes--the people who are committing knife crimes on the underground, about which the Evening Standard has written today. That list will also include robbers and domestic burglars. According to the Secretary of State, all those people pose the least danger to the public. [Interruption.] That is what he has said, and those are the people who will be affected by the provisions. Those people pose a danger to the public, and they deserve the supervision provided by the current system.

Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman is being preposterous. First, all those in the categories that he has identified would, if they are repeat offenders, be covered by the minimum mandatory sentence which we propose and which he opposes.

Mr. Carlile: No.

Mr. Howard: Yes, all of them if they are repeat offenders.

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As for supervision, I repeat what I said earlier: anyone with a grain of common sense would want to secure that those who pose the greatest risk to the public, and who do not get parole under the present system, would be subject to the maximum supervision, while those who pose the least risk to the public should be subject to less supervision. That is exactly what the Bill provides.

Mr. Straw: I notice that, through all that bluster, although the Secretary of State described my comments as preposterous, he did not describe them as wrong, because they are right.

The Secretary of State knows that the system that he is about to establish will produce circumstances that put the public at greater risk from burglars and robbers. It is no good his talking about the arrangements for third-time repeat burglars and robbers: we know how those will impact on the situation. With regard to first-time or second-time burglars and robbers, his proposals for supervision and for arrangements for putting those people at risk of imprisonment if they reoffend are much more lenient than the current arrangements.

Mr. Carlile: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what the Home Secretary has just said--to the effect that, under the Bill, repeat muggers would have to serve mandatory sentences--is just not right? The only robbers who are covered by repeat sentences under the Bill are those who, at some time during the commission of the offence, had in their possession a firearm or imitation firearm. That does not deal with knifepoint robberies or handbag snatching from old ladies. Can the hon. Gentleman think why the Home Secretary has seen fit to tell the House a version of the Bill that is not in the Bill?

Mr. Straw: I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman has a high regard for my powers of perception, but the one thing that I cannot do, for which I apologise, is to explain to him why the Home Secretary says something that is patently untrue.

The Evening Standard today writes about the epidemic of knifepoint robberies on trains. Such offenders would have less supervision and an increased chance of reoffending without any risk of being returned to prison than under the current arrangements.

Mr. Howard: If the people referred to on the front page of the Evening Standard today committed a serious wounding with their knife--[Hon. Members: "Ah!"]--they would clearly be covered by my proposals for an automatic life sentence for those who commit serious violent offences. They would not be covered by any Opposition proposal, because the Opposition have no such proposal. One must consider the detail of the offences that people in those categories have committed.

Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State is right about one thing: we must certainly consider the detail. I would advise him to study the detail a little more before he stands up and makes a fool of himself again.

Mr. Robert Jackson: Before the debate turns into a Dutch auction, may I say that I find it extraordinary that there are more people serving life imprisonment in Britain

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than in the rest of the European Union? If the hon. Gentleman were Home Secretary, would that number rise or fall?

Mr. Straw: I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman. I shall do my best to give a serious answer to a serious question: there is no way that a Secretary of State could answer that question, because the number of people convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment is a function, first, of the police in catching and apprehending criminals, and, secondly of the courts. Where the courts pass such sentences, the House must ensure that adequate prison accommodation is available.

A remarkable feature of the proposals from the Secretary of State is that they are so complicated that, even if they are passed, they cannot come into force for three years, whereas under our proposals, honesty in sentencing could be achieved as soon as the Bill becomes law, without the safety of the public being compromised.

As I also made clear last week, the public must be protected from people such as repeat rapists. It is unsafe to set a release date for such people at the time they are sentenced. Instead, it is entirely correct that a judgment about their release date should be made by the Parole Board after the tariff has been served, and then only when the board judges that release is likely to be safe. This proposal has our positive support, for those convicted of rape or of serious sexual offences, or cases involving homicide attempts or solicitation.

I am concerned that the list of offences in clause 2(5) may be too broad--in particular, with the inclusion of section 18 wounding. The law relating to section 18 is wholly unsatisfactory, as the Law Commission has repeatedly pointed out; and the range of conduct covered by this section is extremely wide.

The Secretary of State got terribly excited about this reservation of mine last week, as if the fact that I might have a genuine doubt about one of his propositions was proof at last that I was soft on crime. Before he chides me now for daring to have a doubt, I could equally well ask him why he chose to draw the line in his way--why he chose, for instance, not to include robbery with a knife in the list of "trigger" offences. The line must certainly be drawn somewhere, but I see no reason why we should not have a serious adult discussion about where to draw it.

Before the right hon. Member for Fareham leaves the Chamber, I should like to point out that, in last week's debate, he expressed support for a greater use of determinate sentences, but added that they were being called life sentences to sound fiercer--although the greater honesty that is much spoken of these days would demand another name. I agree that there would be nothing fixed about these sentences; nor, save in a tiny minority of cases, will the prisoner be in gaol for the whole of his natural life. Would it not therefore be more honest to tell the public the truth: that these are indeterminate, reviewable sentences, with a fixed minimum set by the trial judge, not Parliament, and a reviewable release date thereafter to be determined by the Parole Board?

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Let me now deal with the proposals in respect of domestic burglars and drug dealers. In 1991, the hon. and learned Member for Burton, Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, gave the House the benefit of his considered view on automatic fixed minimum sentences:

"I do not like minimum sentences . . . Speeches calling for minimum sentences have always been resisted over the years. Governments have resisted the idea of going down this slippery slope because if one case is allowed as an exception it becomes difficult to refuse other cases".--[Official Report, 20 February 1991; Vol. 186, c. 311-12.]

Now the Secretary of State and the Government are sliding down the slippery slope at breakneck speed. Last week, the Secretary of State told the House that it was completely untrue that his original sentencing proposals had been ditched. As ever, he protests too much. I have with me two documents--one, the Crime (Sentences) Bill; the other, the speech that the Secretary of State made to the Conservative party conference in October 1995.

In his 1995 speech, the right hon. and learned Gentleman's answer was simple: there would be stiff minimum sentences for burglars and drug dealers who offended again and again. There was not a word about exceptions; indeed, the word "exceptions" appeared nowhere in the speech. Even the background notes attached to the press copies of the speech were emphatic--offenders over 18 who had already been convicted of three such offences would face a stiff minimum sentence. There were no ifs or buts about it.

That was when the Secretary of State was at the top of the slippery slope. Then the Treasury, the judges and his more fair-minded colleagues started to push. The fact that completely fixed minimum sentences could lead to guilty criminals walking free from court started to dawn on him, so by April the Secretary of State had passed the sign on the slope marked "genuine, very special, occasional, quite unforeseeable circumstances".

Today, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is even further down the slope. All the qualifications have now gone. Under the Bill, the courts are to have wide discretion, related to the offender as well as to the offence, not to apply the fixed minimum if a court is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances in favour of not doing so. And there will be a 20 per cent. discount for a timely guilty plea. That is a world away from the Secretary of State's 1995 conference speech.