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Holocaust Denial

Mr. Mike Gapes accordingly presented a Bill to make it a criminal offence to claim, whether in writing or orally, that the policy of genocide against the Jewish people committed by Nazi Germany did not occur: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 28 February, and to be printed [Bill 89].

Media Comment (Madam Speaker's Statement)

4.19 pm

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. In your considered statement yesterday at column 153-54, you expressed the hope that the investigation would be completed

"at the earliest possible moment."--[Official Report, 28 January 1997; Vol. 289, c. 153.]

Is there any indication as to whether we are talking about weeks or months in relation to the earliest possible moment?

Madam Speaker: There is nothing further that I can help the House with following my clear statement yesterday.

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Orders of the Day

Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Bill

As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.

Clause 4

Restriction of liberty orders

Amendment proposed [20 January]: No. 245, in page 6, line 20, to leave out the words
'of 16 years of age or more'.--[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

Madam Speaker: I remind the House that with this we are discussing Government amendments Nos. 246 to 250, 252 and 253.

4.20 pm

Mrs. Irene Adams (Paisley, North): You may recall, Madam Speaker, that I was interrupted in my speech last week when the Government hung on for yet another night and refused to move the 10 o'clock motion because, once more, they were frightened of losing a vote in the House. I was on my feet in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) and of the amendments that he had moved. Our contention was that electronic tagging should be part of the supervision and probation process, and that it should be used only as an alternative to imprisonment.

The Government are still not giving us the guidelines that we think are needed. They are not giving the judiciary the guidelines that they would need. We do not know, for example, what offenders, or offences for that matter, would be targeted and subject to the orders.

In Committee, the Minister guaranteed that this would be a pilot scheme, but the only research that is of any use is from America. It is widely available and shows that the

"equipment alone will not ensure a successful programme".

Electronic tagging will work only if other measures are in place. The research says:

"The involvement of professional social workers is key."

My main concern involves the electronic tagging of people under 16. The American research tells that such tagging worked best with people who already had some internal control and who needed just an extra nudge. I ask again: what offences and offenders does the Minister have in mind, because the under-16s who would be subject to the measure would not need just an extra nudge and would often be from dysfunctional families? They would come not from middle-class homes, with parents who watch their every move and who keep them on track day in, day out, but from homes where family life had often broken down.

Mr. Phil Gallie (Ayr): Where does the hon. Lady get that interpretation from? It seems that a young offender from any background could be submitted to this recourse.

Mrs. Adams: If the Minister would give us the guidance on what offenders and offences he was talking about, we might know what offences to address, but, at

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the moment, we do not, so I must assume that this applies across the board. I have no guidance from the Minister or the Government, and neither do the judiciary. The Government are asking the House to pass the orders on to sheriffs and to judges, who will have to implement them as best they can because we are not getting the guidance that is required.

My experience is that not many children from my street are subject to any court orders. However, I fear that many children in the poorer parts of my constituency would fall into that category. There is nothing to suggest that children with a life style similar to mine would suffer. Many children are in peripheral housing schemes where there are no facilities and bad housing and where schools are not properly equipped by the Government. Their lives are not good and they do not see a bright future. They have nothing to look forward to, and they are the children who would be affected. The last thing that such children need is the pressure on their families that electronic tagging would bring.

In many cases the mother in a house in which the family had broken down would also be the gaoler, and that is a difficult role to give anyone without the backing of social work departments and probation officers. As far as I can see, no such backing is on offer.

In Committee, the Minister said that one of the relevant crimes was football hooliganism. There is no great evidence of football hooliganism in Scotland, because we addressed that a long time ago. I am at a loss to know what sort of crimes he has in mind. Would truancy by those under the age of 16 be relevant? A child playing truant from school could be electronically tagged at home for 12 hours. The removal of the tag would not be an inducement for the child to go to school if the only time that the child was free was during school hours. Tags may also be used on fine defaulters who are over the age of 16.

Mr. Gordon McMaster (Paisley, South): Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best inducements to under-16-year-olds not to play truant would be to offer them the prospect of a real job when they leave school? Perhaps the Government want to experiment with electronic tagging. In view of the closeness of some of the votes in the next few weeks, Tory Whips might try it on Conservative Members.

Mrs. Adams: I am unhappy with that suggestion, because our Whips might try it on us. However, my hon. Friend's first point was excellent. Tagging will not encourage children to look for a better way of life. The only way to do that is to give them hope. Some 20 per cent. of families in Britain do not have an income from a job coming into the household, and that does not encourage a better life. The proposal will not help them.

I am concerned about the way that the matter has been handled, and especially about its effect on those who are under the age of 16. However, people over that age are also affected. Was fine default one of the crimes that the Minister has in mind? In Committee, the Minister failed to answer questions. What would the tag entail? When it is switched off will it still activate other electronic equipment such as that at supermarket doors? We often set equipment off in airports with pagers and mobile telephones. I understand that people will wear the tags even when they are deactivated. [Interruption.]

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Would the Minister like to intervene? Will the tags activate equipment in supermarkets and other stores? Are we putting the mark of Cain on people? Are we saying, "Here is an offender"? Will people who did not buy a television licence be stopped at supermarket doors? Will we point a finger at them in public? None of those questions has been answered.

We are discussing the introduction of an order requiring a piece of equipment, but we do not know to whom the order will apply or what crimes they will have had to commit. We do not know the effect that the order will have on their overall life style or on their families. We are also not guaranteeing the involvement of the professionals who will be necessary to implement an order, such as social workers and probation officers.

We seem to be throwing in a measure that has not been well researched, and not researched at all in Scotland. There have been a few pilot schemes in England, but they have not yet been concluded. The only research we have comes from America, and that has proved that the measure is utterly useless. It has not served its intended purpose, and, as the Minister told us in Committee, its application could cost up to £10,000 per person. Paying that amount would not be very clever if the order was made because of non-payment of the television licence fee or because wee Johnny was kicking a football in the street after his mother could not get him in after 8 o'clock at night.

4.30 pm

Before we accept the measure, the Minister will have to tell us much more about it: the type of crimes to which it will apply, the type of people whom he thinks will be wearing the tags and how we will deal with the equipment problems I have mentioned. He must also tell us the cost of putting the system into every home, as it will have to include a telephone and modem. Presumably the Government will have to install the system and pick up the bills for running it. I should tell the Minister that I have some people in my constituency who could break out of Alcatraz. I do not think that an electronic tag will induce them to stay at home. The Minister has a lot more work to do on the measure, and he will have to answer some of our questions before it progresses any further.

Mr. Menzies Campbell (Fife, North-East): The hon. Member for Paisley, North (Mrs. Adams) has made a most compelling case against the proposals. She was particularly right to say that the Bill provides absolutely no guidance to the judiciary generally and to sheriffs particularly on the criteria that should be employed when electronic tagging is applied to those over 16 or to those under 16. One could argue very strongly that the Government's decision to extend the proposal, by tabling Amendment No. 245, places a far more acute obligation on them to prescribe the criteria by which this form of penal disposal should be used.

If one introduces a measure that is essentially a gimmick, surely one has an intellectual if not a political obligation to justify its introduction. If one intends to apply the measure to under-16s--who are, by convention and statute, dealt with differently in virtually every aspect of our civil and criminal law--the obligation is all the more pressing. Thus far, the Government have not discharged that obligation.

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As hon. Members have already said, the measure is untargeted and may very possibly have the effect of contradicting the Government's apparent attempt to create more consistency in sentencing. If one introduces a policy that contradicts other policies, surely one has a duty to explain why the contradiction should be allowed.

As the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) said when we last met to discuss the measure, the Government have given absolutely no indication of the resources that will be available to implement it. We are told that public expenditure is under severe and critical review, but this measure will undoubtedly increase the burden upon the taxpayer. We can rest assured that calculations have been done in the Scottish Office, but the House has not been admitted to the privity of that information. No doubt the Government do not want to tell us just how expensive this kind of operation can be.

If the Government have had the opportunity to read the Home Office research study No. 163, which deals with the trials in Greater Manchester, Norfolk and Berkshire in 1995-96, they will know that the average cost per offender in the trial was £18,000. That is approximately 30 times the cost of supervising an offender and greater than the cost of keeping a person in prison for six months. That is my estimate of the costs. Does the Minister have a better estimate for the House?

I now turn to the tagging of children under 16. We know that, in the Scottish system, children under 16 rarely reach the courts because of the children's panel system, which is the envy of many other jurisdictions. What estimate have Ministers made of the precise number of individuals under 16 years of age for whom tagging would be relevant? We look forward to hearing about that from the Minister. In this context, generalisations will not suffice.

What is the position with regard to the pilot study? Is it still under way? The date of 4 January has been mentioned as the date of the conclusion of the pilot study. If that is so, where is the evaluation? Are we to be expected to deal with the matter without the analysis and evaluation of a pilot study being available to the House? I know that the Government are urgent in their desire to put this legislation on the statute book, but is it seriously being suggested that it is sensible to legislate when information directly relevant to the issue we are discussing, which has been gathered as a result of an experiment, is not to be shared with the House? To coin a phrase, that is Mickey Mouse legislating, which does nothing for the credit of the Government.

These matters, and in particular the effort to pass legislation to impose tagging on those under 16, have not gone without comment, particularly from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. Letters were reported extensively in The Herald of 9 January 1997. We hear that the Secretary of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland--no bleeding heart liberal he, and he will no doubt regard that as a compliment--wrote:

"The prospect of tagging children under the age of 16 tends to lead away from this general philosophy".

He is referring to the current approach to those who have offended under the age of 16. He continues:

"An electronic tagging device could be a backward step as such tagging would be viewed as a form of additional punishment and stand as a marker on the child, the likely consequence of which would be to expose the child to ridicule. The more hardened offenders would probably regard the tag as a trophy."

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Did the Minister get that letter and did he read it? What interpretation did he put on its terms?

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