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7.59 pm
Mr. George Robertson (Hamilton): I shall be brief. I am amazed that, on this important Bill, the Minister can speak at length on amendments on Report, but cannot manage to rise to his feet to speak at the start of the Third Reading debate.
Mr. Menzies Campbell: Where is the Secretary of State?
Mr. Robertson: I shall get to the question of the boss in a moment. He is the senior counsel and we have been left with the junior counsel.
I wish to start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) for his work on the Front Bench in Committee. The Bill is now remarkably different from the one that received a Second Reading, and much of that is down to my hon. Friend and his work with colleagues on the Committee. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Midlothian (Mr. Clarke), for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion), for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe), for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Davidson), for Paisley, South (Mr. McMaster) and for Falkirk, East (Mr. Connarty). They have done a good job on the Bill.
The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) asked a relevant and pertinent question--where is the Secretary of State for Scotland? The right hon. Gentleman was here last Tuesday night, when we had the first part of the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Bill saga. He trailed what he was going to say when he opened the Third Reading debate--the taunts, gibes and
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The problem is that we know the answer to the question: this evening, the Secretary of State for Scotland is at a drinks party at Dover house, up on Whitehall. That might explain his earlier agitation when the debate did not come to an end as he had expected. People in Scotland will note carefully the right hon. Gentleman's priorities--a drinks party with the press, rather than conducting this major piece of legislation through the House this evening. The Bill is the flagship of his parliamentary year--his last parliamentary year--yet he is not on the battlefield.
The right hon. Gentleman leaves behind the Minister of State, whose brother hit the headlines this week. I want to put on record my gratitude for the good sense of at least one member of the Hamilton family. As the Member of Parliament for Hamilton, let me publicly congratulate the Duke of Hamilton on his remarks and his criticism of Her Majesty's Government.
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton:
The hon. Gentleman seems to be unaware that one has to do a little bit more than rely on those who do not have a vote.
Mr. Robertson:
I am perfectly capable of relying on those who do have the vote. Underlining the fact that his brother is an hereditary peer will not get the Minister off the hook of the duke's criticisms and his relevant and pertinent attacks on the Conservative Government. The duke told me that he is not a professional duke, but a professional engineer. Why cannot the Minister answer his arguments instead of slagging him off for being a member of the upper House?
Two weeks ago, I met residents in the Fairhill area of my constituency. I brought them together with representatives of the local police force, the social work department, Scottish Homes and South Lanarkshire council's housing department. They are afraid to go out at night; they are imprisoned in their houses during the day; and they are afflicted by anti-social neighbours. As a Member of Parliament, I ask myself how I can explain to them how the Bill will help them--but of course it will not.
Will the Bill allow action to be taken against the anti-social neighbours who make residents' lives hell by throwing stones, making threats and harassing them? No, of course it will not. Is there anything in the Bill that will prevent the use of scanners by local hooligans, who spot the police even as they leave the local police station and so avoid them? There is no such action in the Bill.
Mr. Robertson:
The Minister is pointing to the fact that his boss has now arrived back from the party. We are all privileged to see the Secretary of State here this evening, although he will sit silent for the rest of the debate.
There is nothing in the Bill to help my constituents. All we have had are two White Papers, a Bill, hours of debate in Committee and enough leaked headlines and public relations stunts to launch a Duchess of York television commercial. That is hardly any consolation to those who live in the conditions described by the Secretary of State. There are no proposals to deal with the anti-social neighbours who imprison those golden-age pensioners in their own homes. Within a few months there will be a general election, and when we win that election--with or without the support of the Duke of Hamilton--we will take action against anti-social neighbours; we will make it easier for the agencies to share information about the behaviour of some tenants; and we will look at tenancy agreements to ensure that proper and decent behaviour towards others is a clear obligation of tenants and residents.
Since the Secretary of State has taken over in St. Andrew's house, he has branded the policies of his predecessor as irrelevant, dishonest and a failure. Only a few years after being introduced by the right hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Lang), those policies have been swept away by the Bill in a lurch from ineffective action to inane action. The Bill was a rush job, cobbled together in St. Andrew's house without any regard to the opinion of anyone who works in the criminal justice system.
The criminal justice system of Scotland, which is distinct and differs in many ways from the system prevailing south of the border, is too important to be treated in such a cavalier manner. That treatment has to be examined, as does the panoply of penalties available to the courts, to see whether it is sufficient or whether it should be augmented or changed. Most important, if we are to change our criminal justice system and make fundamental alterations to the system to which we in Scotland have grown accustomed and which we believe to be better than systems in other parts of the world, let the changes be based on consensus and agreement, not on the ideological fixation and publicity seeking of a transient politician.
We shall not block the Bill's Third Reading, because, first, although concern about several aspects remains, many elements of the Bill are vital for tackling crime; and, secondly, because the Government have either accepted Labour amendments and new clauses or given assurances as to the meaning of specific clauses. [Interruption.]
The Secretary of State may have enjoyed the party from which he has just returned, but a bit of decent silence would be in order. As he has not graced us with his
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For example, we have supported additional targeting of supervision on those deemed to be of greatest risk to society, new measures on the registration of convicted sex offenders, and new powers for the police to take DNA samples from a person in legal custody who has been convicted of "relevant sexual offences". In the latter case, the Government accepted a Labour proposal to extend the list of "relevant sexual offences" to include rape, clandestine injury to women and any lewd, indecent or libidinous behaviour towards adults or children.
Similarly, we support proposals in the Bill to create a new offence of seeking employment with children for those convicted of a sexual offence against children, as well as increases in the maximum penalty for sex with under-age girls. On the latter point, Ministers have accepted a Labour amendment to increase the maximum penalty, not only to five years but to 10 years. We believe that the law must be tough on those involved in certain offences.
We have supported the Government's proposals to reform the legal aid system by using pilot schemes to benchmark costs. We support tougher powers to tackle under-age drinking. We sought to toughen the penalties for under-age drinking in alcohol-free zones, but were defeated in Committee by the Government majority.
We remain concerned about the potential impact of the Government's sentencing policy and, in effect, their removal of judicial discretion, but--this is where there is a major difference between the Bill on Second Reading and the Bill in its present form--we welcome Government assurances, secured in Committee, that the courts will have wide discretion to define the exceptional circumstances in which the court will be allowed to award less than a mandatory life or minimum sentence, including both the circumstance of the offence and the circumstances of the accused.
That is a description by a Conservative Cabinet Minister of this country--of my country, of Scotland--after 17 years of Conservative government. It is a vivid, bleak and depressing description, and it is exactly right. If the Conservatives cannot get it right in 18 years of government, how can anybody expect them to get it right now? [Interruption.]
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton:
Here he is.
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