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The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alun Michael): Not very often.
Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is right. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's view was comprehensively rejected by the electorate, and I have absolutely no intention of acceding to it. The measures that we intend to take in respect of sentencing were flagged in our manifesto. We will address the need for greater consistency in sentencing by the courts and extend the powers of the Attorney-General to appeal against unduly lenient sentences.
I turn now to the issue of drugs, as drug-taking and drug abuse are the cause of a huge amount of crime and disorder currently affecting society. Drugs devastate the lives of addicts, their families and their communities, and lead to much property and violent crime. Action to target crime and its causes must therefore include tough and realistic measures against drugs. To break the vicious circle of addiction and crime, we shall introduce a new drug treatment and testing order, requiring serious drug-addicted offenders to undergo treatment and random drug testing.
As the Prime Minister announced before the election, he will appoint a new drugs tsar with a wide role to lead the fight against drugs and to help educate young people not to take them. The drugs tsar will have the power to co ordinate the efforts of the police, educationalists, social services, prisons, the probation service and health authorities. This appointment will build on arrangements established by the previous Administration that had our firm support.
Victims, too, often feel neglected by the criminal justice system. I am committed to improving the services that criminal justice agencies provide to the victims of crime. Victims should be kept fully informed of the progress of their cases, and should be told why charges have been downgraded or dropped. The police in some areas are piloting a system of "one-stop shops" to keep victims informed--a welcome indication of their commitment to better treatment of victims--but that task should not be left to the police alone.
Under the reorganisation of the Crown Prosecution Service, which my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will be taking forward shortly, the Crown Prosecution Service will be accountable for its decisions, particularly the local Crown prosecutors who will be put in place. They should be prepared to explain to victims their reasons for discontinuing or downgrading cases. We will also give greater protection to victims and witnesses in rape and other serious sexual offence cases, and take steps to protect those who may be subject to intimidation.
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan):
As the Home Secretary will be aware, the previous Administration set up, with all-party support--perhaps the only initiative to have had all-party support--a Scotland against drugs campaign, in which the leaders of all the Scottish political parties sit. That committee meets on Friday. Before it meets, would it not be useful to consult it about the
Mr. Straw:
The hon. Gentleman's suggestion sounds sensible. I promise to pass it on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. I should add that my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), who has particular responsibility for drugs, hopes to be present at that meeting on Friday. We are very strongly open to suggestions. The campaign against drugs undertaken by the previous Government had our full support and backing. This is not an area in which any one party has a monopoly of wisdom or views.
Through legislation and through our actions, the Government will help to rebuild our society by promoting a culture of mutual respect for rights and responsibilities. An essential part of that project will be a Bill to incorporate the main provisions of the European convention on human rights into UK law. It is almost 50 years since the United Kingdom signed up to that European convention. Yet, because it has never been incorporated into United Kingdom law, our citizens must undergo the cost and delay of appealing to a Strasbourg court to enforce their rights under the convention.
We will bring rights home to the British people, making the rights and freedoms guaranteed under the European convention part of British law. This will provide the opportunity for our own courts to decide whether our citizens' rights are being properly observed. Incorporation will not detract from the sovereignty of this Parliament.
Mr. William Cash (Stone):
In the light of the draft treaty on European union that has just been produced, will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to tell the House the extent to which--in relation to home affairs and justice and the pillar that currently exists under the existing treaties--the Government would allow the Court of Justice to take a role in determining questions relating to the sovereignty of the United Kingdom in relation to those functions?
Mr. Straw:
One of the problems with those who are single-subject obsessives is that they work the European Union and European Community into every issue under the sun. It may come as a surprise and a shock to the hon. Gentleman to learn, however, that the European convention on human rights has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the European Union. It was developed--
It was developed by British lawyers, including a very distinguished British Conservative lawyer who later became Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir. It formed part of the Council of Europe not the European Union. [Interruption.] The intergovernmental conference has nothing whatever to do with what I was saying. I will come on to deal with our position on border controls in a moment.
I was going to refer in complimentary terms to the part of the Opposition's amendment that said that our proposals for incorporating--not the EU treaty--the
ECHR should be carefully examined. I agree with that sentiment. In opposition, we set out in detail our thinking in a consultative document "Bringing Rights Home". We held useful discussions on that document with the Liberal Democrats. If the hon. Gentleman has comments on our proposals about how we incorporate the ECHR into British law without affecting--as we intend--the sovereignty of Parliament, I shall be very happy to hear from him.
Among other matters discussed with the Liberal Democrats was the reform of voting systems, with a commitment in our manifesto for a referendum. This will be preceded by the establishment of, and then a report by, an independent commission on voting systems, which will be asked to recommend a proportional alternative to the first-past-the-post system. I recognise the importance attached to this matter by many hon. Members and I intend to make the fastest progress that I can on this undertaking.
We shall introduce primary legislation to give effect to the European Union data protection directive. We shall also make proposals on the funding of political parties.
The Government will work nationally and internationally to protect our citizens from terrorism and organised crime. We shall implement as quickly as possible the legislation enacted under the previous Administration in the Police Act.
We pledged in our manifesto to take proper ministerial responsibility for the Prison Service. That was before I had any anticipation that the debate might be a re-run of previous debates on the Prison Service. I have no plans to end the service's status as an agency within the Home Office, but I intend to examine the structure and organisation of the service and the Home Office's policy role, taking account of the conclusions of the director general's organisational review, which is already under way.
The reputation of the previous incumbent of my office was, in my judgment, deeply damaged by his refusal to accept proper responsibility for the Prison Service, and his arcane and unconvincing attempts to distinguish between policy and operations. As a first step to restoring proper ministerial responsibility, I have already announced that in future all parliamentary questions about the Prison Service will be answered by a Home Office Minister and not by the director general, who is a civil servant.
That is no reflection whatsoever on the director general, Richard Tilt, who has my full support. It will, however, put right what many right hon. and hon. Members have long regarded as bad practice. I regard it as essential that Ministers should answer personally to the House for what is done in our prisons and not leave the matter to their civil servants.
Our manifesto stated that we would establish an audit of the Prison Service, and arrangements for that are under way.
The Government will uphold firm controls on immigration, with applications being dealt with fairly and speedily. At the election, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon, refused to allow his party to be dragged down into debate about immigration policy. The then Prime Minister was correct to do so.
Our manifesto proposals in respect of the primary purpose rule are not about numbers but about fairness. Under the current bizarre arrangements, individuals
refused under the primary purpose rule are still allowed into the UK in the end, but only after years of expense and, often, humiliation.
An announcement about the changes that we propose will be made in due course. I can tell the House, however, that everyone who wishes to seek entry to the UK as a spouse or fiancee will continue to have to show that their marriage is genuine and that they will not be a burden on the state. We shall strongly reinforce those rules and also bring forward long-overdue proposals for the control of unscrupulous immigration advisers.
I take up the point raised by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury or Shropshire. Perhaps it is Stafford.
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