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5.49 pm
Mr. Tom Cox (Tooting): The interesting speech bythe right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald(Miss Widdecombe) will, I am sure, be alluded to by other hon. Members. I listened with interest to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith); I agreed with many of his comments and intend to touch on some.
During the election campaign, the one thing about which we heard day after day was the fear of crime. It did not matter whether one talked to men or women, or what age they were--crime in the community was the key issue. In my constituency, people were concerned about the amount of youth crime and the type of crime in which young people are now involved--hooliganism, vandalism, abuse and violence. People in my constituency are terrorised by gangs of youngsters--often just school children--and I am sure that other communities suffer that problem.
Local people are often scared to do anything about the abuse that they suffer. If one complains to the police and the youngsters are taken to court, one may have to give evidence--even when it is known which youngsters are involved. There is a fear that a person giving evidence will identify himself and will suffer following the decision of the court. It is totally unacceptable that our constituents can be terrorised in that way.
I welcome the comments of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary this afternoon. When the Bills to which he referred go into Committee and start to gain publicity, we must make it clear that we will no longer tolerate abuse and violence. All of us will warmly welcome such a statement.
I wish to refer to two cases that, sadly, highlight what is happening. I have no intention of indulging in party politics, because we are dealing with gut issues which concern the people whom we represent. The first is the horrendous case of an Austrian lady who came to London and was picked up by a gang of youngsters who brutally gang-raped her. When she gave evidence in court, she said that she had no fear when she was first approached, as the gang were just youngsters. Yet they raped her and threw her into the river. They were prepared to allow her to drown; they had no idea whether she could swim.
The other case, which was reported in a national newspaper last Friday, is that of a school bullying ring of 10 boys aged between 13 and 15 who have been robbing and blackmailing other children for some eight months. Those are two examples, and I am sure that other hon. Members could give many similar ones from the areas that they represent. We know what kind of crimes are taking place, and I hope that we can develop penalties that the courts will be expected to impose on those who break the law.
Many of us have constituency problems. In my constituency--although this problem has been almost overcome--kerb crawling and prostitution have caused enormous difficulties. One of the biggest problems has been getting local magistrates courts to understand what is happening. Sadly, the lack of meaningful action by the
courts against those committing the offences has broken down the effects of much of the hard work of the local police force in trying to clear up the problem.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will have no fear; if his actions are fair and realistic, he will gain the overwhelming support of the House and--more important--of the people.
Mr. Rowe:
The hon. Gentleman is making important points. Does he agree that all of us--not only in this place, but in our circles of friends--should support magistrates, rather than constantly belittling them? Is not one of the real difficulties that often these public servants--who voluntarily give up hours of their time--are out of touch with some elements of the scene in which they operate? Unless they are supported rather than belittled, will it not be hard to recruit magistrates?
Mr. Cox:
I take the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. We should not criticise magistrates, although my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary referred to the inconsistencies in sentencing that we see repeatedly. That may mean that magistrates should attend courses or conferences. Whenever I have tabled questions on the matter to numerous Home Secretaries, I have always been told that it is not for the Government to interfere with the judiciary. That may be, but the judiciary needs clear guidelines.
I recognise that many hon. Members wish to speak, and I shall turn briefly to the Prison Service. One of the major prisons in the country, Wandsworth, is in my constituency and I serve on the board at Wormwood Scrubs. We heard some interesting remarks on the subject by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald, and those involved with the Prison Service know that enormous changes have taken place. If one talks to those who run our prisons--governors, prison officers or boards of visitors--one finds that they have little time for many of the changes that were introduced by the previous Government.
I am closely involved with Wandsworth prison, its governor and the Prison Officers Association. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has inherited a Prison Service which has enormous problems, and it is no good Conservative Members saying that the Government have inherited a wonderful Prison Service. That is not true. Prisons up and down the country are seriously overcrowded and are not properly funded. Morale--which I believe is of key importance in prisons--is very low.
I realise that some of the things I am about to suggest will not be done quickly, but as long as we have guidelines for which we can aim and as long as those who run the Prison Service can see that here is a Government who will listen to their concerns and act on them, morale in the Prison Service will improve. I hope that action will be taken to reduce the prison population. One reads in the national press that certain actions are to be taken by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, for example, in relation to fine defaulters. I am sure that many Labour Members have felt it scandalous that fine defaulters--often women with young children--should be sent to prison, with all the problems that that creates.
There are many people in prison--certainly there have been since the failures of care in the community--who suffer from mental illness and who, sadly, find their way
into the prisons of this country but most certainly should not be there. I hope that we will seriously look for alternative forms of care for such people.
I fully accept that there are some very dangerous people in society--people who are convicted of horrendous crimes and who should be sent to prison for a long time--but what do we achieve by sending them to prison for only a short time? Governors and prison officers will say that they are only containing such an individual for a period, but that that individual is learning nothing of benefit for when he or she is released at the end of the sentence.
It costs more than £500 a week to keep a man or woman in prison. In view of the financial tightness that we know exists, we have to wonder whether that is the proper way in which the Prison Service should be run. We need to review how we run our prisons. If one talks to anyone working within the system, one hears of the despair about trying to do a meaningful job as a governor or prison officer while many of the inmates in their charge are locked up for hours on end, day after day.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed mentioned two reports, one of which was the Wandsworth prison board of visitors annual report. Following an abortive inspection of Holloway prison--an inspection was to have taken place in December 1995--the chief inspector of prisons, Sir David Ramsbotham, said:
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and his colleagues will start to take note of what the chief inspector of prisons says. I hope that we are to hear--if not today, then soon--how my right hon. Friend envisages the role of the chief inspector. I hope that the relationship will be supportive and that not only the chief inspector's reports but those of boards of visitors will be welcomed and acted on. The men and women on those boards give up an enormous amount of their time and know what is really happening in the prisons in which they serve, so their reports should not be received, acknowledged and then conveniently forgotten.
When I visit prisons, I am greatly concerned by the number of young inmates and, sadly, in the big city establishments, the number of young inmates who come from an ethnic background. I believe we have to take serious action in many of our big cities to try to keep such youngsters--both men and women--out of the prison system. Once they get into that system, it is very hard to break out. I hope that we will hear more on that subject in the coming weeks from my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
My right hon. Friend and his colleagues will be aware of my next point, but I feel that it should be made clear in a debate such as this. When I meet prison officers, I hear that the one policy that has not worked is the privatisation of the Prison Service. It has not worked and countless examples of that failure can be found up and down the country. I hope that we will soon hear that we shall no longer continue with the policy of the privatisation of the Prison Service in any part of the United Kingdom. I want to see a Prison Service that is the responsibility of the state and whose day-to-day operations are accountable to Parliament.
I know that my right hon. Friend said that, in future, all questions relating to prison matters will be answered by Ministers, and I welcome that. Since the privatisation of the Prison Service, the complaint has been raised that privatised prisons no longer have any responsibility to Parliament. The policy absolves the Government from any responsibility whatsoever and I totally oppose that. The very nature of the Prison Service means that it should be accountable to Parliament and I hope that that will happen in the near future.
"I had to pull an inspection team out of Holloway women's prison in London. An unprecedented move, it was the quickest and most effective way of registering our horror at what we found there.
I am sure that what the chief inspector of prisons said could be repeated by many prison governors and senior prison officers up and down the country.
In all my 36 years in the Army, until I left in 1993 with the rank of Adjutant-General, I had never visited an establishment as filthy as that one--and that includes a prisoner-of-war camp in the Falkland Islands. There was ample evidence in Holloway of rats, cockroaches, ants and rotting food. It was difficult to argue with the warder who described the place as a 'rat-infested refuse tip'.
Worst of all, the inmates were locked up in their cells for23 hours a day. There was no work, no training, no education. All in all, Holloway had become an almost perfect example of everything that a modern prison is not meant to be."
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