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Local Authority Expenditure
14. Mr. Gorrie: What studies the Treasury has undertaken into the impact on (a) the national economy and (b) prospects for meeting the convergence criteria for economic and monetary union of the removal of local authority self-financed expenditure from the control total. [16598]
Mr. Geoffrey Robinson: I am not aware of any specific studies of that sort, but I look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question.
Mr. Gorrie: The Government's insistence on retaining capping and on keeping local authorities' self-financed expenditure within the control total is a major reason for many local council cuts. It is therefore an important issue. Will the Minister explain why the Government are so insistent on that policy? If a council, reflecting the democratic wishes of its voters, raises £1 million more in council tax and invests it in employing 40 or 50 more teachers, those teachers will live and spend their money locally. Much of the money--perhaps a quarter or a third--will come back to the Treasury in increased taxes. How does that have a disastrous effect on the national economy, or prevent us from signing up to something with Europe? It is nonsense and I should like some explanation.
Mr. Robinson: The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the £1 billion extra that we have given to schools, which is £1 billion more than even his party asked for. On the narrow question of the control total, with which he seems to be obsessed, he, his local authority and other local authorities should consider what they can do in partnership with the private sector. We are introducing legislation to enable them to do that and we have set up a new energetic task force in the Treasury, run by the private sector, to get private-public partnerships going with local authorities. That is where he should put his efforts.
Mr. Willetts: Will the Minister confirm that, before spending any available money on schools or social services, local authorities are under a legal obligation to put money into their pension funds to make up the cost of his July tax measures?
Mr. Robinson: The hon. Gentleman knows that that question will not arise for two and a half years. It is being studied and we are in discussion with local authorities to find a proper resolution to it in due course.
Corporation Tax
16. Mr. Mullin: What plans he has to review the effectiveness of corporation tax; and if he will make a statement. [16600]
Mr. Robinson: I apologise. I did not realise that question No. 15 had been passed. I apologise for the delay in locating Question No. 16.
We are satisfied with the excellent measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor took in the July Budget and announced in the pre-Budget document which we discussed this week. They put corporation tax on an excellent long-term basis. They do not distort competition and they make for investment. We are pleased with all the long-term, principled reforms that we have carried through.
Mr. Mullin:
Has my hon. Friend noticed that some companies do not pay their fair share of corporation tax? One thinks, for example, of the Murdoch empire, which I believe paid only about 2 per cent. of its profits in corporation tax. Does he agree that that is unfair on companies which do pay their fair share? What plans does my hon. Friend have to ensure that all companies do so?
Mr. Robinson:
If my hon. Friend brings the matter to the attention of the corporate division of the Inland Revenue, I am sure that it will investigate, if it is not already doing so. My hon. Friend will be aware that the Government have already announced four tough anti-avoidance measures for the corporate sector, which we expect will yield £1 billion in savings.
Mr. Yeo:
Does the Minister understand that the changes in corporation tax announced two days ago greatly increase the amount of tax that companies will pay in the next four years? As that will inevitably reduce new investment by companies, what assessment did the Treasury make of the number of jobs that will be destroyed directly as a result of the Chancellor's statement?
Mr. Robinson:
The statement has been welcomed by the Confederation of British Industry and by companies throughout the country because they recognise the principled reasoning behind it. The hon. Gentleman is getting his cash flow mixed up with his profits; if he would like a lecture on the subject after Question Time I shall be happy to give it to him.
17. Mr. Gordon Prentice:
What discussions he has had with major United Kingdom retailers concerning their preparations for the introduction of the euro. [16601]
Mr. Gordon Brown:
I have had many discussions with United Kingdom companies, particularly retailers, about the introduction of the euro.
Mr. Prentice:
Does not the decision made by Marks and Spencer and others show remarkable foresight,
Mr. Brown:
I agree. I think that businesses are increasingly worried by the Conservative party's behaviour in this regard. Those who run businesses are practical people who want to get on with preparing for what will happen, but they are now faced with a Conservative party that cannot give them any answers about future policy other than ruling out the single currency for 10 years.
Of course, not only businesses are now against the Conservative party. The shadow Cabinet is being depleted week after week as its members resign as a result of the policy on Europe, and one former Conservative Member has been added to our side during the past few days. The downsizing of the Conservative party continues.
Mr. Soames:
Certainly not over Christmas.
I welcome the prudent steps that the Chancellor has taken to prepare business for possible entry to monetary union. Does he accept, however, that there is a vast gulf of misunderstanding in businesses of all sizes about what
monetary union actually means? In preparing the documents that he rightly intends to distribute to businesses, will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that those documents are carefully tailored to fit the sector and size of the companies to which they are sent?
Mr. Brown:
I am grateful that the voice of one-nation Conservatism is now being expressed in the House. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman: business has a right to know the implications of the euro, and the last Government should have made those implications known long ago. We have published a pamphlet by Professor Currie, which sets out the arguments on the euro, and we have now also published a practical guide to the euro. Literature will be available to small businesses. They have a right to know how the euro will affect them, and how British business can benefit from it. We shall take the steps that the previous Government refused to take.
Madam Speaker:
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Firearms (Amendment) (No.2) Act 1997.
Local Government (Contracts) Act 1997.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw):
With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement on youth crime.
I am today publishing a White Paper entitled "No more excuses". It sets out the Government's new approach to tackling youth crime in England and Wales. It follows a period of intensive consultation, which began when we were in opposition. In May this year, I appointed a youth justice task force to advise me on the issue, and in September and October I published three consultation papers.
Reform of youth justice to make good years of mismanagement and under-performance is an urgent priority. In the past, the youth justice system has mimicked a bad parent, being indulgent one minute and harsh the next. Those are precisely the faults that foster youth crime, and they are compounded by the fact that the system suffers from endemic delays.
Many right hon. and hon. Members will have seen the problems in their constituencies. There are children whose misbehaviour goes unchecked and escalates into crime, and children who offend repeatedly, with no meaningful intervention, and come to court only for their cases to be adjourned time after time. When they are finally sentenced, many receive only a conditional discharge. There is no punishment, no chance for them to make amends for their crimes and no action to tackle the cause of their offending.
There must be no more excuses for youth crime. Before the election, we promised to halve the time from arrest to sentence for persistent young offenders, as part of a fundamental reform of youth justice. The White Paper sets out how we will deliver those pledges. We will make a start through the crime and disorder Bill, which is to be laid before Parliament shortly.
One of the fundamental deficiencies of the youth justice system is that different agencies work to different, even conflicting, objectives. The crime and disorder Bill will make it clear, for the first time, that the principal aim of the youth justice system is to prevent offending by young people. All youth justice practitioners will be under a duty to take account of that aim.
To tackle youth crime effectively, we must recognise that young people often start down the path of offending when they are very young. Therefore, the Bill will provide new powers to protect children under 10 from being drawn into crime. Local authorities--after consultation with the police and the community--will be able to set up local curfew schemes for the under-10s, and a new child safety order will help to stop individual children under 10 from drifting into crime.
Many factors draw young people into offending. Not attending school, through truancy or exclusion; having delinquent siblings or friends; coming from a family with multiple problems; and, for older teenagers, being unemployed--all those factors increase the risks of juvenile criminality.
The Government are taking action to tackle the causes of juvenile crime across the board, by raising school standards; by fighting truancy and under-achievement;
by combating social exclusion; by helping families at risk; and by giving the young long-term unemployed a pathway from welfare to work.
We know that the single most important factor associated with youth criminality is the quality of a young person's home life--crucially, the relationship between parents and children, and the level of parental supervision. The parents of young people who offend or who are at risk of offending need particular support and guidance. They should be made to face up to their own responsibilities. A new parenting order will therefore require parents to attend guidance sessions and to comply with requirements specified by the court to help them to control the behaviour of their children.
However, families are about much more than preventing crime. Families are the fundamental unit in society, providing mutual care and support and helping to shape the values of future generations. At the Prime Minister's request, I am chairing a new ministerial group looking at wider ways of supporting families more effectively and of promoting good parenting.
Young people, too, should face up to the consequences of their offending. The present rule of doli incapax--being incapable of evil--can stand in the way of holding properly to account 10 to 13-year-olds who commit crimes, yet young people of that age know that it is wrong to steal, vandalise or commit an assault. We intend to abolish that archaic rule to ensure that such young people are answerable for their offences.
Firm action is needed when young people begin to offend, but that does not happen at present, so we will replace repeat cautions with a new reprimand and final warning scheme to provide a consistent, graduated police response to youth crime, within a clear statutory framework.
A final warning will normally trigger a tailor-made intervention programme with the offender and his or her family, to tackle the causes of the offending. Once a youngster has had a final warning, the firm presumption will be that he or she will be charged with any further offence.
The Government will give the courts a much wider range of powers to help to change offending behaviour. Reparation and apology can bring home to young offenders the harm that their offending has caused. The crime and disorder Bill will provide a reparation order and make reparation available as a requirement of a supervision order.
There will also be a new action plan order providing an intensive programme of intervention with offenders and their families, combining punishment, reparation and rehabilitation, as an alternative to custody.
Custody is, however, necessary for the most serious or persistent young offenders, and for some young people, it may be the only effective way of preventing offending while they are awaiting trial. The courts' existing powers to remand young people to secure facilities are wholly inadequate.
The crime and disorder Bill will therefore pave the way for powers for the courts to direct that 12 to 14-year-olds and 15 and 16-year-old girls who are charged with serious offences--and who have a history of absconding or offending on bail--are held on remand in secure local authority accommodation. The Bill will also enable the
courts to direct that particularly vulnerable 15 and 16-year-old boys also held in local authority secure accommodation when a place is available, rather than remanded to prison.
For the minority of young offenders whose crimes require that they are sentenced to custody, public protection is best served if sentences and regimes work to change anti-social behaviour and equip those youngsters for a law-abiding life on their release. The crime and disorder Bill will establish a new detention and training order in place of the current sentences of detention in young offenders institutions and the separate sentence of a secure training order. Detention under section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 will remain available for 10 to 17-year-olds convicted of the most serious crimes.
The detention and training order will be made up of 50 per cent. custody and 50 per cent. community supervision, with provision for shortening or extending the custodial element to encourage young offenders to make good progress against agreed sentence plans. Orders will range in length from four months to two years, and young offenders will be placed in the most suitable accommodation for their circumstances.
At the moment, we do not have effective local or national structures to tackle youth crime. The crime and disorder Bill will rectify that, establishing local, multi- agency youth offending teams charged with planning and supervising community interventions. To provide better national direction, the Bill will establish a new national youth justice board for England and Wales, which will ensure consistent standards and monitor local performance. The national board will also set and oversee standards for secure accommodation.
I have spent a good deal of time over the past two years studying at first hand the operation of the youth courts. Over the summer, I visited courts across the country and discussed problems and solutions with all those involved, including young offenders. Despite the obvious commitment of the people working in the system, the unavoidable conclusion is that it is simply not operating effectively. Offenders are rarely asked to account for themselves. They are bystanders in the process, at best bemused by the obscure theatre of the occasion. Parents are not confronted with their responsibilities; victims have no role; and the public are excluded.
I am convinced of the need for fundamental change. For example, we are already encouraging magistrates to allow victims into court to see that justice is done. We will be asking youth court magistrates to use their discretion to lift reporting restrictions following a young person's conviction when that is in the public interest.
I want to go further, and integrate the best aspects of restorative justice into the youth court system. There has been a wide welcome for some remarkably successful schemes that bring young offenders face to face with the human consequences of their crimes. These schemes can bring significant reductions in reoffending. Victims, too, can benefit from this opportunity--if they want it--to tell offenders how the crime has affected them, the innocent parties.
Confronting young offenders with the damage they cause is much tougher than the present alternative. Today, young offenders are spectators in legalistic, adversarial
court proceedings and frequently all they hear is lawyers making excuses for their offending. With the restorative approach, there is no way for youngsters--or their parents--to hide from their personal responsibilities in committing their crimes.
The White Paper proposes a radical new approach for young offenders coming before the youth court for the first time. First-time offenders pleading guilty would normally be referred, after conviction, to a youth panel. The panel would draw up a contract with the young offender and their parents, which could last for up to a year and would tackle the causes of the offending as well as punishing that offending. Under the contract, the offender would be obliged to make reparation. If the contract were broken, the young offender would end up back in the youth court and could be sentenced for the original offence.
Those changes would require primary legislation. The Government will introduce that at the earliest suitable opportunity once the crime and disorder Bill has been enacted and in light of comments in the House and from parties outside it regarding the details of our proposals.
Currently, there is no system of quality assurance to guarantee that legally aided lawyers in youth courts possess the right skills and experience for that work. Moreover, what those lawyers are paid depends on the length of time that they take to complete cases--which, unquestionably, can provide a perverse incentive, and so add to delay and expense.
The Government believe that a better approach might be for lawyers to provide services under block contracts. Such an approach would provide flexibility and a consistently higher quality of legal representation. Such contracts would also discourage delay. Pilot trials will be run by the Legal Aid Board.
Delays in the youth court system impede justice, frustrate victims, and only encourage more crime. A young offender who commits an offence today will have to wait, on average, until the middle of next April to be sentenced. That is wholly unacceptable. No parent and no teacher would wait that long to deal with misbehaviour by their children or by the pupils in their charge. Our first priority is to halve the time that it takes between arrest and sentence for persistent young offenders, to ensure rapid justice for individuals from whom the public most need protection.
Before we came into government, information was not even collected to show how long it took to deal with persistent young offenders. In contrast, over the past few months, we have been collecting such data. I can now tell the House that it takes, on average, 142 days--five months--from the date of first arrest to sentence, during which time the victim receives no justice, and there is neither punishment nor intervention to prevent reoffending.
With the Lord Chancellor, I took immediate action after the general election to combat some of those delays. Provisional data for last month show that the average time to complete young offender cases, once they reach court, is 60 days, compared with 68 days in October 1996. The average number of adjournments also has fallen.
I welcome those improvements, but they can be only a start. In areas that have already introduced fast-tracking schemes, the results are clear. In north Hampshire,
for example, the average time between charge and sentencing for young offenders has dropped from 133 days to 89 days since last October. That dramatic change has been achieved in only one year.
The crime and disorder Bill will provide for fast tracking for all persistent young offenders. There will be mandatory time limits for all young offender cases, and stricter time limits for cases involving persistent young offenders. Time limits will be backed by demanding performance targets. The Bill will also implement many of the recommendations of the Narey review of delay in the criminal justice system, to streamline procedures, improve case management, and so expedite justice for both juveniles and adults.
3.32 pm
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