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Mr. Straw: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's support for my approach. However, there is plainly a difference between his approach and the Government's on one important point. On the merits of which system should operate, I should make it clear--as I think my statement did--that but for the ECHR's decision, which is binding on the Government, we should not have been minded to change the existing system. Given the extensive judicial supervision that already takes place of decisions made by the Secretary of State, I feel that the system was working satisfactorily and with a high level of public confidence.
Mr. Michael Howard (Folkestone and Hythe): I thank the Home Secretary for his courtesy in giving me advance sight of his statement. I remain of the view that 15 years is the minimum period for which Thompson and Venables should be detained, but I, too, accept that the Court has tied the Home Secretary's hands.
Can the Home Secretary make any sense of the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Wynne that it is not a breach of human rights for the Home Secretary to set a tariff in the cases of adult murderers and the decision that it is a breach of human rights for the Home Secretary to set a tariff in the case of juvenile murderers? Will he renew the efforts made by the previous Government to increase the respect shown by the ECHR for national courts, so as to ensure that it intervenes much less often in their decisions?
Mr. Straw:
I find it difficult to follow a clear line of logic in the two cases to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman refers. Buried in the dense text of the judgment, there is some elucidation of the point--although perhaps not much illumination. On the right hon. and learned Gentleman's second point, I think, and the view is widely shared, that the United Kingdom has suffered from the fact that the European convention had not been incorporated into our law--paradoxically, given that the convention was drafted by English jurists--so that we have not had the margin of appreciation, as it is called, that many other countries have enjoyed.
I accept what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said about our need better to educate jurists in Strasbourg about the nature of our common law system. A fundamental problem is that most of those jurists were brought up in the Roman tradition, which differs in many respects, and which I would suggest is not a better tradition. As our courts begin to implement the
jurisprudence of Strasbourg, we shall benefit more in the future from that margin of appreciation than we could have in the past.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow):
I deny that I am making a cheap, yah-boo point at the expense of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), but should politicians, even if they are Queen's counsel, alter tariffs at all? Some of us were extremely uncomfortable about the former Home Secretary's decision, feeling that he should not have done such things. What is the view of the current Home Secretary?
Mr. Straw:
My view is that the system that existed before the Court judgment was working satisfactorily. I make final decisions about the release of those sentenced to life for murder. In practice, the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) makes the decisions about the setting of tariffs, except in respect of those for whom a whole life tariff may be appropriate, or in terrorist cases. The system commands public confidence; it is operated fairly. Furthermore, because the decisions are made in a quasi-judicial way, the process that is followed is--rightly--the subject of intense judicial scrutiny.
I have already referred to the Court of Appeal judgment in the summer of 1997. The decision of the previous Secretary of State in respect of the 15-year tariff was quashed as unlawful. The tariff of 15 years was not quashed as unlawful; it was the process by which the right hon. and learned Gentleman achieved the decision that was quashed. However, as I recall, no judgment was made by the Court as to the merits of that tariff. That is water under the bridge as far as juveniles are concerned; the Court has made its decision--it is our job to implement it.
Sir Brian Mawhinney (North-West Cambridgeshire):
In future such cases, from whom will the Home Secretary seek advice on whether the state should offer new identities to prisoners when they are at the point of release? Has the right hon. Gentleman decided to offer new identities in this case?
Mr. Straw:
There are standard arrangements for the offer of new identities in exceptional cases. I can recall seeing no papers on the question of identities for the prisoners in this case.
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham):
The right hon. Gentleman may know that, subject to the authority of the then Home Secretary, I was responsible for setting tariffs for two years or so. The impending legislation is an opportunity to consider the tariff-setting for adult offenders on whom a mandatory life sentence has been imposed. Does the right hon. Gentleman share my anxiety about any involvement of Ministers at all? Does he agree that there is a strong argument for leaving the question of tariffs exclusively to the courts--not to the Lord Chief Justice--subject only to the right of the Home Secretary to apply to the court for an extended order subsequently, if it appears that the offender is likely to pose a danger to the public?
May I also ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider abolishing the mandatory life sentence entirely and enabling a trial judge to impose a determinate sentence?
Mr. Straw:
I am completely opposed to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's second proposal. The regime
The fact that someone who has committed a murder is on a life licence--however long he or she may be out of custody--is extremely important in ensuring the safety of the public, and in ensuring that the person goes on to lead a law-abiding life. Happily, most such people do so. That cannot be said of the majority of those released from prison after determinate sentences.
As for the right hon. and learned Gentleman's first point, I am not persuaded of the case that he makes--to say the least. However, I dare say that he will make that case during the Committee or Report stage of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill.
Sir Peter Lloyd (Fareham):
Will the Home Secretary explain why the public reaction to the horrific child murder committed by the child Mary Bell a generation ago was apparently so much more mature and less crudely vengeful than much of the reaction has appeared to be in the case of Thompson and Venables?
Mr. Straw:
I am not sure that I share the right hon. Gentleman's recollection of what happened in the Mary Bell case. The only two observations that I would make are, first, that it took place many years before the terrible murder of James Bulger, and secondly, that the parents of the victims of Mary Bell were not put through the judicial mill as the parents of James Bulger have been. Of course everyone, including prisoners, has their rights and I understand why continual court appeals have been made, but, as I said at the outset, we must all have the profoundest sympathy with the parents of James Bulger and their relatives and friends, given the constant resurfacing of the case.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire):
In his first two and a half years as Home Secretary--until the
Mr. Straw:
I do not think that I ever changed a tariff, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman if that is the case.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East):
Does the Home Secretary agree that it was hardly fair of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett)--who, unfortunately, is no longer in his place--to refer to "a vendetta" by the press and the public against Myra Hindley? Surely what happens in these terrible cases is that even the popular press gets it right by reflecting the horror that the public feel when terrible murders are carried out, whether by adults or by children.
Does the Home Secretary also accept that there have been a number of cases of murders involving young people as perpetrators where the influence of violent films and videos has been directly traced, although not necessarily in this case? Given those data, will he consider reviewing the admissibility of violent content in films and videos, which takes a great part of the responsibility for depraving the moral standards of young people where crime is concerned?
Mr. Straw:
In response to the hon. Gentleman's first point, each of us is responsible for the language that we use in the House or outside. All these terrible cases must be approached in a judicious, as well as a judicial, manner, but when approaching them in that manner we must take full account of the appalling trauma suffered by the parents and others close to victims of such crimes--distress to a degree that few of us could possibly even imagine, still less undergo--and the much wider public revulsion at the nature of such crimes.
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