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Mr. Bercow: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Straw: I shall make a little progress and then, as ever, give way to the hon. Gentleman.
The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 provided that selected offenders on sentences of imprisonment of between three months and less than four years could be tagged. That allows prison governors to place on electronic curfew offenders in the last period of their custodial sentence for a period of between two weeks and two months, according to the original sentence length. The provision was, as the House will recall, endorsed by a unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee on Home Affairs in its third report for 1997-98.
Prison governors have shown great care in their risk assessments. About 31 per cent. of eligible offenders have been placed on home detention curfew, and the success rate has been over 90 per cent. Its value is to ensure a better transition between custody and the community. One requirement of HDC, for example, is that the offender have a suitable home address. That often forces offenders who want to benefit from HDC to make better post-custody arrangements.
Miss Widdecombe:
The Home Secretary says that there has been a 95 per cent. success rate, but does he
Mr. Straw:
I shall treat that intervention in the manner that it deserves. The right hon. Lady was prisons Minister in the previous Administration, and knows very well that prisoners coming to the end of their determinate sentences are released on licence. The ludicrous arrangements entitled "Honesty in Sentencing" that she had inserted into the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 would have ensured early release for many prisoners before the court date that would otherwise have been set, and without electronic monitoring.
It is no good the right hon. Lady trying to rewrite history. Home detention curfew was backed unanimously by the Select Committee on Home Affairs. A member of that Committee was the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), who endorsed the proposal. He said that HDC
Of course there is an element of risk with any arrangement that involves the release of prisoners before they die. Prisoners may well be released and then reoffend. I regret any reoffending by those on HDC, or those on licence. When she was a Home Office Minister, the right hon. Lady let out many offenders, no doubt on licence, who then went on to reoffend, and I do not recall her apologising. We will get the figures, because there are bound to have been offenders whom she and the then Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), let out, such as mandatory lifers who reoffended and had to be recalled. The right hon. Lady knows that very well. Frankly, this kind of hollow mischief making impresses no one.
Mr. Hawkins:
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way, but I think that on this occasion his spin doctors at Millbank may have let him down. If he looks carefully at that Home Affairs Committee report, he will realise that I was not even appointed to the Select Committee until midway through that inquiry. In any event, the evidence that was heard by that Committee, including much evidence that was heard before I was even a member, was not about the scheme that he has talked about introducing, and then introduced. So it does not support his contention, and I hope that next time he will ensure that his researchers read the whole report, including the information about when people were appointed to the Committee, before he makes such cheap points.
Mr. Straw:
I think that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath is called Mr. Nick Hawkins. It says here that he
Mr. Hawkins:
I am not suggesting for a moment that I was not at the meetings. If the Home Secretary had listened to my original intervention--which, plainly, he did not--he would know that I said that the inquiry and its evidence was already well under way before I was appointed to the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman and members of his party may well be told by Alastair Campbell and by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), to vote on matters when they have not heard all the evidence. However, if the Home Secretary is suggesting that it is appropriate to vote in favour of or against a report when one has not heard all the evidence, he should think again. He is suggesting that I should have voted against a report when I had not heard all the evidence. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman is in a hole and should stop digging.
Mr. Boateng:
You have caught him bang to rights.
Mr. Straw:
The hon. Gentleman forgets the advice of Lord Healey, that "if you are in a hole, stop digging." My advice to him is not to wriggle but to sit there and take it. He had four months in which to consider the evidence.
Mr. Hawkins:
I had not heard half the evidence.
Mr. Straw:
The hon. Gentleman is being silly. If he felt that he had not heard the evidence, why on earth was he taking part in the Committee's proceedings? He should have absented himself altogether.
Mr. Robin Corbett (Birmingham, Erdington):
As a member of the Home Affairs Committee at the time, I can
Mr. Straw:
In any event, just so that we are clear about this, Madam Speaker, the hon. Gentleman was appointed on 22 March and the main evidence was taken after he was appointed. On 21 April, evidence was taken from the inspector of probation and the National Association of Probation Officers. Home Office evidence from the now chief executive of the Prison Service and the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), was given on 5 May, well after the time when the hon. Member for Surrey Heath was appointed.
Mr. Bercow:
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Straw:
Yes, and then I will get on.
Mr. Bercow:
How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile his statement on 29 November last year, at column 27 of Hansard, that he had no plans to provide for electronic tagging to facilitate the early release of serious, including sexual, offenders, with the response of the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) to a written answer, at columns 559-60W on 22 March this year, in which he stated that just such an extension could take place, thereby facilitating the early release of at least an extra 230 prisoners a year?
will provide adequate protection to the public because of the tagging element, and will give prisoners an opportunity to readjust to life outside prison.
We accepted that endorsement. Moreover, the right hon. Lady was a member of the Opposition when home detention curfew issues were being debated in the proceedings of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. She and her right hon. and hon. Friends decided not to oppose those arrangements.
the Chairman do make the report to the House.
The hon. Gentleman has no case. He had four opportunities to move an amendment to the report. He failed to do so. I am afraid that he must stick by what he and other members of the Committee Select said, which was that HDC
will provide adequate protection to the public because of the tagging element, and will give prisoners an opportunity to readjust to life outside prison.
The hon. Gentleman tries to wriggle, and suggests that what was being talked about was not the home detention curfew included in the Crime and Disorder Act. That is completely incorrect. It was exactly about that in every particular, spelled out in paragraph 163. I think that the hon. Gentleman has the report there--I suggest that he read it. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he really wants more pain.
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