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Mr. Nigel Beard (Bexleyheath and Crayford): Will the right hon. Lady confirm that she has the agreement of the shadow Chancellor to spend the extra £1.5 billion that would be involved if such an early release programme were abandoned?
Miss Widdecombe: While I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman's figure, I do indeed have the agreement of my right hon. Friends the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor and of the entire shadow Cabinet that we will scrap completely the early release on tagging scheme. Under Labour, the message is clear that, "If you get six months, you will get out in six weeks."
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington): The right hon. Lady has just given an undertaking to the House. Can she put a price on it? How much?
Miss Widdecombe: We have estimated that the total cost of all our provisions involving imprisonment is £260 million.
Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney): The right hon. Lady has just told the House that she will scrap the early release scheme. Does that mean that she would require Tony Martin to serve his full sentence and not allow him to be released early?
Madam Speaker: Order. I think that the right hon. Lady is aware that that case is under appeal and is sub judice.
Miss Widdecombe: I was, indeed, aware that the case was sub judice. I shall take the underlying question as opposed to the specific case. We have said that we will scrap early release on tagging. That is the scheme that was introduced by the Home Secretary, by which prisoners do not even serve up to the minimum point of their sentence at which they would get automatic release, but are released before that. We have also said that we would restore the proposals that we introduced and which the Government threw out when they came to power--for honesty in sentencing, so that the sentence handed down would be the sentence served and everything would be transparent.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): What the right hon. Lady has said is that a Conservative Government would abolish early release on licence, and make criminals serve the full term
ordered by the judge in open court. Is she saying that someone currently sentenced to four years would have to serve that four-year sentence?
Miss Widdecombe: The right hon. Gentleman heard me--
Miss Widdecombe: I am going to answer, if the right hon. Gentleman will have some patience. I have just got back to the Dispatch Box and he yells "Answer." A bit of courtesy would be appreciated. He heard me say clearly just now that I would reintroduce the proposals that we almost put on the statute book for honesty in sentencing--proposals which Labour abandoned. He will know that we proposed that judges should take account of what people would actually serve and what they expected and wanted people to serve, and that that would be the sentence handed down. It would be transparent and everyone would know where they were.
Miss Widdecombe: As the right hon. Gentleman spent a lot of time opposing those very sensible measures, he knows precisely how the calculations were done. He knows exactly what was involved, and he knows that we have said that that is what we will reintroduce.
Miss Widdecombe: I know that the right hon. Gentleman is keen to prevent me from moving on to his immigration rules, but I shall give him one more chance.
Mr. Straw: I shall come on to deal with why we opposed those rules, which would have had the effect--among many other adverse consequences--of prisoners serving less time than they do under the current regime.
Mr. Straw: Oh yes. The right hon. Lady may also have forgotten that so chaotic were those provisions that they had to be withdrawn and subsequently reintroduced, and that they were still chaotic. Given what she has said, will she confirm that, in practice, her proposals--for all the badging that she gives them--would make not a scrap of difference? Currently, in principle, someone who is sentenced to four years serves two, whereas, under her proposals, if the judge intended that person to serve a minimum sentence of two years, that person would be given a minimum sentence of two years.
Miss Widdecombe: The right hon. Gentleman is releasing those people even before two years--that is the point of the tagging scheme. He should not be allowed to dodge that fact. We have said that we expect the judge to give the sentence that he expects the prisoner to serve.
I shall now deal with the immigration rules.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey): Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mr. Hughes: On this point; before she moves on.
Miss Widdecombe: All right; I am very generous.
Mr. Hughes: Can the right hon. Lady confirm that the implication of the policy that she has just outlined is that there would be longer sentences and more people in prison? If so, how does she explain the fact that, when she and other Conservative Members were in government, we had rising prison numbers, falling conviction rates--[Hon. Members: "Falling crime."] No, not falling crime--[Interruption.] No. How does she explain those facts, and the fact that, in 1992, after 13 years of the Tories, we had the highest crime rates in the history of this country? How does she explain that?
Miss Widdecombe: The very fact that the hon. Gentleman finds it necessary to rewrite history proves just how completely he misunderstands it. Yes, we did have rising prison numbers and we had record prison numbers, but during that time we also had the first sustained fall in crime. The lesson was that, if we take repeat offenders off the street, we have an impact on crime and protect the public. If the hon. Gentlemen were interested in protecting the public, he would welcome putting people in prison who would otherwise be menaces on the streets.
I shall now deal with the immigration rules, whether Labour Members want me to or not. The Home Secretary proposes to change the immigration rules for convicted criminals. Previously, the British public were--or so they thought--protected by those rules against all foreign criminals convicted of offences that would carry a maximum sentence of 12 months or more in the United Kingdom. Under the Home Secretary's proposals, that rule will apply only to the most serious offences--those with a maximum sentence of 10 years or more--such as murder, rape, armed robbery, offences of violence against the person, violent sex crimes and firearms offences. However, his plans throw up a couple of very interesting loopholes.
First, the exclusion will not apply to paedophiles convicted of dealing in child pornography, for which the maximum sentence is a paltry three years. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will now, therefore, consider extending his proposal either to cover paedophiles or--if he will accept our amendment to the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill--increasing the sentence for that offence to 10 years.
Mr. Straw: As the right hon. Lady makes a serious point, I tell her that the consultative document that I published last week was just that--a consultative document. I welcome the comments that she has made on the matter, and understand entirely the case that she makes for special protection in respect of paedophiles. I shall take full account of her proposal and get back to her.
Miss Widdecombe: I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for seeing good Conservative sense after we have drawn it to his attention. Now, let me try him again.
The right hon. Gentleman's proposed change in the rules will also not cover those who are convicted of dealing or trafficking in class C drugs, for which the maximum sentence is five years. Although we do not hear as much about class C drugs as we hear about heroin or cocaine, they are not harmless substances. They include the so-called date rape drug, rohypnol, and banned steroids used by athletes such as nandrolone, which got many headlines last year. Perhaps the Home Secretary will also consider extending the prohibition to people who deal in those drugs. I shall give way if he wants to jump up and agree.
I hope that the loopholes were a mistake. I am grateful to the Home Secretary for his promise today to look at proposals and consider afresh the changes that he is seeking to make. It would send out a wrong and dangerous message if he did not do so.
We saw on Monday the utter embarrassment of the Home Secretary and his colleagues when my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) highlighted the failure of child curfew orders, which appear to be a source of great hilarity to the Home Secretary. More than once, he has described them as
- new powers to protect children under 10 from being drawn into crime.
Then we have the anti-social behaviour orders. The Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), told the House on Monday that 40 had been issued--less than one a week. Just half of those have been against juveniles, despite the Home Secretary's view, expressed last year, that they should be routinely used against the middle and older age groups of juveniles and young people--the 12 to 17-year-olds. Another Minister of State, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), said in Westminster Hall on 1 March that the charge that the anti-social behaviour order was too complex and bureaucratic was well made.
The orders are certainly complex and not even their creator, the Home Secretary, understands them properly. On 12 July last year, he twice told the House that using the orders was "a last resort". Just three months later in October, he wrote an open letter to all local authorities urging them to use the orders, saying that they were not a measure of last resort. No wonder local authorities and the police are confused. The Home Secretary is even more confused and has passed that on to them.
The Government have consistently promoted those measures as a panacea for youth crime, but they have turned out to be nothing of the kind. Our proposals would take persistent young menaces out of an environment that is failing them and give them a real incentive to change.
The Government promised the electorate that they would do a great deal on law and order, but after three years we have falling police numbers, rising crime, thousands of convicted criminals being let out of jail early and a crisis of no confidence in the police. It is a crisis of the Home Secretary's making. Victims have been let down. The police have been let down. The public have
been let down. Those who voted Labour have been comprehensively betrayed. The only person with anything to thank the Home Secretary for is the criminal.
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