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5.15 pm
Our case boils down to this: it is a matter of justice that the early release scheme should be ended. Among the 20,000 criminals who have been released early so far there are 210 people who have either committed or attempted homicide. There are people responsible for 3,342 violent crimes. There are 1,187 burglars, 811 robbers, 4,433 thieves, 3,236 drug offenders and 125 arsonists. I believe that the Government's scheme is an insult to justice and an insult to the law-abiding constituents whom we are sent here to represent and to defend.
Jackie Ballard (Taunton): I think that we all agree that imprisonment has a number of roles. One is the proper punishment of offenders; another is the protection of the public. By definition, while people are in prison they cannot commit further crimes, although there is some argument about the effectiveness of deterrence when it comes to committing further crimes after they leave prison.
Prison must also have a rehabilitative role. If it is to carry out that role effectively, we need to keep the provision for early release on licence with, in these cases, the added safeguard of tagging. In cases in which people have benefited from the experience of imprisonment, and the risk of early release has been properly assessed, we believe that the scheme enables the proper transition for a number of prisoners from prison to freedom. We must not underestimate the fact that some people find that difficult to cope with, because for them, prison is an easy option, as they cannot offend while they are in, and coping with freedom is a challenge for them. It is in the interests of public safety that ex-prisoners are successfully reintegrated into the community.
As the Minister said in his opening remarks, eligibility for early release does not imply that a person will automatically be released. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) said that Conservatives Members would press for a vote on new clause 12, if not on one of the other new clauses in the group. In that case, the Liberal Democrats will oppose it.
Mr. Clappison: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) for his comments,
particularly on the sex offences provisions in new clause 10, and I am grateful to the Minister for his reply to my question. I also admired his bravura performance of ministerial confidence. The scheme that he is defending--early release through home detention--is so alien to the common sense and sense of fairness of the majority of members of the public that it takes a performance such as his to try and sweep it under the carpet and get away with it.It would be churlish of me not to welcome new clause 10 on sex offences and the fact that the Government have, after all, accepted the point that we pressed on them from the start--namely, that serious sex offenders who are liable to registration under the Sex Offenders Act 1997 should be statutorily prevented from being part of the scheme. That is right.
I listened to the Minister's rationale for the Government's original view that, under certain circumstances, it would be possible for sex offenders to be eligible for early release. According to a written answer of 6 April 2000, there has been only one case in which such an offender was released. As the Minister accepted in his remarks, that one case illustrates just what can go wrong and how seriously it can go wrong under the arrangements that the Government have allowed to be in place for home detention curfew. The person in question had committed a serious offence of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl. He was given a sentence of six months. I think that in fact he did not even serve six weeks. Because of some administrative oversight, he was released after only 35 days, and his case was not considered by the Director General, which was one of the safeguards originally recommended by the Government. The system clearly did not work then; it will be much better if, by statute, sex offenders are not eligible for early release. Most members of the public would agree with that.
The public would also be concerned at the number of violent offenders who appear to have been released under the scheme. If the statistics read out by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury are correct, the number is significant. Members of the public would be concerned about the overall honesty of the system--a point that my hon. Friend was right to make. I agree with the gist of the intervention made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) about how the courts operate and that judges are honest in passing sentences. The dishonesty occurs when the length of time an offender spends in prison bears little relationship to the sentence passed--when offenders serve only a fraction of the time that the public are told they will serve.
In his response to my intervention, the Minister pointed out that, under the provisions, someone sentenced to six months could be, and in many cases is, released after only six weeks. Six months must not mean six weeks. Such a bulging gap strains the credibility of the public and their confidence in the criminal justice system.
I cannot accept the Minister's defence--not among his best-considered remarks--to part of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, as, in essence, the right hon. Gentleman was self-contradictory. He said that the previous Conservative Government had allowed prisoners to be released after serving only part of their sentence. That is correct, although towards the end of their period
in office, they were moving towards a closer relationship between the sentence imposed and the length of time served.However, the Minister is now adopting the position that the sentence should be less. In every case, the average sentences to which my hon. Friend referred are less than they would have been before the home detention curfew provisions were introduced. Prisoners are allowed on home detention curfew after they have served only a small fraction of their sentence in prison. We are not being honest in what we tell the public.
The public do not like such dishonesty. I am not convinced that they would be so severe in passing sentence. Research shows that, in the majority of cases--especially those involving non-sexual or non-violent offences--members of the public would not pass especially severe sentences. They do not constantly demand ever more severe sentences. What they want is honesty. That is the inconsistency in the Government's system.
The points made by my hon. Friend are correct. The new clauses will give a little assistance in improving a bad system--especially in cases involving police officers. It is unfair that the public should be told that a man who has assaulted a police officer will be given a sentence of six months, when that person will be out on the streets in six weeks. That cannot be honest.
I emphasise those points about honesty in sentencing because I am not against tagging as such. Tagging has an interesting history. It was pioneered by the previous, Conservative Government--[Interruption.] An hon. Member says it was abandoned. It was certainly not greeted by bouquets and assistance from the Labour Opposition. Whenever possible, they opportunistically extracted the maximum political advantage--whether or not their statements were consistent. They certainly did not hand out bouquets.
The previous Government were right to persist with tagging, even though there were some technical problems initially. Tagging is right as a sentence. It is also an acceptable way to deal with someone whose liberty needs to be constrained while awaiting a court appearance. It is better for such people to be tagged than to be locked up in prison. However, it should not apply to people sentenced for serious offences. The Minister will confirm that people are eligible to be tagged for offences when the courts have sentenced them to up to four years imprisonment. The offences committed can encompass serious offending.
It would be far better if we explored the use of tagging as a sentence in its own right and as an alternative in appropriate cases to people going to prison. For example, it is particularly appropriate for tagging to be considered for women prisoners. In the past few years, under the previous Government and under this Government, there has been an extraordinary growth in the number of women prisoners. Under this Government alone, the number of women in prison has risen by 30 per cent., which is faster than the rate at which men are being imprisoned. However, women do not tend to commit the serious violent offences that cause most concern to the public. The Government are creating more prison places to lock up more women while they are releasing under the home detention curfew scheme men who have been convicted of serious offences, including offences of violence.
The Government are getting criminal justice sentencing into a crazy mess. The system needs to be put right and our new clauses would go some way to doing that. However, the system is so dishonest that we need to take a much more root-and-branch approach. I hope that such an approach will come in due course so that we can give the public a system of sentencing that is honest with them and in which they can have confidence.
Mr. Malins: I do not think that it is so much honesty in sentencing--of course, we need that--but clarity in sentencing that we want. One of the problems that I face as a sentencer is that I must scratch my head before I pass a sentence. If I pass a sentence of six months, I tell the defendant that he will be released on licence after three months. Provided that he keeps his nose clean while he is on licence, that is the last he will hear about it. However, if he does not, he will return to prison to serve the balance of his sentence. The same principle applies if I pass a sentence of four years in the Crown court for a serious case of burglary. Before someone passes sentence, the question that he or she must ask is, "Wait a minute. Do I really want this person to serve four years, or shall I say four years on the basis that he or she will serve two?" It is a head-scratching exercise.
The home detention curfew scheme will cause a little more head scratching. As I understand it, when we pass a sentence, we do not mention the home detention curfew scheme at all. It is purely an administrative rather than a judicial matter. In sentencing a person, one passes what one considers to be the right sentence and warns about offending on licence. However, whether someone comes out under the home detention curfew scheme is an administrative decision and, unfortunately, the judge knows nothing about that--someone else makes the decision.
I hope that the Minister will confirm that the decision as to who, under the home detention curfew scheme, comes out and is tagged for the balance of the sentence is made not by the judiciary, but by either the Home Office or a prison governor. I might not have a problem if either of them takes the decision, but it makes it a bit difficult for the sentencer to understand whether the sentence that he has imposed will mean what he intends it to mean.
That takes us back to the thorny old question of whether release on a home detention curfew is meant to rehabilitate. Clearly, the scheme is Treasury-driven because it will save money. I remember that, in the 1980s, the Conservative party released many prisoners because it was cheaper to do that. I am sure that we did that.
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