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11.22 pm
Mr. Hawkins: I shall be brief, given that the Minister has moved Third Reading formally. However, it is important to make a couple of points. We have sought to adopt a constructive attitude to the Bill, because we recognise that parts of it may be helpful. We had good debates in Committee, as I am sure the Minister and other hon. Members would agree, and we have had constructive and mostly good-natured debates this evening on such important issues as domestic violence and drugs.
It is fair to say that all parties have contributed to the constructive approach. The debate on amendment No. 6 was a good example of a genuine difference of view within the Labour party. Indeed, at one stage the Minister faced an unaccustomed amount of friendly fire from behind him.
We need to recognise that the Government have described a completely different picture in relation to curfew releases in terms of the serious offences committed by those who have been released from what was originally intended by the members of the Home Affairs Committee. If the members of the Committee, of whom I was then one, had known what the Government had in mind, their report would have been very different. It was never envisaged by the Opposition, by members of the Committee or by other right hon. and hon. Members, when they considered the Government's proposals, that they would mean the early release of six attempted murderers; 53 people convicted of manslaughter; 2,767 people convicted of drug dealing and trafficking; 1,556 people convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm; 811 robbers; 1,887 burglars; 23 offenders convicted of cruelty to children; 34 offenders convicted of making threats to kill; and 126 offenders convicted of causing death by dangerous driving. That is a travesty of a policy on the part of a Government who claimed they would be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. The ordinary law-abiding citizens of this country will be horrified by those figures.
The situation is especially ironic given that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) pointed out, those are the very offences in respect of which the Home Secretary proposes to apply his revised immigration rule 320(18) to keep serious convicted criminals out of the country--the so-called Mike Tyson rule. The Home Secretary's own consultation document
describes such crimes as serious offences and states that protection of the citizens of this country from those who are convicted of such offences overseas is essential and appropriate. It is impossible for the Government logically to argue that the British public must be protected from foreigners who commit such offences, barring them from the country, at the same time as they let out of jail on early release thousands of British criminals who have committed the same crimes. That is the Bill's most significant weakness. We hope that the Government will consider the matter further.Ministers have been reasonable and said that they will retain an open mind on several other issues debated in Committee and on Report. One matter that we have not be able to address on Report and on which I wish to touch during our Third Reading debate is the new name of the welfare service. The Government have called it the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, but, in Committee, the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, said:
- We are open to suggestions. We have not thus far been able to produce a better title than the one before us today. If the hon. Gentleman were to make further suggestions, other than the one in the amendment, we would be prepared to consider them.--[Official Report, Standing Committee G, 11 April 2000; c. 109.]
The hon. Lady wrote to me and other members of the Standing Committee on other points that cropped up in debate. Her letter dated 9 May dealt with representations that Ministers had received about the intention to change the names of probation, community service and combination orders, and it enables us to contrast her remarks and those made earlier this evening made by the Minister of State, Home Office. The Parliamentary Secretary wrote:
- most representations were in favour of maintaining the status quo.
- the majority of these were from within the probation service.
- These are professionals who are already very familiar and comfortable with the language,
Weaknesses remain in the Government's case. I have no doubt that the Government will be forced to concede some of our points during the debates in another place.
We will not, however, oppose Third Reading, because we believe that the Bill contains sufficient that is valuable and a useful addition to the criminal justice system.
11.29 pm
Mr. Dawson: It is sadly typical that in their last contribution to the debate on the Bill, the Opposition have concentrated on reworking the argument about the name of the service, trying to draw a smokescreen over their failures in 18 years during which crime doubled and they made a hash of the entire criminal justice system.
The Bill will give us a national probation service with a new agenda for dealing with criminal behaviour and assisting the rehabilitation of offenders.
The extremely important element of the Bill, which has received no attention so far today and which received little attention on Second Reading, is the establishment in chapter II of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. I regard that as a hopeful development. Across the country, there is a manifest concern about the position of children in private law proceedings--not criminal justice or public law--when parents separate and divorce. Complex and distressing situations occur, and subtle but extremely serious issues of child protection can arise. Private law deals with issues such as residence and contact, and specific steps and concerns that might relate to individual children in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
It is a credit to the Government that they have brought together three distinct services--the guardian ad litem and reporting officer service, the court welfare services and the Official Solicitor. Those services are to be melded together, setting high standards of social work practice in a crucial area of policy.
I tabled no amendments on Report, but I moved several in Committee. I was delighted to hear from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary a solid commitment to children's rights and their place at the heart of the new service, and an undertaking that the service would attain high standards of practice and that there would be appropriate training and professional development activity to allow that.
The Government also gave a commitment to the involvement of social services inspection in a form of partnership with the magistrates courts advisory service. We all received a letter about that at the end of the Committee stage. It is extremely important that there should be independent inspection based on high standards of social work practice in such an important service.
The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service can be a powerful force for advocacy, giving children and young people access to effective and independent representation. I have high hopes of the service. The new organisation could be a strong force for the benefit of children and a flagship for profoundly important family policy. I wish CAFCASS well and trust that it will get the on-going support, resourcing and commitment that it undoubtedly deserves.
11.34 pm
Jackie Ballard: The Bill is probably the least controversial Home Office Bill this Session. It has been given proper and constructive scrutiny in Committee and on Report. I shall therefore speak briefly. At this time of night there is no football match throughout which I have to speak.
Liberal Democrats broadly welcome the Bill, especially the clauses relating to the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, to which the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) referred. I also welcome the further enhancement of powers to protect children in part II. Some useful work was done in Committee, especially on getting on record the key role of the probation service in the rehabilitation of offenders, about which we had a long debate.
However, although we broadly welcome the Bill, we have serious anxieties about a few clauses. Clause 42 deals with drug abstinence orders, but does not provide for guaranteeing treatment throughout England and Wales.
Clause 52 was not discussed on Report. It provides for testing people in police detention, and gives police the powers to test people who are charged with specific offences for the presence of class A drugs. I expressed anxiety in Committee that that could introduce by the back door a new offence of use of drugs. The Minister assured us that that was not the case. When the Home Secretary first announced the provision, he said that it was his intention to introduce testing on arrest rather than on charge. The final provision in the clause leaves the door open for the Home Secretary to extend testing to those who have not been charged. That would have serious human rights consequences. It would also be administratively difficult for police officers to cope with the increased numbers of people to be tested when they went into the police station.
I also oppose clause 61, about which we had an useful debate earlier. I am sure that it will be discussed again in another place. I hope that the other place will consider those outstanding matters in detail.
We shall not oppose the Bill. Labour Members who have come to the Chamber late at night will be disappointed to hear that neither Opposition party will oppose the Bill and force a vote. The measure has already benefited from the scrutiny of this House; I am sure that it will benefit from further scrutiny in another place.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.
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