House of Commons Hansard Debates for 29 Nov 1999 (pt 7)

Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury): First, I associate the Opposition with the Home Secretary's comments about the appalling crime which took place atSt. Andrew's church in Croydon yesterday. I am sure that the Metropolitan police will be conducting a full investigation and that lessons can be learned when their report is made known. For today, however, I think that the right response is just to express sympathy for the victims and their families and pride in the courageous actions of those who managed to disarm the alleged criminal.

I thank the Home Secretary for his statement and also for his courtesy in giving me early sight of the background documents to his announcement. I thank him also for giving me the opportunity some little while in advance to see a copy of the statement.

We can welcome and endorse several aspects of the statement. Indeed, one or two items in the right hon. Gentleman's list of measures seem more than a little familiar from the period before May 1997.

First, may I ask about the extension of electronic tagging as a means of enforcing curfew orders? The Opposition support that in principle, but we have some questions. We would welcome the use of electronic tagging as part of a community penalty. Does the Home Secretary accept that in many cases, it would make sense to link a tagging order to a compensation order, so that a criminal is deprived of his liberty during his leisure time, but during his working hours he is earning money from which to pay compensation to the victims who have suffered from his actions?

Will the Home Secretary take this opportunity to deny media reports last week that the Government are planning to use tagging to allow for the early release of serious, violent and sexual offenders? Does he accept that such a step would be an abuse of the tagging system, and that such criminals ought not to be released early?

Secondly, I welcome the Home Secretary's announcement of the expansion of the DNA database. That follows his announcement of that during his Labour party conference speech, the announcement during the Prime Minister's Labour party conference speech, and the exclusive briefing to the Daily Mirror. Can the Home Secretary confirm what the Government intend should happen to samples taken from people who are subsequently acquitted of charges brought against them? Are we right to understand that, as with fingerprints, those DNA samples should be destroyed after an appropriate period?

Can the right hon. Gentleman comment on the £34 million that he mentioned in his statement? Is that entirely new money, is it funded from the reserve, or is it

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coming from elsewhere in the Home Office's budget?Can he assure us that it will not cause cuts to other services in his Department?

Finally, on the measures that we welcome, I very much applaud the Government's decision to implement the three-strikes provision in the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 in respect of recidivist burglars. Presumably, that will lead to a revision of the Home Office forecast of the future prison population.

Can the Home Secretary say by how much he expects the prison population to expand, following the introduction of that measure, and over what period? Does he agree that no Government could implement the legislation

"unless there were an assurance of the resources to house and finance the increased prison population"?--[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 March 1997; Vol. 579, c. 885.]

Those are not my words, but the words of the noble Lord McIntosh of Haringey when the Bill was going through Parliament. How does the Home Secretary reconcile that need with the reported letter from the then Chief Secretary, which made it clear that the Treasury was not prepared to countenance a further reserve claim to accommodate the pressures on the Prison Service?

How many extra prison places will be required? What are the implications for the prison building programme--for example, does it mean that the Government will be contracting for more private sector prisons over the next few years? How much will that prison accommodation cost, and where will the Home Secretary get the money?

The Home Secretary made much in his statement, and makes even more in the strategy document published today, about the various measures that the Government have introduced. May I urge on him the need to keep those measures under constant review? Will he confirm, for example, that of the drug treatment and testing orders so far passed by the courts, more than half have been breached, and about one third have been revoked because of the seriousness of the breach? Can he say whether the number of anti-social behaviour orders has now risen above the grand total of seven? Can he confirm that there are still no child curfew orders in operation?

There have been reports recently that the Home Secretary plans, just one year on, to introduce amendments to his flagship Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Can he confirm that? Does he agree that there is a need for independent audit and scrutiny, not just of the police service, but of the Government's measures on crime and crime reduction?

We are happy with the idea that there should be greater public access to information about police performance, but the Home Secretary must understand that, after the smoke and mirrors trick over the figure of 5,000 extra police officers that he claimed at his party conference, there will be an element of suspicion that the publication of league tables amounts to an effort by a Home Secretary who knows that crime is once more rising to deflect blame for that away from himself and on to the police service. We know that the 5,000 promised additional officers have proved to be a mirage. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the vice-chairman of the Police Federation said

"he hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of recruiting 20,000 officers over the next three years",

and that the chairman of the Police Federation claimed that his service was being "short changed"?

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The Home Secretary set up a convenient Aunt Sally in the form of an economic model, which, to no one's surprise, predicts a rise in crime. I suspect that the predicted rise is likely to be even higher than the actual increase over which the Government will preside. People want a fall in crime and reduced fear of crime, not simply an increase that falls slightly below that predicted by a team of economists in the Home Office.

After a five-year fall in recorded crime, it is increasing; police numbers are down by more than 1,000 and are due to decrease further in the next 12 months; police budgets are stretched, and efficiency savings are used to plug the deficit rather than to improve front-line services. Will the Home Secretary accept that his success and that of the Government should be measured not only by targets, aspirations or good intentions, but on whether their policies lead to the fall in crime that the public want? The Government's record contains little to suggest that they are capable of achieving the success that the country needs.

Mr. Straw: I thank the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) for his remarks about the terrible events in the church yesterday. As he said, questions will need to be asked and answered about that eventually, but I know that the House accepts that the day after the event, and while the police investigation continues, is not the right time for that.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman welcomes many of the announcements that I made. I am happy to put on record--the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) will wish to know that it is already on record in a Home Office press notice--that the genesis of the provisions for burglars who are convicted on three separate occasions is the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, which was passed under the previous Administration.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the effect of the provisions on the prison population and whether the prison projections took that into account. The effect has already been fully taken into account because, although we inherited the policy from the previous Government, I was also committed to it. I have not got the projections in my head but I am happy to send them to the hon. Gentleman. He knows that the prison population has risen by approximately 5,000 in the past two years and that we are making arrangements to deal with a further increase.

I understand those people, mainly outside the House, who sometimes suggest that we should set an arbitrary limit on the number of prison places, but I believe that we should provide as many prison places as the courts require to deal with criminals who need to be imprisoned. We shall have a chance to reduce the prison population significantly only when we can get crime down to 1970s levels.

The hon. Gentleman asked about DNA. I am pleased to tell the House that the Prime Minister gave a DNA sample today and that it did not match any samples on the DNA suspects database. The £34 million is new money, over and above that announced in the comprehensive spending review.

The hon. Gentleman asked about electronic tagging--I am glad that he now appears to support it. That may be because he has read the unanimous report of the Home Affairs Select Committee, which supported its use not

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only as a court punishment, but for the early release of appropriate prisoners. We have no plans or intention whatever to provide for electronic tagging to facilitate the early release of serious or sexual offenders. Let me make that clear, with a full stop--none whatever.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the drug treatment and testing order. Recently, we published a research study of the pilots and, from recollection, I think that the figures he gave are correct. That shows the importance of rigorous enforcement of community punishments, which has not occurred in respect of traditional punishments meted out by the courts and enforced--or not enforced, often--by the probation service. I am sorry that a third of those orders are being revoked, but they are being revoked quickly and on clear scientific evidence. If there were similar rigorous enforcement of other community punishments, such as probation or community work service orders, we would not have such levels of repeat offending on them. We are determined to make sure that the order is used by the courts--not in respect of offenders who would otherwise go to prison, but for those who would otherwise be given a community punishment--to ensure either that they get off drugs and off crime or, if they do not, that they go to prison.

The hon. Gentleman asked about child curfew orders. There have been none, as he knows, and we are consulting local authorities and the police about whether the age limit should be raised from 10 to 16. I am at a loss to understand where he is coming from on anti-social behaviour orders. They were asked for by the police and local authorities and they have been welcomed by them. Where they have been used--for example, in Lancashire and in Derbyshire--they have turned out to be an important tool in cracking down on anti-social behaviour. It is often the case that criminal justice agencies, being conservative with a small "c", take some time to get used to and to implement new and fresh measures, but I would have thought that Conservative Members would be doing themselves a favour if, instead of criticising the measure, they said that, wherever we are faced with evidence of serious anti-social behaviour, the orders should be used. That is what Labour Members are saying. Conservative Members will find themselves on the wrong side of the argument if they say that such orders should not be used.

I have two more points to make. First, the hon. Gentleman asked about an independent audit of our measures. I am happy for there to be such an audit and those matters should be kept under continuous review. One way in which that can happen is through the Home Affairs Committee continuously monitoring what we are doing and I would welcome that. He talked about what he described as the mirage of 5,000 additional officers. The money that we are putting in to secure 5,000 officers over and above the 15,000 who are predicted to be recruited in any event by the police service is wholly new money. We are also providing for that money to be ring-fenced so that it is used for that purpose, and that alone.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that when the previous Administration were in office, his boss, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), said that she had

"already reminded hon. Members of the commitment made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister"--