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Mr. Marshall-Andrews: Will the hon. Gentleman put his mind to one thing that relates to both his amendment and the Government text, because it appears to many Labour Members that they suffer from the same danger of causing an injustice? If one defendant, however minor, in a case with, say, five, six, seven, eight, nine or 10 defendants is, or may be, guilty of jury nobbling, all defendants would lose their right to jury trial. Furthermore, under the Government's proposed subsection (7) to clause 43, which gives examples, all defendants would lose their right to jury trial in any future trial, as would anyone they were tried with in that future trial. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's views on that because I agree with much of what he says.
Mr. Grieve: I have no difficulty agreeing with the hon. and learned Gentleman. That said, in a spirit of constructive dialogue with the Home Secretary, I am prepared to work my mind around to the possibility that one could end up with a case, although I find such examples far-fetched, in which it was apparent from preceding events that the ability of a jury to try the case without being tampered with, intimidated or prevented from returning a true verdict was such that it would be proper to adopt a Diplock court approach. The hon. and learned Gentleman is right that that would raise a concern about future trials. A fresh look should be taken at future cases and they should not be tainted by what happened before. That is undoubtedly one problem with the Government's proposals.
I do not want to take up more of the House's time. Others wish to speak. I simply say to the Home Secretary that I hope he understands how the Opposition see the problem. We want a constructive engagement on jury tampering, if that is possible. Beyond that, however, I had hoped that the Government would adopt a more flexible approach to the issues, which have caused great anxiety across parties, but I regret to say that they have not done so. Even at this late stage, I hope that the Home Secretary will revise his approach.
Mr. John Denham (Southampton, Itchen): I want to make an observation on the amendments and to put them in the context of debates in and outside the House on the development of the criminal justice system. It is striking how often we are told that we face an unstoppable rise in crime, with criminal gangsters dominating the country and our communities and acting with impunity. Yet whenever there is an attempt in legislation to focus on the shortcomings of a part of the criminal justice system, we almost always end up in a debate like this one, which suggests that not much is wrong with it and little needs to be fixed.
Buck-passing is common when it comes to the failings of the criminal justice system, by which I mean the failure to deliver a system in which the public have confidence that those who are guilty will be caught,
convicted and dealt with appropriately, and those who are innocent will go free. The police often blame the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts; the courts often blame the police and the CPS; and the CPS often feels like the meat in the sandwich between the two.Throughout the criminal justice system, there is an unwillingness to recognise that there are flaws in each part of the system that have to be dealt with proportionately and appropriately. The Government are not claiming that everything that is wrong in the criminal justice system lies within the courts, but that, as part of the overall reform of the system, appropriate adjustments need to be made to the way in which the courts operate.
Mr. Garnier: There is a problem with the line that the right hon. Gentleman is taking. Nobody suggests that the entire criminal justice system is perfect; plenty of it could do with reform. However, if parts A, B and C need reform, the answer is to amend them, not to reform parts G, H and J. Yet the Government are lumping together in the jury system all their prejudices and anxieties about the failure to produce enough convictions when there may be other matters that require consideration.
Mr. Denham: I am tempted to say, "I rest my case." The hon. and learned Gentleman has made precisely the sort of intervention about which I complain. People in all branches of the criminal justice system say, "It's not my bit that causes the problem." However, there are problems in all parts of the system. Police performance is not as good as it should be; the CPS does not always get it right; and parts of our court procedure are wrong. We need to tackle each part of the system. It is too easy for the police to say that the CPS and the courts are the problem, and that they are let down by them. We have all had that conversation with some part of the police service. It is also not right to claim that the courts are fine and that everything goes wrong in the process that leads up to court proceedings.
Mrs. Dunwoody: Does my right hon. Friend accept that those of us who are uneasy about the changes are motivated not by any worry about lawyers' views but by something more fundamental? If one changes in law a right that has existed for a long time for men and women in this country, one has to be certain that the change is not only justifiable but needed, and that it cannot be achieved in any other way. If I am worried about the amendments, I emphasise that it is precisely for those reasons.
Mr. Denham: I accept that hon. Members might be worried about the changes for those reasons. However, in the past, I have had some opportunity to examine the criminal justice system and I am sufficiently convinced that there are enough problems, especially intimidation
of juries, to warrant changes in the limited cases that will, I hope, result from the Bill. Every hon. Member must make that judgment.
Mr. John Burnett (Torridge and West Devon) rose—
Mr. Denham: I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) and then to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Burnett: The right hon. Gentleman enjoys considerable respect in the House. Will he be specific about his criticisms relating to the three matters that are under discussion—lengthy trials, defendants' rights to opt for jury trial and jury tampering?
Mr. Denham: I did not intend to speak about those three points at great length. Intimidating juries and jury nobbling or tampering causes me the greatest anxiety because of the impact on the public's confidence in the criminal justice system in communities where those who are involved in organised crime believe that they are invulnerable to the law and where that belief is shared by others who live there. We all know that such communities exist. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set out concerns about jurors in complex fraud cases, and the case, which seems to me arguable, for allowing individuals to choose mode of trial. My greatest personal concern is the danger of intimidation.
Mr. Denham: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I promised to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick).
David Winnick: I ask, in the friendliest possible way, what my right hon. Friend would say if we were the Opposition and a Conservative Government were making such proposals. I listened carefully to Opposition speeches, and I fear that a future Conservative Government, however distant that prospect may be, could build on these proposals, and that we, as the Opposition, would be all the more determined to oppose them. That is an irony of the proposals.
Mr. Denham: I am pleased that my hon. Friend is a fellow member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, partly because we share an interest in strengthening the House's ability to scrutinise legislation properly on the basis of the facts rather than having everything automatically polarised on party political lines. He may be right that some of us would in the past have reacted to the proposals purely on an oppositionalist, party political basis. I believe, however, that we should consider these matters on the strength of the arguments, and that the case should not be taken forward on the basis of the slippery slope argument, or of the argument that the other party might do something different. I shall take one more intervention, then I must finish; other hon. Members wish to speak.
3.45 pm
Mr. Llwyd : As an ex-Home Office Minister, the right hon. Gentleman will know that the Home Office collects statistics on everything. Why are there no reliable statistics on jury nobbling?
Mr. Denham: Despite the hon. Gentleman's contention, such statistics are obviously not collected by the Home Office. However, I was convinced of the extent of problems in specific areas of the country involving jury nobbling and—a separate issue—tampering with witnesses.
Mr. Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry, North-West): I would be very grateful if my right hon. Friend would give way.
Mr. Denham: I will take one last intervention.
Mr. Robinson: My right hon. Friend has rightly identified this as a crucial area, and one that is important to him. Surely, however, the system cannot be brought into disrepute because of a problem of intimidation. The problem that needs to be tackled is the intimidation. The system, which is so good, is threatened by that. Surely he must see that he is putting the cart before the horse, and that we should tackle the underlying cause of the problem. The threat to a jury cannot be accepted, and we have to deal with that.
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