Clause 1 - Extension of powers to stop and search
Criminal Justice Bill
11:45 am
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman has articulately provided a full account of the clause. I am glad that it is in order, and I should like to join in. If I can say it without being derogatory, he has expressed a white, lawyerly, middle-class, London-oriented view of the criminal justice system. It is the dominant view in the legal profession and the criminal justice system. Does he accept, though, that millions of traditionally law-abiding people no longer have any faith in it? I am thinking of the sort of ordinary working-class people on council estates in my constituency whose belief in his system has been eroded over time. We have lost such people, and he should reflect on how to recapture them and restore their faith.
I refer not just to the civil liberty of individuals in particular circumstances, which we should all defend, but to reconnecting people to the entire system so that they feel that it works for, and belongs to, them. For many, the system is now in crisis. I hope that the Liberal Democrats and the other Opposition party will join the Government to improve the Bill and recapture the faith of the people.