Death Penalty

Part of New clause 1 – in the House of Commons at 6:15 pm on 1 April 1987.

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Photo of Mr Roy Jenkins Mr Roy Jenkins , Glasgow Hillhead 6:15, 1 April 1987

I am glad to be able to take up the remarks of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). I do so with almost complete agreement.

There is nothing novel about the debate, except for the form of the new clause. The Home Secretary made a speech of notable courage and clarity, especially when he set out strikingly what with modern conditions of publicity would be the almost inevitable swing of sympathy to the condemned man awaiting execution, and the effect that this would have on general morbidness throughout the country. Modern media methods would be applied to a far greater extent than the methods of more than 20 years ago were employed when the last executions took place.

The form of the new clause, if not the debate, has a certain novelty, but novelty is not always a virtue, and I do not think that it is with the new clause. It is not difficult to see the general motive for the novelty and the reasons for the form that it takes. The general motive is a rather desperate attempt to find a method — almost any method — that will persuade the House to accept the death penalty in some form, and it seems hardly to matter what that is. Its purposes are to try to divide murders into two degrees while avoiding the illogical catalogue of criteria which made the Homicide Act 1957 almost entirely unsatisfactory in everyone's view.

The method of making everything depend upon a judge's or jury's view of the meaning of "evil" — perhaps one of the least objective words in our language — can hardly be regarded as a triumph of precise draftsmanship. The second particular purpose of the new clause is to try to deal with the objection to death by majority verdict. There are grave difficulties. I assume without question that the sponsors feel that they have, perhaps regrettably, to avoid Northern Ireland and to make the Act not apply to it. The new clause does not refer to Northern Ireland, but if it were carried any Government would have to deal with the consequences and produce some consistent law throughout the United Kingdom.

I assumed that the right hon. and learned Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival) was prepared, against his will, to exclude Northern Ireland because I could not conceive how he could fix his clause upon having a unanimous verdict in the United Kingdom and then, across 60 miles of sea, in part of the United Kingdom, to state that one could proceed without a jury.

This is difficult territory. The House may recollect that, in 1983, the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan) fell into a trap on Northern Ireland from which he had great difficulty in extricating himself, then or for several years afterwards. He did not advocate bringing back juries, but advocated, in a vague sort of way, that perhaps one could have two judges sitting together or perhaps a judge sitting with assessors. That cannot be regarded as remotely on all fours with the insistence upon a unanimous verdict in Great Britain and not accepting a majority verdict.