Orders of the Day — Criminal Justice Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:34 pm on 20 November 1990.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Andrew Bennett Mr Andrew Bennett , Denton and Reddish 8:34, 20 November 1990

I welcome this opportunity to speak and I regret the fact that Conservative Members have said once again that they want to see the restoration of capital punishment. The House has decided that issue decisively on three or four occasions over recent years. I believe that only two firm pieces of new evidence that should concentrate our minds have come to light since the previous debate. They are the acceptance that the Guildford Four were innocent and the acceptance by most people that the Birmingham Six should be released. Those are clear reminders that there can be miscarriages of justice and that the death penalty is final and makes it impossible to provide recompense for such miscarriages.

The Bill addresses a new situation in that we are now in a lame duck Parliament with a lame duck Prime Minister who can clearly restore her credibility in the country and overseas only if she opts for a general election. The likelihood is that during the passage of the Bill we will have a general election sprung on us. We shall then have from my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Labour party Front Bench new legislation of a very different nature or we shall get some of the non-controversial parts of this Bill enacted in the last few days before a general election. I hope that the Minister will try to get consensus from the Bill instead of confrontation.

The major issue at the general election will be the greed society which has been created over the past 11 years. I believe that it is odd that, having achieved a dramatic demographic change in the number of young people in the age group likely to commit crime, we have not seen a fall in the general crime statistics, although I welcome the fact that crimes among juveniles appear to be declining in line with demographic changes.

I measure the Bill against the effect that it will have on my constituents. They still suffer a great deal from petty crime, much of which is committed by their neighbours, and their greatest regret is that the Bill contains no clear measures to prevent crime. There is nothing about crime prevention. I hope that, as the Bill proceeds, the Government will bring forward measures to prevent crime.

In August the Minister of State tried to justify the large increase in the crime figures and he said that it was the public's fault because they did not deter opportunist crime. I accept that some members of the public could take a little more care of their property and could try to discourage some opportunist crime. However, in my constituency too much of the crime arises from people trying to earn small sums of money to pay for drugs and from boredom, neither of which leads to opportunist crimes.

If the Government want to stop opportunist crime, they should make more efforts in certain areas. The Government have suggested, with regard to credit cards, that people should have a discount for cash. Ministers should cast their minds back 10 or 15 years when one of the most common crimes involved armed bandits holding up petrol stations. That crime virtually disappeared because petrol companies improved security at their stations and the majority of people began to pay for their petrol by credit card. The amount of money available to be stolen in petrol stations late at night diminished dramatically. If the Government want to discourage criminals going after money and using violence, they should be encouraging credit cards, not discouraging them. I realise that credit cards increase fraud, but if we must choose between the two, I should prefer fraud to violent crimes involving people trying to take money.

The Government should also consider how the poll tax affects matters such as street lighting. It is clear that many local authorities have identified relatively cheap schemes to improve street lighting and make property more secure, but those schemes still cost money. It is extremely difficult for those authorities to get the money. Until recently, tower blocks in Brinnington in my constituency had fairly high levels of crime. The local authority put in surveillance systems—entry is gained only after identifying oneself—put in new door frames and carried out various other measures dramatically to improve the security of those tower blocks. The effect has been tremendously good for the people who live in the tower blocks. The only problem is that such improvements are expensive. If the Government want to prevent crime and, in the end, save money, they should make it easier for housing authorities to take those measures. We have already discussed the failure of car manufacturers to make motor vehicles secure.

The last point on crime prevention is that we should do much more to encourage the youth service—again, one of the services that are squeezed by the working of the poll tax or the community charge. The youth service is one way to avoid boredom.

There should be much more in this legislation about restitution to some of our constituents who lose out as a result of crime and then find that they get very small sums in compensation.

In the debate on the Queen's Speech I pressed the Home Secretary about what he will do about the disgraceful situation in Greater Manchester. He knows that there are far too many remand prisoners at the moment in police cells in the Greater Manchester area. We understand the problems that occurred at Strangeways, but it is ridiculous that a police station such as Stockport has inadequate cells and that those cells are cluttered up with remand prisoners.

I should have thought that the Home Secretary could use the problems of Manchester dramatically to cut the time that people on remand remain in prison or, in Greater Manchester, remain in police cells. All he does is say that it is the prison warders' responsibility. He is the Minister in charge. He should find some way of negotiating so that we could get remand prisoners out of police cells in Greater Manchester.

Also, the Home Secretary has to accept at least 112 days as a firm legal requirement in which to get people into court rather than to allow the conspiracy which seems so often to occur between the various people involved and which allows remand cases to run on and on.

There are many other points that I should like to make. No doubt I will have an opportunity to make some in Committee. However, we should look at prisoners' rights. I have made that point on many occasions. It is easy to give rights to people of whom we approve, but it is difficult to give rights to people of whom we disapprove. We should consider giving far more rights to prisoners. When a prisoner asked me whether he could have a copy of the prison rules, I sent him a copy, but he was denied access to most of them. He was told that they were not available to prisoners. I realise that there are difficulties with barrack room lawyers in prisons, but prisoners should be able to see the rules and have a clear understanding of them.

Parental responsibility has been pressed by Conservative Members. Parents should be much more responsible. It distresses me when I find my constituents encouraging their youngsters to go out on to street corners at night because they perhaps make too much noise in the house and the parents are pleased to see them go out. They do not ask questions about what they do. Young people sit around on street corners, annoy other people and, through boredom, get into crime. I should like more of my constituents to take a responsible attitude to their children, but we must be careful about demanding too much through the courts.

It is quite clear that many young people who appear before the courts do not have parents who are in a position to be supportive. They are looked after by, perhaps, a grandparent or a parent who is already struggling to have any control over them. It would be unsatisfactory to cause extra hassle for the person who is giving some support.

I hope that the Committee stage will be constructive and that, even if we have an early general election, we will be able to get something out of the Bill by the time the election comes.