Orders of the Day — Crime (Sentences) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:30 pm on 4 November 1996.

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Photo of Michael Howard Michael Howard The Secretary of State for the Home Department 3:30, 4 November 1996

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If one asked any member of the public who ought to get the longer period of supervision on release from prison, those who are the greatest risk to the public or those who are the least risk, one would get the answer that those who are the greatest risk to the public ought to have the longer period of supervision. That is not what happens now, but it will as a result of the Bill.

Part II includes important new provisions concerning the crediting of remand time against sentence. Those provisions are intended to simplify the law—which again originates from the Criminal Justice Act 1967—which has proved very difficult for the courts to interpret and the Prison Service to apply.

In August, the divisional court upheld my view that periods spent on remand by those serving consecutive sentences should count once, and once only, towards the prisoner's sentence. It has also considered the issue of remand time in relation to concurrent sentences on four separate occasions over the past 15 years. The court has upheld the practice of the Prison Service on each occasion, but the complexities of the 1967 Act continue to give rise to difficulties, and another case is currently before the court.

Clause 7 is intended to put matters beyond doubt. It gives effect to proposals that were set out in the White Paper "Protecting the Public", which was published in March. Under clause 7, the court will specify when passing sentence exactly how much remand time should count towards the sentence. For the first time, it will also be open to the court to decide not to count remand time in full—for example, to take account of time wasting by the defendant. The Bill includes power for rules to be made setting out the principles to be followed by the court in relation to consecutive or concurrent terms of imprisonment. Those provisions are designed to simplify that difficult and complex area of law.

Part II also makes provision in relation to the release of certain life sentence prisoners. It introduces new arrangements for the release of offenders serving a sentence of detention during Her Majesty's pleasure, which is the mandatory sentence for young people who are convicted of murder. The Bill provides for the Parole Board, rather than the holder of my office, to determine when those detained during Her Majesty's pleasure are safe to be released once the tariff has been served. The power to set the tariff in such cases remains with the Secretary of State. The provision does not affect the arrangements for adults convicted of murder.

The provisions in part III are designed in particular to increase the range of sentencing options that are open to the courts in respect of certain kinds of offender: fine defaulters, persistent petty offenders and mentally disordered offenders. For the first time, the courts will be able to impose a community service order or a curfew order, enforced by electronic monitoring, as a penalty for fine default. The number of people in prison for not paying a fine has fallen by around 60 per cent. in the past year, but more can be done. In our view, the courts should have available to them a range of options for enforcement of fines and punishment for default, and the Bill provides for that.

In future, the courts will have to consider the use of a community service order or a curfew order before imprisoning for fine default. The sanction of imprisonment will be retained for those who are neither prepared to pay their fine nor comply with a community penalty. The new powers will ensure that a custodial sentence is not imposed where other sanctions can be used. The powers will be introduced by way of pilot projects in the first instance, with a view to full implementation as soon as it is practicable to do so.

The Bill allows the courts to use community service orders and curfew orders for persistent petty offenders. Under present legislation, such offenders will usually be fined. The courts have few other options available to them. If, however, an offender already has outstanding fines, a further fine may serve little purpose. The courts need a wider range of powers to deal with such offenders. The Bill provides for that.

The Bill also provides for the abolition of the requirement for an offender to consent to the imposition of those community sentences that require it. That will end the current impression that offenders can dictate to the courts what kind of punishment they receive, simply by withholding the necessary consent to certain community sentences.

Part III of the Bill also makes new provisions in respect of mentally disordered offenders. In particular, it gives the courts the power when passing a prison sentence to attach a direction of immediate admission to hospital. Existing arrangements for the sentencing of disordered offenders require the courts to choose between punishment and treatment. The court may impose a hospital order instead of a prison sentence. In the great majority of cases, that is appropriate, but it means that the offender will be discharged as soon as his or her treatment is completed, regardless of how serious the offence was.

If a prison sentence is imposed instead, the court has no guarantee that the offender will receive treatment. The new hospital direction provides that guarantee. It will help the courts to deal more effectively with some of the most difficult cases that come before them. Those may be cases in which the court cannot be sure that treating the disorder will reduce the danger of reoffending, either because the disorder may prove to be untreatable or because the offending may not have been caused by the disorder. Such cases are small in number, but they are among the most difficult before the courts. Initially, the hospital direction will be made available for offenders suffering from psychopathic disorders, but our aim is to make it available, by way of an order-making power in the Bill, for all mentally disordered offenders.

Finally, the Bill provides for new arrangements for the transfer of prisoners and for supervision within the United Kingdom and the islands and for the repatriation of prisoners to the UK. Such arrangements already exist, but the provisions in the Bill provide for a more effective and clearer system.

Those are the main provisions of the Bill before the House today, but I should inform hon. Members that I propose to table amendments in Committee to give effect to three other important proposals which are, like those I have already described, intended to strengthen and improve the criminal justice system.

First, I propose to extend the range of penalties available to the courts, by allowing them to make wider use of disqualification from driving as a punishment for offending or fine default. At present, that penalty is limited to driving offences or serious offences that involve the use of a car. In future, the penalty will be available for any offence.

Secondly, I propose to make curfew orders, with electronic monitoring, available for juveniles below the age of 16. At present, the courts may only impose a requirement for young persons in that age group to stay indoors during the hours of darkness, and the courts may do so only as a requirement of a supervision order and without electronic monitoring. The new powers will allow the courts to impose a curfew at any time of day, backed by electronic monitoring. Those powers clearly have a role in keeping young offenders off the streets or away from particular places and out of trouble. I want the Bill to provide for that.

Thirdly, I propose to remove the restriction on the naming of juvenile offenders. Those who offend, whatever their age, should be made to face up to the consequences of their behaviour. Local communities have a right to know who the offenders are. In future there will be no automatic restriction on the naming of any juvenile offender. The youth court, as well as the Crown court, will be able to decide whether the name of the young person should be made public.

The proposals in the Bill are clear and consistent. They are the proposals that I first set out in detail seven months ago. The president of the Police Superintendents Association said that it is in "the national interest" that the proposals become law as quickly as possible, yet the Opposition have steadfastly refused to support them. They started by trying to ridicule the proposals. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) called them a farce and the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said that they were daft.

So farcical and daft were the proposals that they produced a frenzy of subterranean activity from the Opposition. That culminated in the publication of Labour's alternative proposals, five months later, which gave us a clear idea of what a Labour crime Bill would look like. The truth is that it would not be worthy of the name. There would be no honesty in sentencing; automatic early release from prison would continue; there would be no stiff minimum sentences set down by Parliament for professional house burglars; and there would be no minimum sentences for dealers in hard drugs. The Opposition like to pretend that they support automatic life sentences for second-time serious offenders, but the truth is that there are fundamental differences between our proposals and theirs. Labour's proposals leave out repeat violent offenders altogether. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) has said: Offences of a sexual nature should be distinguished from other violent offences". As far as Labour is concerned, the public do not need greater protection from repeat armed robbers and the like.

Let me give one example of why we need automatic life sentences for those convicted of a second sexual or violent offence. In 1978, in the central criminal court, a man was convicted of robbery using an imitation firearm. He had stolen £3,000 from two elderly ladies and was given an eight-year sentence, which was lowered to four years on appeal. Within a few weeks of his release in 1979, he committed another armed robbery. His accomplice murdered an elderly lady, while he pistol-whipped her husband. He received six years for manslaughter, armed robbery, wounding with intent and aggravated burglary. On his release in 1983, he committed a spate of armed robberies. Convicted on eight counts, he received a 12-year sentence. Given home leave at the end of his sentence, he failed to return to prison and committed a series of armed robberies. In 1992, at St. Albans Crown court, he received 14 years for his crimes.

Under our proposals, that man would have got life automatically after his second conviction. He could have been kept in prison, his dreadful crimes could have been prevented and the public could have been protected. Under Labour, there would be no such protection, no extra safeguards against violent criminals and no measures to deal with a man convicted of armed robbery, who, on his release from prison at the end of his sentence, went on to rape. That is the reality behind Labour's slogans on crime.

Opposition Members are fond of saying that Labour has become the party of law and order. However, they fail to understand that one becomes the party of law and order not simply by calling one's party that, but by supporting tough law and order measures. That means voting for those measures in the Lobby, in Committee, on Report and on Third Reading, both here and in another place. That is something that the Labour party—new or old—has consistently failed to do.

When he was shadow Home Secretary, the Leader of the Opposition dismissed my 27-point plan as a "gimmick", and refused to support the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. He voted against reforming the right to silence, claiming that Any reasonable person could see that that approach is open to potential injustice."—[Official Report, 11 January 1994; Vol. 235, c. 43.] Recent Home Office research has shown that the number of suspects refusing to answer police questions has almost halved since we reformed the right to silence. Under Labour, that change would be reversed and hardened criminals would be able once again to stay silent, secure in the knowledge that their silence would remain a secret.