New clause

Part of Orders of the Day — Police Bill [Lords] – in the House of Commons at 9:45 pm on 19 March 1997.

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Photo of Jack Straw Jack Straw Shadow Secretary of State (Home Office) 9:45, 19 March 1997

Of course, I shall deal with our approach to the Bill. But as I was saying, our amendment is carefully worded, and is different in character and effect from that moved by the Liberal Democrats here and in the other place. There would be a clear presumption in favour of the minimum sentence. That was accepted when the debate on this amendment was held in the other place. The discretion of the court, which the Secretary of State has accepted in principle, would be properly defined to avoid injustice and the betrayal of victims that would follow from his wording.

In addition, there would be the added safeguard that in every case the Attorney-General would be able to appeal any sentence that he felt made undue use of the limited discretion being given to the court. If we are in government, we intend to make use of that discretion. I do not believe for a moment that 40 per cent. or 50 per cent. of cases that would otherwise trigger minimum sentences would result in an exercise by the courts of discretion. That was never the intention of this place or the other place. If that were to happen, it would obviously have to be looked at again by the House and by the Government.

In the other place, the amendment was supported not only by their Lordships on the Opposition Benches, but by 29 Conservative peers, including the noble Lord, Lord Hailsham, the former Conservative Lord Chancellor. The Secretary of State should consider that the next time he accuses anyone who supports the amendment of being soft on burglars and soft on drug dealers. Is he suggesting that that long list of distinguished former Law Officers, Lord Chancellors and other Ministers of the Crown in Conservative Administrations in the past 18 years are soft on crime, soft on drug dealers and soft on burglars? I hope that in the next six weeks he will seek to elevate the debate above such insults not only to us—we can take those—but to members of his own party.

The other place having made its decision on the amendment, the proper constitutional way would have been for this House to debate and vote on it in the usual way. It is for this elected House to make final decisions on all such matters. That is what I agreed with the Secretary of State, and what the Labour Front Bench in the other place voted on yesterday. I regret that that has not happened. In many respects, however, the other place did the Home Secretary a favour yesterday. The Home Secretary knows that there was substantial support for our amendment, on his own side in the House of Commons as well as in the other place. He knows that, had the amendment been subject to a vote here, he would have been in great danger of being defeated by his hon. Friends.

I have made it clear throughout proceedings on the Bill, and I make it clear now, that we support automatic life sentences for repeat rapists and other serious sexual and violent offenders, as laid down in the Bill. We support the principle of minimum sentences of three and seven years respectively for thrice-convicted burglars and drug dealers, and, under the amendment, the practice as well. If such arrangements are to achieve their end, however, they must work justly and efficiently. The amendments that we have tabled will help that process.

The Government go into this election with a worse record on crime than any Government since the war, and a worse record than any other major industrialised country. A former Home Office Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor), told The Guardian on 1 August last year: The Labour Party is outflanking us on law and order and there is a serious danger of the Conservative Party at all levels losing the plot". The Home Secretary has certainly lost the plot on law and order. Under his party, crime has rocketed, victims have suffered and communities have been disfigured by crime.

The sooner the present Government are swept from office, the sooner we can again have measures to make our communities safe again.