Home Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:45 pm on 20 November 2002.

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Photo of Simon Hughes Simon Hughes Shadow Spokesperson (Home Affairs) 4:45, 20 November 2002

Indeed. The hon. Gentleman's Government failed lamentably to tackle that, as violent crime went up every year under the Tories. I hope that he accepts that violent crime decreased for some years under Labour, but is now on the up again. For me, it is the most important criminal justice issue—violence in our community is the most dangerous, insidious and unacceptable aspect of criminality.

There are no easy answers—if there had been, I hope that the previous five Governments would have found some of them—so we must try responsibly to work out the best way of responding. There are six Bills on law and order in the current legislative programme, of which three are almost entirely non-controversial, but that does not mean that there will not be lots of amendments and debate.

Generally, however, people accept the desirability of including magistrates and crown courts in the same system, as long as justice remains local to the community and is not moved away from people.

A sexual offences Bill, trailed yesterday, will be introduced. A largely modernising, non-discriminatory and consolidating measure with a lot of good new components, it received broad support yesterday from Members on both sides of the House.

There are two measures to deal with our international responsibilities. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Mr. Ainsworth will be responsible for the Extradition Bill and possibly the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill, which was published today. By and large, those measures too are good, but the difficult issue, as the Government know, is whether people should be taken from this country to be tried elsewhere without guarantees of adequate judicial process and whether people charged by foreign authorities should be pursued when they come here. Both aspects of the problem are dealt with in the two Bills which, no doubt, will be hotly debated in both Houses.

There are two controversial Bills, including the prospective antisocial behaviour Bill—we have no idea yet what it or the White Paper will include. The Home Secretary is smiling, because he knows that that is true. I got the impression, if I may say so, that concept of the Bill came up on the outside lane rather late in the day before the Queen's Speech. I detected that there was originally intended to be one criminal justice Bill, and then something came out of the stables and took off, in a race of its own. Such Bills have often fallen at the last fence. Indeed, some parts of such Bills have never got on to the course, or not got over the first jump.

When the Home Secretary was in the coda phase of his speech, listing the positive achievements of the past five years, my hon. Friend Mr. Heath said quietly, XWhat about curfew orders?". That is an example of an initiative that emerged from the stalls, went to the starting point, but never appeared to be backed by anybody after that.

I hope that the Home Secretary will keep his word, as he has done with regard to other matters, and consult about the White Paper. There are some good antisocial behaviour initiatives in all our communities, and the best of the best must be shared and rolled out, if we believe that a particular initiative can have a wider application.