Orders of the Day — Criminal Justice Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:35 pm on 4 December 2002.

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Photo of David Blunkett David Blunkett The Secretary of State for the Home Department 3:35, 4 December 2002

We are all concerned to achieve substantial improvement in the juvenile estate. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central has said publicly, we shall introduce measures, not least in relation to the judgment given earlier this week. We are mindful about getting that right. It is important that we intervene at an earlier stage rather than rely on the correctional services to deal with youngsters. We have done important work in establishing the Youth Justice Board, and improvements in correctional services in recent years, if overdue, are extremely welcome.

Departments and agencies, both locally and nationally, are working together on, for instance, Splash schemes and their related support services in Connexions, which made an enormous difference over the summer to the level of criminality. In street crime areas with preventive diversionary programmes, there was just over a 20 per cent. drop in recorded crime, compared with a 5 per cent. drop in similar areas without such programmes. There is a lot to learn from intervening at that stage, providing alternative activities and reducing opportunities for crime. I want to put that on record because criminal justice reforms tend to deal with the horse once it has bolted past the stable door. We need to make better progress on prevention in the first place—that is true of rehabilitation as well.

We have done quite a lot with youth justice. Not only have we developed the Youth Justice Board, but we have fulfilled our pledge to halve the time it takes for young people to pass from arrest and to sentence. Initially we got that down to 71 days, but we have now got it down to 63 days—a tremendous improvement on the previous time. There has been a 14.6 per cent. reduction in reconviction rates for that age group in the new reformed system of youth justice. We have introduced intensive treatment and supervision orders and have done work on tagging and home detention curfews. We need to bear all those things in mind when considering what is possible and how we may achieve improvements.

This afternoon, I appeal to people with a long-standing professional involvement and interest to play their part in making the Bill better and ensuring that the reforms are carried through. In the Queen's Speech debate, I said that the Law Society had been positive. When I addressed its annual conference, I was heartened by the way in which its members were committed to assisting us with reform. I again appeal to people inside the system to work with us, not against us, to ensure that we bring this programme into the 21st century, as it is important for the protection of the public and the credibility and standing of the criminal justice service as a whole. We should acknowledge that, together, we treasure our traditions. Some we will remember with nostalgia; others we will bring carefully from medieval England into the 21st century; all of them we will treat with care. I accept what has been said in the House on a number of occasions—we should change what exists with care.

Not everyone agrees on the central objective of the criminal justice service. I believe that, above all, it is a search for truth. We are trying to get to the truth on behalf of victims and the wider community. Unless that objective is at the heart of the system, we shall never protect victims in future and will never have a culture in our communities that accepts that order and stability, as well as people's security in their homes and neighbourhoods, is the paramount job of any civilised Government.