Orders of the Day — Criminal Law (Amendment) (Householder Protection) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:46 pm on 4 February 2005.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Paul Goggins Paul Goggins Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office 12:46, 4 February 2005

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is quite right that the cases will be dealt with sympathetically. Of course, the sympathy will all be on the side of the householder, who will not have invited the intruder in and will be the victim. Even if there are difficult questions to be addressed, there will always be great sympathy as well as great skill in the way in which any such investigations are carried out, few in number as they are.

I referred earlier to the number of burglaries. Of course, we all want fewer burglaries, which has to be an objective for all of us. Domestic burglary is a terrible crime, and it is vital that we do all we can to prevent it from occurring. Where it does occur, we want to see the offender caught and prosecuted. The good news is that burglary has fallen by about 31 per cent. since 1999, so that the chances of being burgled now are lower than for about 20 years. Recorded crime figures show that domestic burglary in the 12 months to June 2004 was down by 13 per cent. compared with the same period in 2002–03. They are gains that we should all celebrate, but none of us should be complacent and no one can guarantee that the unthinkable will not happen. When somebody enters somebody else's house, the householder must be confident that the law is on their side. They have every right to expect that the incident will be investigated quickly and sensitively—something that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon mentioned—and that all the facts of the case will be taken into account.