Former Conservative MP for Fareham
Will the Minister also condemn those who try to brand as anti-Semitic people who criticise Israeli Government policy, especially people who deplore the cruel and excessive reaction of the Israeli authorities to the unrest that their illegal settlements inevitably provoke? Peace process or no peace process, those settlements are ever expanding, and young Palestinians see their homeland rapidly...
Like the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards), I have visited Usk prison. I thought that it was very good, and I am glad that it is keeping up the standards that I observed; but many prisons are hopeless and degrading places, and many have always been so. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) quoted Winston Churchill; it is nearly a century since he...
Several years ago, the Utting inquiry revealed an appalling history of abuse in children's homes in north Wales; but more shaming, in many respects, were the disbelief and the brick walls faced by children when they tried to speak up, and also by adults in the system when they sought to voice their suspicions. It took many years for the truth to come out. I fear that, because such a long time...
Would not the money that the Home Secretary has earmarked for new prison places be better spent on providing suitable accommodation for the large number of mentally disordered offenders who are currently in prison but ought not to be held there?
Those in favour of retaining section 28 must also make up their minds as to whether the changes that were brought in to strengthen the powers of school governing bodies and to give parents a central role on those bodies are working or not. The tenor of my hon. Friend's argument is that those changes are so weak that parents cannot ensure that inappropriate teaching does not happen in a...
I should like to follow up the point that the Home Secretary is making. If his policy of early release, which he feels is successful, is designed to help to reintegrate prisoners into law-abiding society, surely it is needed even more for high-risk prisoners than for low-risk prisoners, who are unlikely to offend when they are released. He needs the release programme for the high-risk...
I agree with the point that was made by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) about drugs and drug testing. First, let me declare an interest as the parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation. This is an important Bill. Its importance is perhaps obscured somewhat by the thin attendance in the Chamber, but the Bill covers much ground. As my right hon. Friend...
Will the Home Secretary explain why the public reaction to the horrific child murder committed by the child Mary Bell a generation ago was apparently so much more mature and less crudely vengeful than much of the reaction has appeared to be in the case of Thompson and Venables?
