Clause 1 - Offences leading to penalties on the spot

Part of Criminal Justice and Police Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 5:30 pm on 6 February 2001.

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Photo of Mr Nick Hawkins Mr Nick Hawkins Conservative, Surrey Heath 5:30, 6 February 2001

I think that I can be relatively brief, because many of the issues have been addressed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell), and my hon. Friends the Members for North-East Hertfordshire and for Reigate (Mr. Blunt). However, I want to make a couple of points in support of their comments, and I should perhaps begin by returning to a matter that I raised during an intervention on the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes).

We were discussing the significance of the sometimes serious incidents of youths throwing stones at trains. One reason for the concern that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey and I, as well as other Opposition Members, share is that there will be a perception that the offence is being downgraded, although I realise that the Government are not saying that everyone who commits the offence would always receive a fixed penalty. I stress, not only in my capacity as an Opposition Front Bench spokesman but as chairman of the all-party railways group, that the Minister will have to take account of the fact that those who represent the most vulnerable people--the rail workers--will be upset if they believe that the Government are downgrading the seriousness of the offence. Some train drivers, as the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey said, have suffered horrendous injuries as a result of stones being dropped off railway bridges and so on. If they believe that the offence is being downgraded, they will be very upset.

I want to reinforce the constituency case to which I referred in my intervention. I am holding a reply that I received today from a helpful chief inspector--Mick Day--of the north-west Surrey police division. He states that he is liasing--he always does so, and very helpfully--with his counterparts at Guildford police station so that we can consider how the local police can deal with those yobs and ensure a speedy police response.

I have already had a response from the British Transport police which makes the same point as the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey--that the British Transport police cannot always be patrolling every mile of railway track. The local police often have the most detailed knowledge of where the most vulnerable points of the track are and where the yobs tend to congregate. In this case, the trouble spot next to the line is well known. It is so well known that Railtrack has fenced in the bridges, but, unfortunately, that does not stop youths standing in open ground beside the line or in one of the gardens in Winchester road in my constituency and regularly lobbing rocks at trains. The problem is serious. My constituents and my councillor, Nick Sutcliffe--he was, unfortunately, a victim of one of those attacks--would be very concerned to hear that the Government are doing something that will be perceived, despite what the Minister says, as downgrading the offence.

I want to return to one or two of the issues concerning the way in which the courts will deal with fixed penalties generally. One of the submissions to Opposition Members came from the chief executive to the Justices for Inner London. As a lawyer, I treat seriously any concerns expressed by those in the court service. The chief executive to the Justices for Inner London refers to the origins of the Bill in the Government's consultation paper. Christine Glenn, the Justices' chief executive quotes from that consultation paper, stating that introduction of the fixed penalty system for anti-social behaviour offences will provide immediacy of punishment in a way that a court appearance at some time in the future does not. That lies behind the Government's proposal. The Justices' chief executive said:

``It is suggested the proposal might achieve exactly the opposite . . . Since the introduction of the Narey reforms''-- she is referring to her own court and it may not be true in all courts--

``anyone charged is in fact brought before a court within a day or two. Under the proposed system the issue of the notice may indeed be swift but payment will be delayed for at least a statutory period and in many if not most cases will not be made at all''-- that refers to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and others made so well—

``at least without further court appearances either in the form of a summons for the offence or a means warrant for non-payment. The issue of compensation is not addressed.''

The chief executive continues:

``The compliance rate taken across the whole range of motoring fixed penalties is certainly fairly high. This may reflect the fact that parking and other minor motoring offences are committed by a very wide section of the public, including those who are (otherwise) entirely law abiding.''

We all know on both sides of the Committee that this is true. The document continues:

``However, compliance rates from non-endorsable fixed penalties are much lower at about 40 per cent. and it is suggested this might be the maximum that could realistically be expected.''

In addition, the justices' chief executive questions

``whether a high rate of compliance can be anticipated from the section of the population likely to be the candidates for the new scheme. Bearing in mind the non-payment rates for court fines we would be surprised if more than 30 per cent. paid immediately.''

I suspect it would be a lot lower than that. My personal estimate would be less than 10 per cent. from my experience in the criminal courts with the kind of people that the chief constable of the area that my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate and I represent, has termed the Guildford warriors. My hon. Friend and other Surrey colleagues were with me when we were shown an absolutely fascinating and rather worrying section of closed-circuit television film. It showed a great deal of drunkenness and violent behaviour, including the kind of criminal damage in Guildford town centre that the Bill might be intended to deal with.

If the Minister had been with us when we saw that film, he would have seen that, even though the police panda car arrived within two or three minutes, to break up the fights and deal with the drunks and the criminal damage, quite serious offences had already been committed. The Governments' proposals might suggest that such offences would merit a fixed penalty issued by a police officer.