Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: Will the Home Secretary now answer his hon. Friend's question? There is no published material. What evidence does the Home Secretary have that the right of peremptory challenge has been abused or has led to wrong decisions, especially when one bears in mind that more than 50 per cent. of acquittals in the Crown court are made on the direction of the judge? Would not the Home Secretary be...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received in the past month from directors of polytechnics about the National Advisory Body's planning exercise for 1987–88. I have received one letter. During the past month I have also visited five polytechnics and my right hon. Friend has also visited one. The National Advisory Body's planning exercise was...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: Will the Leader of the House find time for an early debate on the procedures for investigating alleged disciplinary offences against policemen so that we may have an opportunity to discuss the disgraceful public trial of the deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester and the way in which innuendo and rumour have been gaining currency when he has had no opportunity to defend himself or to...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: Does the Minister accept that the Government's much-publicised introduction of the short, sharp shock at detention centres has been shown by Home Office research to have failed to reduce re-offending among youngsters and to have had no impact on the general level of crime? Does not that failure strengthen the argument for a single generic youth custody sentence, so that even the shortest...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: indicated dissent.
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that we debated the industrial dispute in the prison service while negotiations were being conducted? Would it not now be sensible to have a further debate, so that the House can actually hear about the agreement reached between the Home Secretary and the Prison Officers Association and also about the Government's proposals to reduce the appalling levels...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state for each year since 1978 the number of crimes in England and Wales involving the use of (a) any firearm, (b) a shotgun and (c) a crossbow.
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: Does the Minister accept that both the police and the public are legitimately concerned about the increase in the number of violent crimes in which weapons are used, but that the Police Federation's proposal that life sentences should be imposed for the carrying of firearms rather than, as is now the case, for their use would reduce the incentive for criminals to escape without using them and...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: It has been a long time since I faced the Minister across the Floor of the House, or indeed in Committee, but when I have done I have always found him to be eminently reasonable, sensible, sympathetic and helpful. Together, just before the election, we extensively re-wrote the law relating to child care, and he was then, as he has demonstrated again tonight, always prepared to listen to a...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: I am grateful to the Minister for the sensitive and comprehensive way in which he has dealt with the series of amendments. I do not agree with him in his refusal to accept the suggestion of a common recovery test and to resist the idea that that should be the establishment of the notion of due care and diligence. However, I am grateful for what the Minister said about the amendments and in...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: I beg to move amendment No. 201, in page 57, line 9, at end insert— '(e) housing benefit.'. Amendment No. 201 would apply the new standard criteria for recovering overpayment of benefits from claimants to housing benefit. As the Bill stands, it provides a standard test for recovering the overpayment of contributory benefits, supplementary benefits and family income supplement. However, it...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: I beg to move amendment No. 198, in page 55, line 8, leave out from 'that' to end of line 11 and insert 'any person has failed to use due care and diligence throughout to avoid overpayment of benefit and in consequence of such failure to use due care and diligence'.
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: The first three of these six amendments deal with the criteria that have to be established in the test for recovery of overpayments, and the final three deal with the criteria that have to be proved so that a prosecution for social security fraud can succeed. They are the first of several amendments suggested by the working party on the endorsement of social security offences which was...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: Will the Leader of the House try to be a little more sympathetic to and forthcoming about the request of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for an early debate on unemployment? Would it not be appropriate, on the day on which record unemployment figures have been announced, for the right hon. Gentleman to say that there will be an early opportunity to discuss the increasing and...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the effect of the Budget on unemployment; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: Is it not a disgrace that with more than 4 million people unemployed so little attention was given to job creation in the Budget statement? Does that now show the Government's callous and uncaring nature? I can point to hundreds of people in my constituency and on Merseyside who have lost their jobs since the Budget statement. How many people can the Minister point to who have found jobs?
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: How many?
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: The events of last week caused a great deal of hardship and anxiety to prisoners, who saw a deterioration in the already poor prison regime; to those who were refused access to prisons and had to endure the appalling conditions of police and court cells; to those prisoners who were intimidated, threatened or beaten by other prisoners because of the prison officers' lack of or abdication of...
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk: The right hon. Gentleman is correct. No Opposition Member has ever made that point. The right hon. Gentleman, in answer to my previous interventions on this subject, has given the impression that the sole argument for reducing the prison population rests in some way on channelling the discretion of the judiciary. That is not the case. Those of us who have made the case for a substantial and...
