Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
Philip Dunne fears that the Bill fails to tackle the increase in violent crime and calls for more stringent sentencing for carrying a gun or knife.
The Government also needs to address prison overcrowding and provide better drug rehabilitation facilities.8.39 pm
Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con): I am delighted to be the first Conservative Member to welcome the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Sharma) to the House, and to congratulate him on a very thoughtful maiden speech. As he rightly anticipated, many Members who are in the Chamber this evening and many more outside had an opportunity to visit his constituency not long ago. I was one of them, and I must admit that-not being as familiar with it, and as used to driving around it, as he was as a result of his previous career-I did not always find it quite as easy to make my way around it as he no doubt did during his campaign.
The hon. Gentleman's thoughtful comments about the relationship between this country and the Indian sub-continent were very welcome. I am sure that he will be able to bring that experience to bear in the House in the months, if not years, to come.
I approach this debate having had the privilege of serving on the police service parliamentary scheme, from which I graduated earlier this year. I served with the West Mercia police, which gave me an excellent opportunity to understand the challenges that face our police daily in the area served by the force that covers my constituency. A month after my graduation dinner, they were brought home vividly to me by the tragic, and ultimately fatal, shooting of a West Mercia police constable, Richard Gray. He was shot in the head with a rifle, and fatally wounded, in Shrewsbury. One would not have thought that Shrewsbury was a hotspot for violent gun crime, but I am afraid that that is symptomatic of the problems that have been developing in our society, with gun and knife crime doubling over the last 10 years. I want to put on record my condolences to Mr. Gray's wife and two sons. He was a very brave officer who served with the armed response unit in Shrewsbury, in the Shropshire division.
My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) put the Bill in context. Given the plethora of criminal justice Bills that we have seen over the last 10 years, I regret that yet again we have missed an opportunity in failing to deal with some of the worst aspects of the growing violent crime in our society. The carrying of a gun or a knife should, in my view, be subject to more stringent sentencing. Where other countries have introduced stringent sentencing for the carrying of violent weapons, it has had a significant impact in acting as a deterrent to reduce the badge of honour for carrying guns or knives which is now so prevalent, particularly among the drug gangs that inhabit some of our inner-city areas.
The Boston experience is often mentioned here, but I do not think it has been mentioned yet this evening. It is worth reminding the House that there was a significant increase in the number of young homicides in Boston, on the east coast of the United States, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The community united under the leadership of the local governor and mayor and put together the Boston gun project, which had a remarkable impact in reducing the number of young homicides. I believe that the number of such violent deaths fell by more than 60 per cent. as a result of that operation and the sentencing changes that were introduced, and that the reduction was sustained for several years. It is a great shame that part 8 of the Bill, which deals with the introduction of violent offender orders, does so little to seek to get to grips with the problem.
I want to touch on two other parts of the Bill. Part 4, which covers young offenders and prisons, is, I fear, another missed opportunity. Last month, Stoke Heath young offenders institution near Market Drayton-in the constituency north of mine-erupted into the second major disturbance in 12 months. I visited it in the summer and saw for myself the overcrowding, which has led directly, in my view, to that problem. Over 30 per cent. more young people are incarcerated in Stoke Heath than it was built for. A building programme is under way to provide more places, but that is woefully late. The problem that that causes for the inmates there is that they are unable to spend the amount of time that they are expected to spend, which should be provided, going through the basic education and basic rehabilitation, which will make them better equipped, when they are released, to fit into society and to minimise their prospects of reoffending.
There is a major challenge for all those involved in seeking to rehabilitate our young offenders and, again, that is not addressed in the Bill. The youth community sentencing that is set out in part 1 does not go anywhere near addressing the major challenges. It is a sticking-plaster to try to assist with soft, low-level crime. It does not deal with the harder issues that are caused by increasing drug-related crime.
Drug offences have risen 43 per cent. to almost 195,000 in 2006-07. Of those who enter into custody, some 55 per cent. are established problem drug users. In some prisons, that is up to 80 per cent., but the drug treatment and testing orders have failed to help those individuals to get off drugs and to kick their habit. Eighty per cent. of those who are issued with DTTOs reoffend within two years. What is needed, and what is missing from the Bill, is a serious proposition for this country to provide facilities to rehabilitate drug offenders. That would have far more impact on reducing crime and reoffending than the youth community sentencing in part 1.
Mr. Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con): I totally concur with what my hon. Friend says, but does he share my concern about the ready availability of drugs within the prison system? Does he think that the Government have done enough over the past decade to deal with what is an epidemic?
Mr. Dunne: I am grateful for that perceptive point. I agree that drugs are readily available within the prison population, and the Government seem to have nothing in the Bill to seek to address that problem.
There are rehabilitation formats that work. I have an excellent one in my constituency in Willowdene Farm, which has an exemplary track record in getting people off drugs. Many of them have offended and gone to that place following a prison term. However, the Home Office budget for the drugs intervention programme has been cut 13 per cent. this year. It is currently £149 million. It was over £170 million last year. That is another example of the Government saying that they are going to try to do something, but the controller of the purse strings, our new Prime Minister, cut resources to the Home Office. Consequently, the Home Office is having to make cuts in those programmes. [Interruption.] Does the Minister wish to intervene?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Vernon Coaker) indicated dissent.
Mr. Dunne: Clause 114 is a seemingly innocuous clause about the inspection of police authorities and grants the Audit Commission wide-ranging powers to inspect the performance of police authorities. The present powers are limited to compliance with best value.
That raises a few suspicions in my mind. It was the police authorities that led the resistance, along with a number of hon. Members and a small number of courageous chief constables, to the outrageous proposals to regionalise our police forces last year. I have a nasty feeling that this is the Government's way of getting back at police authorities. It is a classic example of the centralising tendency of this Government to seek to impose from the centre their will on bodies over which they do not at present have complete control. That is another missed opportunity. Instead of seeking to control police authorities in the same way that policing priorities are controlled from Whitehall, the Bill should be looking at a much bolder option-providing genuine local accountability to our police forces by introducing, for example, elected police commissioners. That would give local people a real opportunity to direct police priorities to reflect the problems in their areas.
One of the issues that I have noticed during my parliamentary service has been the degree to which our police are directed by the prevailing urban preoccupations of Whitehall to seek criminals for crimes that do not exist in many rural areas. Local accountability through an elected police commissioner would deal with that centralising problem. That is another opportunity that the Bill has missed.
