| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
4.2 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): I thank the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) for the generosity of his congratulations to myself and my hon. Friends on our appointments. I should like to add, parenthetically,
that I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) for his congratulations, which were conveyed to me privately.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border on the tone of his speech. As one of the world's experts on opposition, having spent all but two weeks of my 18 years in Parliament on the Opposition Benches and having been present on the Front Bench after Labour's catastrophic defeat in 1983, I know that making the first speech on the Loyal Address after such a defeat is not an easy matter and the right hon. Gentleman made his with great dignity and tone.
I want to commence by offering my own tribute to Sir Michael Shersby, who died so suddenly and so tragically just 11 days ago. Sir Michael was loyal both to his party and to his colleagues, but he was also able to talk frankly and freely to hon. Members on the other side of the House. As he and I shared common interests in police and criminal justice issues, I talked with him a great deal. I valued not only his views but his advice. With his family, friends and colleagues, I shall sorely miss him.
This is my first speech in this Session and I am delighted to be making it from this side of the Chamber. I shall shortly give details of the proposals in the Queen's Speech, but first I shall set out our approach in context.
On election day, 1 May, the British people overwhelmingly endorsed the Prime Minister's appeal that, after 18 years of Conservative administration, our nation deserved better. The better society that we want to build is one that fosters and celebrates strong British values: decency, reward for hard work; tolerance and respect for others. It is one in which rights for everyone are matched by responsibilities for all.
The legislation in the Gracious Speech that I shall introduce to the House will set a framework for underpinning those British values; for restoring responsibilities and for better protecting rights. That may sound abstract. But the benefits that should flow will be real and concrete for individuals, for families and for communities throughout the United Kingdom. We want to bring about changes in the way in which people relate to one another by changing people's public behaviour and their sense of responsibility towards one another.
We want to reclaim our towns, cities and villages so that everyone is free to go about their neighbourhood in safety and security.
Some people would deny that any Government can achieve such changes. But the Government have at their disposal more effective levers than are available to any private individual or agency. The Government also have the responsibility--the moral duty--to use the power that they have for the good of all.
Martin Luther King said:
There was then the predictable outcry from our opponents, claiming that free speech and individual liberties were being threatened; but although more needs
to be done, those Acts succeeded in enhancing the rights of black and Asian people in Britain and in encouraging racial tolerance and understanding in our society.
If the cynics are still unconvinced, let me point to the conclusive negative proof of the power of Governments to influence behaviour. Madam Speaker, you may bridle, if you like, at my belief that good government can encourage good behaviour, but let no one doubt that bad government leads to bad behaviour.
For the past 18 years, Britain had a Government who preached the values of self-interest above everything else. It should therefore come as no surprise that some people then chose to ignore their responsibilities to other people. Where there is
For weeks I have nurtured the thought that perhaps that was the purpose in the mind of the former Secretary of State. After all, as has become clear, he and I shared a common goal: we both wished to see the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) out of Downing street.
On Monday 12 May, the results of an international crime victimisation survey were presented at a conference in the Netherlands. That survey gave the lie to the claim by the shadow Home Secretary and of the shadow shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border, that; under the stewardship of the Conservative Government this country had become safer. The survey showed that, by international standards, England and Wales continue to have very high levels of property crime and violent crime. More than one third of people surveyed in England and Wales had been victims of crime in the previous year. That record was worse than that of the United States and beaten only by the Netherlands. Not surprisingly, the survey also showed that people in England and Wales are more anxious than other nationalities about their safety on the streets.
The one comfort to be drawn from this international survey--and a most important one--is that our police forces enjoy internationally high levels of confidence from the public.
Law and order featured high in the list of people's concerns during the election campaign. That is hardly surprising, of course. Crime doubled during the Tory years, while the number of criminals punished actually fell by a third.
What was surprising, however, was that once the election had begun, the Conservative party did not even attempt to engage on the issue and to argue its case. After
some hopeless early skirmishes, including the charge that I was the burglar's friend, the right hon. and learned Gentleman simply gave up and accepted defeat.
The so-called party of law and order held just one press conference on the issue in the five weeks of the election campaign. The Conservative party apparently still suffers from this blindspot. In the debate on the Queen's Speech on 14 May, the Leader of the Opposition did not see fit to mention crime once.
I ask the House to contrast that with our approach--new policies on neighbourhood disorder, on tackling drink-related crime, on major improvements to the youth justice system, on new protection for children under 10, and on reforms of the Crown Prosecution Service. Many aspects of these proposals will be contained in a new crime and disorder Bill which will be introduced to the House later in this session.
I believe that we commanded the confidence of the public because our analysis and prescription chimed with theirs. The public are not fools. They know that crime has causes; that while criminal behaviour can never be excused, social and economic factors such as deprivation and unemployment are bound to create conditions in which people can more easily be tempted into crime.
The public wanted action on the causes of crime--but saw that they were never going to get that from the former Administration. They will however get it from this Government, not least with our welfare to work programme financed by the proceeds of a windfall tax.
The public also desperately wanted firm action against crime and disorder. Instead, the Conservative Government stubbornly pursued a narrow approach. It did not work. Eighteen years ago, the system that we left to the Conservatives was much more effective at nipping offending in the bud. Recorded crime in 1979 was half the level suffered today; but 50 per cent. more offenders were being convicted and the prison population was lower by 20,000.
Our prison population today is 60,000 and rising. Many--indeed most--of those prisoners began their criminal careers as young offenders. The previous Government's failure to tackle youth crime effectively has contributed both to the high levels of crime and to the record prison population which we face today.
Nowhere is the need for action to tackle crime and disorder more pressing than with young offenders. Last November, the Audit Commission pronounced a telling verdict on the previous Administration's record on juvenile crime. In a major report, the commission said this:
We will take measures in the crime and disorder Bill to tackle these delays. We will also be taking early action in advance of legislation to encourage all agencies in the youth justice system to deal with cases more speedily. By speeding juvenile justice, we aim to ensure that young offenders are made to see the clear link between crime and punishment, and to face up to the consequences of their offending for their victims and for themselves.
The repeat offending of some youngsters wrecks their own lives and the lives of those whom they victimise. From the outset, it must be made clear to young people that they will not get away with offending. The response to youth crime must be rapid, consistent and effective.
The right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border mentioned the Narey report and suggested that we should take proper account of it. He was right to do so. I recognised, when the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe presented the outcome of the report to the House in February, that the report had many recommendations of which any Administration should take account in the most serious way. Based on the experience of the previous Government, this Government would welcome any constructive views about the methods that we intend to pursue in order to achieve what I gather from the right hon. Gentleman has now become a common goal.
"Morality cannot be legislated, but behaviour can be regulated.
Laws can help to shape more tolerant values and a better society. We need only consider the Race Relations Acts, introduced by two previous Labour Governments and passed by the House in the 1960s and 1970s.
Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless."
"no such thing as society",
there can be no shared standards of behaviour. Where there is a steady erosion of community, of shared values, links between individuals collapse and people become fearful and distrustful of others. It's "Get what you can, don't worry about anyone else"--the instincts of those who commit crime.
Crime is the ultimate selfish act. It results from the breakdown of rules and from an evasion of responsibility for other people. That, I suggest, was why, every time that the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe opened his mouth during the general election campaign, the British people were powerfully reminded of the Conservatives' culpability for the high levels of crime and disorder that they had suffered in the previous 18 years. That was why his hysterical claim that I was the "burglar's friend" helped persuade floating voters in their droves to vote for Labour candidates.
"Overall, less is done now than 10 years ago to address offending by young people."
By contrast with that record of indolence and inactivity, our new Prime Minister has made action against youth crime one of the Government's top five priorities. He has pledged that we will cut by one half the time taken to process persistent young offenders from arrest to sentence. At present, it takes on average four and a half months for a young criminal to be punished for his or her crime, and often much longer for persistent offenders. Young offenders are given the impression that they can offend repeatedly without punishment. Far from nipping bad behaviour in the bud, the present youth justice system perversely reinforces much bad behaviour.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |