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Mr. Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West): Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mr. Straw: I am trying to wind up my speech, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not.
I hope very much, given what the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald has said, that she will be able--of course, she will want to see the text--to support the measures that we are introducing. I hope that, in doing so, she does not take the same view--I regret to say--as the shadow Chancellor. On "Newsnight", he was asked, with regard to the Government's policy on race relations in the Queen's Speech:
Three other measures form part of the Gracious Speech. The Government will reintroduce the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill following the opposition to it in the other place in the previous Session. We are prepared to use the Parliament Act to ensure that the clear will of the House is established.
Through the prevention of terrorism Bill, we intend to deliver modern, permanent, UK-wide legislation which is effective and proportionate to the threat that the United Kingdom faces, and may face, from all forms of terrorism. It will ensure that individual rights are protected and it will be consistent with our international commitments.I am pleased to say, especially to my hon. Friends, that it meets two long-standing Labour party commitments: it will end altogether the powers in respect of exclusion of individuals within the United Kingdom and it will introduce a judicial element into extensions of detention.
The regulation of investigatory powers Bill will put into effect proposals in the consultation paper that we published in June. The Bill will continue strictly to limit the occasions on which communications can be intercepted.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey):
We can without doubt agree that those of us who will be looking after home affairs matters in the coming year will have plenty to do. Whatever criticisms Liberal Democrat Members may make of the Home Secretary, we cannot criticise him for his success in obtaining about a third of the time in the Government programme for Home Office Bills and related Bills from the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-General. I anticipate that my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) will at some stage in the year be as busy as I will, trying to keep up with the breadth of Home Office legislation.
There is no doubt outside the House that the public are greatly concerned about the matters before the House today. I propose to concentrate on Home Office matters and related Bills, and I shall seek to be as brief as possible. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) will have the opportunity to deal with the education matters that arise in the Queen's Speech and in the amendment in the name of Opposition Members including the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman on education.
The public rightfully want us to have law and order in our society. All parties fought the previous election on manifestos that contained significant proposals on crime, policing and prisons and for improving justice in the courts. We all devoted attention to drugs, which are a major contributory factor to crime and disadvantage. We all addressed the difficult questions of terrorism and how to deal with the large threats to our society.
The question arising from the Queen's speech and before the House is whether the Government are getting right the balance between strengthening the law and increasing the order, and defending the right of citizens who, in every case in which they are affected, are in a minority when confronted with the panoply of the powers of the state. Our charge against the Government is that, in a range of ways, they have stepped the wrong side of that line.
Parliament's job, particularly in a country where there is no written constitution and where Parliament must therefore be the defender of individual liberty, is to ensure, as much as any Opposition party can, that proposed legislation that trespasses on individual rights is altered before it completes its passage through both Houses. In the interests of creating a country that is at peace with itself, in which there is maximum harmony, lawfulness and liberty and maximum resistance to any
infringement of such liberty which the Government might propose, and where there is minimum crime and disorder, that is what we shall do.
It is popular with the Prime Minister and the Government these days to talk of governing in the interests of the many and not the few. I remind everyone that, on many occasions, in all our lives, we may be the few and not the many. The Government's job is to look after the few just as much as they do the many, in whatever walk of life. A minority of our citizens are immigrants, asylum seekers, black or Asian, children, lesbian or gay, mentally ill or disordered, or old. We are all minorities sometimes. The House's job is to ensure that the rights of minorities, as well as the interests of the majority, are defended.
One of the reasons why my colleagues are clear about the priority of the social justice agenda--as was our new leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) when he spoke last week--is that, without greater equality, there cannot be greater liberty. Without the opportunity to enjoy proper housing, work and good health, the exercise of civil liberty becomes little more than theoretical.
Let me refer to the attack that the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) and her hon. Friends have mounted in their amendment. As the right hon. Lady knows, I agree with her on some things, and we and Conservatives Members will work together where we think that the Government are wrong.
Miss Widdecombe:
How often will that be?
Mr. Hughes:
We await clarification of some grey areas before we can answer that question, but on some matters, the right hon. Lady has made her position clear, and on some of them we and she--I hope--will work together, along with Labour Back Benchers who agree with us.
Just as we have seen outside the House this week a new attempt to whitewash figures from the Tory party's past, we are today witnessing a Tory party that wants to airbrush out the facts from its past. I shall not embark on a litany of the kind that the Home Secretary had prepared, but it is difficult for the Tory party to argue that their record on home affairs, on law and order and on crime and convictions is easy to defend.
From 1979 to 1997, recorded crime rose hugely, reaching its all-time peak in 1992. Between 1979 and 1996, convictions fell. One defendant was found guilty for every eight crimes in 1985, but for every 14 crimes in 1997. An extra 1,000 and an extra 5,000 police officers were promised in 1992 and 1995 respectively, but when the Conservatives left office, the number of police--as compared with 1992--had fallen. An Audit Commission report in 1996 said that the youth justice system was less effective than it had been 10 years previously.
Those figures do not take into account the litany of events that the Home Secretary, the Liberal Democrats and others could cite: the Derek Lewis affair; the hundreds of prisoners who were released by mistake--a fact to which the Home Secretary referred; the shackling of pregnant women prisoners; and the administrative chaos in the immigration and nationality directorate. Indeed, as Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned
Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was in and out of court more often than anyone I have ever represented or seen in my constituency.
Miss Widdecombe:
What about the current Home Secretary?
Mr. Hughes:
The right hon. Gentleman has only been in office for two and a half years and has admitted that his term has not been guilt free, but his record of court appearances so far is considerably less than that of his predecessor, who seemed to be more often in court or represented in court than in the House. As for party funding, it is difficult for the Tories to argue that the way in which some members of their party funded themselves individually, let alone the way in which the party funded itself collectively, is anything of which they can be proud or that the House would want to be repeated.
"Do you think they've gone a bit too far in this case . . . ?"
He replied:
"I think people listening to this will think that this has very little to do with the concerns that they have . . . this is a Queen's Speech which is full of legislation which does so little to address what people are really concerned with."
I do not accept that. Legislating on race relations is profoundly important, and I hope that the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald will talk to her right hon. Friend.
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