Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between David Burrowes and Alun Michael

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

This Bill is a shambles and so is the Lord Chancellor’s approach to crime. Far from being a significant reforming measure, it is an incoherent fragment. The Opposition admire the panache of the Lord Chancellor, who is a much-loved and robust performer and who has sought to rise above the U-turns forced on him by a Prime Minister who is more interested in headlines than in reform, but it does not wash.

The Justice Secretary should take particular note of the criticism from his Back Benchers and the significant criticism from the Chair of the Justice Committee. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) kindly said that he thought that the baby was not totally being thrown out with the bathwater, but I am not sure about that and I am certainly worried about the health of the baby.

When the Secretary of State was Home Secretary, he presided over a crime wave. He also offended virtually every profession in sight, especially the police, by the cavalier way in which he fulfilled his duties. This Bill is a shambles, his strategy is in tatters and everyone is in confusion. The main problem is that he has such a piecemeal approach to the issue. The Justice Committee’s report, “Cutting crime: the case for justice reinvestment”, states:

“A piecemeal approach to justice reinvestment is unlikely to work and a holistic approach to reform is necessary, with a very clear and explicit statement of the purpose of the whole system against which organisational aims can be tested to assess their contribution to cutting the extent and seriousness of offending and re-offending.”

This Bill fails that test.

In that report, we also called for better use of resources and a focus by every part of the criminal justice system on cutting offending, because that is what victims want. We keep being told that the views of victims are important, but more than not to have become a victim in the first place, they want to know that they will not become a victim again in the future. Therefore, the purpose of the criminal justice system—and of sentencing—is to ensure that victims are protected from further offending.

Let us cut to the chase—cutting the number of people in prison may save money, but cutting prison numbers to save money is to approach the problem from the wrong end. There is only one acceptable reason for cutting prison numbers, and that is that offending and reoffending have fallen; fewer people are becoming victims; there are fewer offenders who need to be incarcerated; and our streets and homes are safer.

It is a matter of some pride to me that the number of places in young offender institutions has been cut for precisely those reasons. As a result of the work of the Youth Justice Board and the youth offending teams, fewer individuals are reoffending and so fewer places are needed. That reduction in numbers leads to immediate savings, but it is even more significant given that time in custody often acts as a training course in criminal activity for young people. So the long-term benefit of keeping people out of youth offending and preventing reoffending patterns is enormous. That makes it very odd that the Secretary of State will do away with the Youth Justice Board and I urge him to reconsider. I know that he is taking many activities inside the Ministry of Justice—and I am glad that he is encouraging the continuation of those activities and the youth offending teams—but he is taking in people who, as part of an independent body, have acted as the touchstone for success in that aspect of reducing reoffending.

[Mr Burrowes]

The right hon. Gentleman obviously has great experience and was no doubt the architect of the first such legislation in 1997. He will be interested to know that reoffending rates were very high over the 13 years to 2010, and that is something for which the previous Government should be held accountable. Does he not welcome the fact that in this Bill there is now provision for supervision of prisoners who have a sentence of less than 12 months? That has never happened in the past. Giving supervision to offenders after they are released will no doubt help to reduce reoffending levels.

[Alun Michael]

I have said for a long time that we should do more to ensure that short sentences work and that they do not accelerate offending. In this legislation, there are things to be welcomed, but the big picture is not bright enough for us to welcome the Bill as a whole.

Yesterday, in answer to my question, the Justice Secretary said:

“The Sentencing Council is already under a duty to provide information about the effectiveness of sentencing practice”.—[Official Report, 28 June 2011; Vol. 530, c. 738.]

Unless there is a clear focus on reducing reoffending and ensuring that that is understood by sentencers, the Bill will not be effective. That is why I call on the Justice Secretary to change his approach and put a real focus on the work of the Sentencing Council not just to provide information about the effectiveness of sentencing practice but to ensure that sentencing practice is driven in ways in which it can increase the success of the system.

The work of the Youth Justice Board and the youth offending teams shows what can be done if there is a clear and unremitting focus on cutting offending and reoffending. Why not use a new mechanism to focus on the 18 to 25 age group? We are seeing a reduction in the numbers of 18 to 25-year-olds who are reoffending because of the success of intervention with young offenders. Why not learn that lesson and apply it properly to that reduced cohort so that we can further drive down the numbers who reoffend?

The Justice Secretary has admitted that the criminal justice system is fragmented; it does not work as a single system. A series of agencies operate to their own objectives and are held to account for different purposes. Bring it all together. Make it coherent. Let us have some coherent legislation from the Justice Secretary. The criminal justice system should pay attention to the Select Committee’s recommendations on justice reinvestment. The whole of the system should focus on reducing reoffending.

Victims want to feel that they are less likely to be offended against in the future. The Home Affairs Committee heard evidence from people who had been involved in restorative justice and it found that it actually works. When offenders are faced with their offending, they are less likely to reoffend. They are made to engage in relationships, which they have often failed to do in the past and which may have led them into offending in the first place. They do not see the victim as another person.

Although it is essential that we do something about what has been described as relational justice, there is nothing about it in the legislation. Too often, it is low down the agenda. The possibility is there but we are not driving it through the system and getting the benefits. I appeal to the Secretary of State to push relational justice up his agenda.

I also appeal to the Secretary of State to work with the Home Secretary to derive greater success from crime reduction partnerships, which again have been important, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said in his contribution a few moments ago. We have been successful in reducing crime, but we can go further and go faster if the right mechanisms are used. In this regard, I commend the violence reduction project in Cardiff, which, since I last referred to it in this Chamber, has been endorsed by the World Health Organisation and is the subject of an article in The British Medical Journal. Such acclaim shows that the approach in Cardiff has worked. It has driven down violent crime by 25% more than the cohort of cities with which it can properly be compared. The project works; it reduces offences and protects people from becoming victims. That is what needs to be put at the centre of our criminal justice system.

I regret that we have a Home Secretary who has failed to defend her budget and is imposing cuts on the police that are too deep, too soon and disgracefully front-loaded, and a Secretary of State for Justice who, by his failure to apply clarity and logic to the challenge of justice reinvestment and effectiveness in cutting crime, is doomed to fail. Sadly, it is the victims and not he who will pay the penalty for that.