Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Morris]

Whatever the statistics, the essence of the point is that the threat of and culture created by judicial review has had a distinct impact. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, in my previous life as chief executive of Localis, the local government think-tank, I spoke to many local authority leaders and chief executives about the way the judicial review culture that now surrounds local authorities was impacting on their decision making. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst pointed out, it has created to some degree a culture of risk-aversion in local authorities. A bureaucratic layer has been added to the taking of often very important decisions that have big impacts on local communities, resulting in long delays. One example is the politically controversial decisions taken on the potential closure of care homes in many different local authorities. The impact of the threat of judicial review is now being perceived as part of the decision-making process, and that has had a detrimental impact on the quality of some community services.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

As someone who served on a local authority for six years, I have to say that I do not recognise the picture the hon. Gentleman is painting. Does he not agree that the risk of judicial review can lead to thorough, considered, well thought-out decision making and does not necessarily result in a slowing down of and delay to the process?

[James Morris]

Nobody is arguing that there is not an important balance to be struck, taking into account, as others have pointed out, the importance of democratic accountability for decisions taken. Nobody is arguing that judicial review has no role to play in this context, but there is a strong argument to be made about where the culture that has developed is leading. I speak regularly to local authority chief executives, and it is having a very detrimental impact on local authorities’ ability to make long-term decisions.

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[Sir Edward Garnier]

I broadly agree with what the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, but equally I have agreed with much of what other people have said. The short response to the problem that we have set ourselves is that we simply do not know the answer, and we are struggling to find it by passing legislation of one sort or another. Despite the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), I am not at all convinced that the new clause provides us with the answer in discouraging youngsters from carrying knives; he concentrated mostly—in fact, entirely—on knives.

I am not persuaded either that the default position, as possibly indicated by the hon. Member for Islington North, is that a community sentence is the right answer. There will be cases where it is imperative that the offender should be sent to prison, and for a very long time, but by and large that will be when the knife has been carried in order to commit a crime that is then carried out. The Stephen Lawrence case ended up with murder. Other cases have ended up with crimes such as those under section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Serious offences are committed by knife carriers, but they tend to be convicted and sentenced for the greater crime that they go on to commit with the knife.

As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North argued his case with huge enthusiasm. I suppose it is possible to be enthusiastically right. I also suppose that it is equally possible to be enthusiastically mistaken, and it may be possible to be enthusiastically wrong. Perhaps we need to be a little more understanding of the absence of certainty in what we are advocating or proposing.

My hon. Friend said that one in four offenders had not received a custodial sentence for possessing a knife. Of course, we do not know—he did not know—what had led those people to be brought to justice and convicted. He was not able to tell me what the facts of the case were, what the profile of the defendant was, what the mitigations were, or the surrounding circumstances that led the court to give a long custodial sentence. Until we know those things, we really cannot make an intelligent assessment of whether it is appropriate to give somebody a minimum sentence of six months if he is over 18 or four months’ detention and training if he is between 16 and 18.

I am also concerned that new clauses 6 and 7 concentrate not only on knives or “bladed articles”, but on “offensive weapons”, so a whole new swathe or category of offenders would be caught and possibly subjected to minimum sentences, removing the discretion of the judge to deal with the case based on the facts. A judge in a given case may well think it appropriate to give someone carrying an offensive weapon for the second time a custodial sentence, possibly for much longer than six months. There is a let-out, however, in the mandatory sentencing arrangements passed over the past decade or so; under new clause 6, new section (2B) would allow the mandatory sentence not to be passed if there are circumstances that

“relate to the offence or to the offender, and…would make it unjust to do so in all the circumstances.”

We simply do not know how that is going to bite on this particular set of offences.

I understand that the Government Front Benchers will abstain on the new clause. If it is accepted, I urge the Government to be cautious and take into account my view that most of the difficulties involving the possession of knives are caused not by those over the age of 18, or even by those between the ages of 16 and 18—although some are—but by much younger teenagers, who are not caught by the new clause. Had my hon. Friends addressed that point, I might have had a little more sympathy with what they are no doubt genuinely trying to achieve. However, what we have here is neither fish nor fowl.

I urge the Government not to be swept up by the enthusiasm of some of my well motivated hon. Friends. If we are to pass legislation and amend the criminal justice provisions that deal with the possession of an offensive weapon or a bladed article, a lot more thought needs to go into it before it hits the statute book.

[Heidi Alexander]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). I share some of his concerns, but not all of them, and I have arrived at a slightly different conclusion. He is right to say that there is a degree of uncertainty, but one of the things we need to consider when deciding how to vote on the new clause is the message it sends not just to those who may be caught up in knife crime, but to the victims of knife crime and their families.

Like the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), I represent a London constituency and I know how our communities are scarred by the use of knives. Many of my constituents live with loss as a result of knife crime. The House needs to demonstrate how seriously we take the issue with regard to not just sentencing, but, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) said, all Government action to address the problem. That means preventive work as well as work at the other end of the process.

I have been a Member of Parliament for the past four years, and I have been struck when the Prime Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box on a Wednesday to talk about the fallen soldiers who have given their lives in conflicts. During those four years, I have met the families of a number of young men who have lost their lives thanks to knife crime. I do not necessarily make a comparison between the circumstances involved, but I think it is important for me to read out the names of the young men in my constituency who have been killed as a result of knives. In March 2012, Kwame Ofosu-Asare was stabbed to death in Brixton. In August 2012, Nathaniel Brown was stabbed to death in Downham. In September 2012, Kevin Ssali was stabbed as he got off a bus in my constituency. Those are the names just of my constituents; sadly, many other young people in London have lost their lives as a result of knives.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I want to support and amplify what the hon. Lady is saying. The families of people who have lost sons serving in uniform abroad at least have the great satisfaction of knowing that their boy—or their girl—has died in the service of their country, but the families of someone knifed on the streets of Lewisham or any other London borough have no such satisfaction or support for their grief. I totally support her intention in making such an analogy.

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[Heidi Alexander]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. People sometimes assume that those killed as a result of knife crime are themselves involved in gang culture, but that is not always the case. It is very important to put on the record that innocent lives can be taken away by the use of knives.

It is important for the House to be clear that carrying knives and committing offences with them is completely and utterly unacceptable. New clauses 6 and 7 may help us do that. Although they do not in any way represent a complete solution, we owe it to those who have lost their lives and their families to treat the issue with the seriousness that it deserves.

The hon. Member for Cambridge suggested that there is somehow a choice between being tough in sentencing and spending money to prevent people from getting caught up in gang culture and the use of knives. That is a false choice—we need to do both.

I recognise that the issue is very difficult. I have met young people in my constituency who tell me that they carry a knife to make them feel safe, while some have heard stories of young people being asked to carry a knife for somebody else. There is some logic to the argument that some people who end up committing crimes with knives are victims in some ways, as well as perpetrators. Young people in my constituency are concerned about their safety. I may feel safe when I walk the streets in Lewisham, but when I have gone to meet children in our schools—they do excellent work with some of the community groups set up to tackle this problem—it has been brought home to me that there is a real issue, and that we need to find a way to take knives off our streets.

Some young people carry knives because they think that it is glamorous, but the vast majority of young people in Lewisham do not carry knives. If young people know that the second time they are caught carrying a knife they will face a mandatory custodial sentence, that will be an important lesson. I recognise, however, that some discretion still exists for judges to consider exceptional circumstances.

I am interested in what happens to an individual when they receive a mandatory custodial sentence and go to prison for committing their second knife-related offence. I am reminded of the comments of my constituent, Barry Mizen, the father of a young man murdered on the streets of Lewisham—not as the result of a knife, but through a wholly different set of circumstances. When he talks about how we should tackle violence on our streets, the question of rehabilitation and what happens to people when they go to prison, he says something very powerful: “I’m less interested in how long someone goes to prison for than in what comes out at the end.”

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[Jeremy Wright]

As the hon. Lady will understand, I will not have a chance to sum up this debate, so I will respond now, if she will forgive me. I hope that she will look carefully at our “Transforming Rehabilitation” proposals. Part and parcel of those proposals is that young and older people should have support that starts before they leave custody and sees them through the prison gate and out into the community. Many people who receive sentences for the knife crime offences that she is describing have custodial sentences of less than 12 months. As she will appreciate, no licence or rehabilitation automatically applies to such sentences at the moment. We have already changed that and the “Transforming Rehabilitation” proposals will support that.

[Heidi Alexander]

I am grateful to the Minister for those remarks. However, most people would still agree that the level of reoffending in our society is too high. I am pleased that the Government are taking those positive steps, but I know that he will agree that there is still much more to do.

To conclude, this is a difficult issue but, on balance, I believe that the new clauses tabled by the hon. Member for Enfield North should be supported in the Division Lobby this evening. I will certainly support them.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I confess that I had intended to make only a short intervention today. However, having listened to the debate, I feel that it is better to make a longer contribution—although it will still be short, if that makes sense.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) for the work that he has done. I fully back the new clauses that he has tabled.

During the general election campaign, I was contacted by a constituent, a lady called Lorraine Fraser, with whom I have worked over the past four years. Her story is really quite harrowing. She had a 16-year-old son called Tyrone. One day, she was alerted to a problem outside the house. Sadly, she discovered that her son was being attacked by a gang of 30 youths. One of them was carrying a knife and stabbed him fatally. At the age of 16, he lost his life. In Lorraine’s own words, Tyrone was not always the best of boys, but he was always a considerate young man. It is really sad that he lost his life on that tragic day.

What has struck me is that, in the face of such a horrific experience, Tyrone’s mother has gone on to campaign tirelessly to do something about knife crime so that there is not another case like Tyrone’s somewhere else in the country. One thing that she has always asked of me and of Parliament is that we get a bit tougher in our rhetoric and our work on knife crime. I believe that new clause 6 is badly needed. I have seen some of Lorraine’s campaigning work, and I have been with her in schools when she talks to young people, telling them about the dangers of carrying a knife. Sometimes the answers she gets back from those young people are shocking.

I stand here today not in support of a newspaper or as a knee-jerk reaction, but because some of those young people will say that they want to carry a knife to defend themselves, and they know there will be no consequence of that because too often people get away with it. Lorraine is constantly battling the system, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister who has worked tirelessly with her. She is extremely grateful for the support he has given.

It was recently 10 years since Tyrone was killed, and Lorraine held a service in a church in the centre of Leeds. People from across the city—certain areas in particular—came along to remember members of their families who have lost their lives. To sit in that church and listen to people talk about their fathers, sons, brothers and nephews was a difficult experience. One young boy spoke about his father. He did not really know him because he had been murdered thanks to gang crime. The boy pleaded with the Government to do something. He said that people in their community were doing their bit to try to get across the message about the dangers of carrying a knife, working with young people and engaging with them in the schools, but he wanted the Government to do something about knife crime. I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North is providing us with an opportunity to do that.

Even today on the news I saw a former gang member saying that for too long the Government have been too soft on this issue, and we need to come up with some serious consequences to stop the temptation to carry knives. I do not believe that people do not listen to the messages that come from this place; I think they get the message that the consequences are too soft, and we must send a much clearer message. Carrying a knife can totally destroy not only the life of the person who carries it, but the life of a young person such as Tyrone, and the lives of family members, as I have seen with Lorraine. For her sake, and for the sake of others around the country, I will be supporting the new clause.