Joint Enterprise (Significant Contribution) Bill

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Florence Eshalomi

2nd reading
Friday 2nd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Looking at the make-up of the imprisoned youth population as well as the adult estate, we find a wholly disproportionate number of people who are on the autism spectrum or other spectrums, because of the complications of their lives. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) correctly pointed out, a wholly disproportionate number of young black people are taken into custody and get prison sentences as a result of the law of joint enterprise.

I think everyone accepts that there is a problem here, and the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside offers a way to take this issue forward so that we can reform the law to ensure that each person who receives a sentence is convicted because there is evidence against them as an individual, not because of an association that they happen to have with somebody who has committed a crime. If someone lives in an inner-city area, they are likely to spend a lot of time with a lot of people, some of whom commit crimes and some of whom are criminals. It does not mean that everybody else is a criminal. We almost get into a mood of collective attack on young people because of their association with people who have done bad things, so this Bill is an important step forward.

I understand what the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) was saying, and he made a very interesting and important contribution. There has to be some clarification of the law. I understand that the Minister will express some reservations about this Bill. However, I hope the Government will encourage the Bill to progress today, so that they can go into discussion with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside on the way we can take this issue forward. This is a parliamentary opportunity to right a wrong—that is what we are here for, and it is what Friday debates are all about. It is also about coming to listen to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), and I am grateful to him for his 30-minute speech—sometimes they are longer.

It has been a very effective debate, and I hope the Minister will understand that those of us who support this Bill do so out of a genuine concern to ensure there is a proper and effective system of justice in which people can have confidence. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central, I made the point that it is too easy to get prosecutions by using the joint enterprise law. It should never be easy to get a prosecution; it should be effective to get a prosecution against somebody who has committed a crime.

[Florence Eshalomi]

A few weeks ago, I spoke in a debate on knife crime. Getting prosecutions before the courts is an issue that we have all raised in this House and that our constituents have gone through with us. It beggars belief that victims who are grieving and have lost close family members are trying to get their cases before the courts, yet we are seeing people being convicted just because of where they are, the music they have listened to, who their boyfriends were or who they knew. This is totally unacceptable.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. Like her, I represent a constituency where, sadly, we do experience knife crime and death by knife crime. I always visit the families that are victims of knife crime to try to share their pain at what is a horrific experience.

I ask the Minister to recognise the importance of the issue and the burden of the argument that has been put forward by those of us who strongly support this Bill. I hope he will be prepared to have discussions with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside and the promoters of the Bill to see whether it is necessary to table any amendments in Committee. I do not want to hear warm words that, at some indeterminate point in the indefinite future, there will be a proposal coming forward to deal with what we all acknowledge to be a wrong. We have been down too many cul-de-sacs before, and this is an opportunity. Let us take the opportunity to right a wrong in our criminal justice system.