Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I declare an interest as a legal aid practitioner for nearly 20 years and a recorder of a Crown court. I am one of those damned lawyers, I am afraid to say, and I apologise for that at the beginning of my speech.

I was particularly struck by the measured and reasonable contribution of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). I have great respect for the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), whose parents live in my constituency, and her contribution was excellent. If only the debate about legal aid and sentencing was heard in those tones throughout the House and in the media.

Twenty years ago, criminal justice and sentencing was not a matter for great and low party politics; it was a matter for measured discussion. There were occasional criminal justice Acts, to tidy up a system that was perhaps at times not keeping pace with the changes in our society, but then something got into the DNA of the body politic and things took a turn for the worse. Egged on by the populist press, politicians from both sides of the House got into an arms race about being tough on crime, as opposed to being soft.

Where are we now, 20 years later? We have ended up being just plain stupid on the subject—stupid in the amount of legislation that we have passed; stupid in the language that we have used about crime and criminality; and stupid and vain to claim that politicians’ actions in the House can have a significant effect on crime rates in this country. We know the real reasons why crime rises and falls; they are economic, familial and social. They relate to a range of issues that are best dealt with by means of crime prevention and social policy.

Opposition Members should take my speech in its intended spirit—that of cross-party co-operation. I invite them to make constructive proposals about what to do with our broken system. If they had got into power, they would have had to deal with the system.

[Alun Michael]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Buckland]

No; I am afraid that I will not take interventions, as there is no time. I say that with great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, who has much experience in these matters. I am sure that he will forgive me, but there is a lot that I need to say. This is my first opportunity in 20 years to speak about criminal justice legislation from this side of the fence. I have been one of the people dealing with the reality of the impact of year after year of incontinence in legislation.

Court staff, practitioners and judges have all had to deal with the baleful consequences of the avalanche of work that ill-judged reform, sponsored by, among others, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who had the brass neck to come to the House today and tell us that, under his guidance, all was well with the world. He would not allow me to intervene on him. Had I done so—I am grateful that he is here—I would have reminded him about sentences of indeterminate length for public protection and the chaos that that system caused the Government. They were warned by the Court of Appeal that the system that they had introduced was in danger of being untenable.

As a result, the Government passed an Act in 2008 to amend the system, but it was still a bad system, because it was not transparent to the victims. When victims of crime went to court and heard about sentences of indeterminate length for public protection, they did not know what that meant; they did not know when the perpetrator of the crime against them was to be released. They did not understand the system. That was a failure of transparency. It was the single most important failure of the regime, which is why I will be glad after the review to see the back of the system and to see clear, long, determinate sentences with automatic release after two thirds of time is served. We have been here before; that was the system that existed before the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Sentences of longer than four years attracted automatic release after two thirds of the time was served. The merry-go-round has come around again.

Opposition Members say that the Bill is imperfect. That is inevitable, because it must undo years of damage inflicted by their party. The Bill is not finished business; I accept that. It would be good to have a consolidation Act to bring sentencing provisions under one umbrella. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Blackburn for doing so in 2000 with an excellent measure, but within two years it was all upended again by some brave new policy initiative designed to assuage the populist press. It is time to end the charade in the debate on criminal justice. It is time to start talking clever rather than tough. It is time to change the ambit of the debate. The Bill gives us an opportunity to do so, which is why I will support it on Second Reading.