Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I declare some interests: I work with the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group, as I mentioned in my intervention on the Minister for Crime and Policing, and I recently spoke at the POA conference in Eastbourne. In recent weeks, I have spoken in debates about the need for a national policing strategy for anti-social behaviour and for off-road bikes, and about repeat offenders and sentencing.
I did not intervene on the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), but he said that the Conservative party is leading the way. I have served in this House for several years now, and I well remember that in 2011, the then Justice Secretary—who had held many high offices of state, including Chancellor of the Exchequer and Health Secretary, and now serves in the other place as Baron Clarke of Nottingham—proposed a similar solution, although in those days it was called a non-custodial sentence rather than community payback. The prison population was 85,000 then, but because of criticism from his own side, the then Justice Secretary had to back down. I well recall his statement, when the then Speaker remonstrated with him about the length of his answers; I said in his defence that I thought that that was a terribly unfair criticism because the Justice Secretary had already indicated that he was against shorter sentences. [Laughter.] Thank you.
I highlighted the difficulties experienced in our prison system and the lack of rehabilitation in a recent debate, to which the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), responded. The hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter), who is no longer in his place, spoke very well in that debate and was very constructive.
There are concerns among people who work in the system. I agree with the Minister for Crime and Policing that for community payback to be effective, it must be a team effort, but there are issues in our prison system with lack of rehabilitation and with the unsafe working environment for those in the Prison Service—not just prison officers, but prison educators and others. There is a serious threat to life and threat of injury for prison officers, whose service and commitment to public safety often go unnoticed behind the prison walls.
It is my intention to continue to raise the frustrations of police officers about pensions, particularly for new recruits. They have seen the number of their colleagues cut over the past year; there are fewer experienced police officers, and they are struggling to contain rising crime and antisocial behaviour. I know Ministers will say that we are recruiting extra officers, but we lost 20,000. We are running to catch up with where we were in 2010. I have the utmost admiration for the police officers who seek to ensure that our streets are safe, but many are new recruits. We have lost experience, as we have in probation and many other areas, and it will take many years to get that experience back.
Yesterday, we saw criminal barristers on strike, walking out of courts. Let me say for the record that as a Labour MP and as a lifelong trade unionist, I will always stand up for working people in their fight to protect their pay, pensions and terms and conditions, whether they are barristers, rail workers or postmen and women.
After 12 years of Conservative Government, there are frequent and systemic failures across our whole criminal justice system. Only yesterday, I had to raise a complaint about a constituent who has twice been unable to report crimes via the 101 service, owing to extended delays in answering calls. Today we are looking at community payback, but we will never even get to that point if the public cannot report crime. The hon. Member for South Suffolk may recall that I highlighted a particular case in last week’s Westminster Hall debate and subsequently wrote to him about it; he asked me not to raise it individually at the time because it was still ongoing.
On the surface, crime figures may appear to be declining in particular areas, but in the case that I pointed out, many in the community, including the victims, considered the sentence overly lenient. They have lost confidence in the system and are less likely to report crimes; in fact, the individual affected has said that under no circumstances will he ever go through it all again, because he does not feel that justice has been served. There are not enough police officers to attend incidents in a timely manner, and criminals are not being convicted because of court delays and backlogs. Sadly, the Government are refusing to take responsibility, but the decision to close 164 out of 320 magistrates courts since 2010 is clearly not helping the backlog.
The Government are undermining the quality and quantity of community sentences. In 2019, the chief inspector of probation found that because of the Government’s “Transforming Rehabilitation” reforms, which split probation provision into the public sector National Probation Service and privately owned community rehabilitation companies, probation services are
“failing to meet all performance targets…In too many cases, there is not enough purposeful activity…The probation profession has been diminished…There is now a national shortage of probation professionals”.
The chief inspector noted that there is too much reliance on unqualified or agency staff, and that
“in the day-to-day work of probation professionals, there has been a notable drift away from the evidence base”.
I think the Government acknowledge that privatising probation was an error, because they renationalised it, but these issues prevail. The courts are less inclined to give community sentences. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) mentioned the reduction in the number of such sentences. Indeed, there has been a 46% decrease in England and Wales over the past 10 years, and a 25% fall in the four years between 2017 and 2020 alone in my region, the north-east. A decline in community sentences may indicate a more hard-line approach, given the increase in the use of custodial sentences. However, the prison population is lower today than it was in 2010. I do understand that during the pandemic there was less crime, and I think that the prison population fell by about 6% during that period, but what we have now are fewer police officers, fewer courts, and fewer community and custodial sentences.
The Conservative party often tries to portray itself as the party of law and order, but the statistics and the experience on the streets suggest that it is more the party of crime and disorder. Recently—and quite regularly—the Government have said, “Well, what would you do?” It is easy to throw stones and criticise.
Kit Malthouse
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that while different types of crime can fall in different ways, some serious volume crimes are, according to the Office for National Statistics, well down on where they were three years ago. Burglary is down, robbery is down, theft is down, and admissions to hospital with a knifepoint injury are well down. There are areas of concentration, to which we have given significant priority and resources, which are now significantly down across the country. That is British crime survey data, not data for reported crime.
Grahame Morris
I acknowledge the Minister’s intervention. My concern, which I raised earlier in my speech and also last week, is the number of people who, because of a lack of confidence in the criminal justice system, are simply not reporting crimes—not necessarily the very serious crimes involving physical assault but crimes that we might classify as minor, including antisocial behaviour.
Kit Malthouse
As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, we use two methods to measure crime. There is recorded crime, as he says, which is sometimes affected by sentiment, but the more accurate measure—the one that is generally used—is the British crime survey, which contains data that is not impacted by the kind of sentiment to which he is alluding, and that data shows that these important crime types are significantly down.
Grahame Morris
I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention. However, let me return to the frequent criticism of Labour for not being definitive enough in proposing alternatives. Let us be no doubt about this: Labour is not soft on crime. Through new community and victim payback orders, we would make offenders pay back to the communities they have harmed. I think that that is an excellent idea, and I hope there is a basis for us to move forward together, given that Labour has a solid policy that commands support in the community.
Labour would set up police hubs—indeed, we have an embryonic police hub in Horden, in my constituency—in our towns and larger villages, and would put more police back on the streets. That would give residents direct access to a way of sharing their concerns about their community. We all know that the most effective policing is intelligence-led, and features close co-operation with a community who can often identify those who are involved in crime. Finally, Labour would create new neighbourhood prevention teams, which would bring together police, community support officers, youth workers—that is very important—and council staff to tackle the causes of the antisocial behaviour that is blighting so many communities.
The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary know that the cuts of the past 12 years were wrong, and I welcome the U-turn at the 2019 election, when it was proposed that 20,000 police officers be rehired, but the public should remember that they were, in the main, present for, and voted for, each and every cut to our criminal justice system over the past 12 years. When it comes to community payback and rehabilitation—although I believe in the concept—the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary are repeat offenders. It will take many generations for the criminal justice system to recover from the wanton attacks and mismanagement of this Government.
While we can restore numbers relatively easily, the decades of experience that we have lost among skilled professionals—in the police and the probation service, and among prison officers—are not so easily recovered. Even following the recruitment drive to which the Minister referred, there are still nearly 24,000 fewer police staff today than there were in 2010, and over 6,000 fewer special constables. That is 30,000 fewer people seeking to prevent crime and catch offenders. Moreover, the closure of so many magistrates courts means that we have halved the court capacity to process offenders who are caught and charged.
The probation service recently launched a recruitment drive—the Minister mentioned this—to attract 500 extra community payback staff. The question I want to ask is this: how does the Minister expect to attract people to these important roles, given that retention, let alone recruitment, is struggling? The probation union Napo tells me of issues involving staff feeling unsafe at work—that may be partly due to concerns about covid—frustrations over stagnant pay and a lack of progression in jobs, and, overwhelmingly, covid-induced backlogs that are still clogging up the system.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
When people talk about crime, all too often the focus is on the crime itself and not the impact on victims and communities. Drug dealing leaves people scared to go out of their homes, knives are taking away young people’s lives, and rapes are going unconvicted, leaving victims feeling they have nowhere left to turn and completely powerless. Under this Conservative Government, rape is effectively legalised, and when they had the chance to toughen up the laws and actually get on with the job of governing, their perverse priorities meant that a statue was better protected than me or any of my constituents. Any of the meaningless figures reeled off by Ministers do nothing to redress the years of cuts to policing in our communities.
James Cartlidge
The hon. Lady just said that rape has been legalised under this Government. That is a shameful thing to say. Whatever differences we have about the detail of waiting times and so on, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) made it clear earlier that we are all working hard on this matter. I ask the hon. Lady to retract what she has just said.
Sarah Owen
I will not be retracting that. I said “effectively” legalised. When only 1.6% of reported rape cases are prosecuted, the crime is effectively legalised. It is a shameful statistic for a Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)
Let me start by saying how grateful I am to all those who have contributed to this important debate today. In particular, I join the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), who has just spoken, and all my colleagues who have paid tribute to the brilliant work of those in the probation service. They have put in a hell of a shift through the pandemic. They have delivered exemplary service since then, and we all know the value they add in our communities and the key role they play in the criminal justice system. In particular, I thank them for the role they have played in helping us to achieve a situation whereby the proportion of offenders released from custody who reoffended within 12 months of release fell from 51.5% in 2010 to 42.2% in 2020. That is a significant improvement through reducing the reoffending rate.
The key point is that we have heard from the Opposition that they are now the party that is tough on crime, but as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime and Policing said at the beginning of the debate, we have to judge politicians by what they do, rather than what they say. Opposition Members cannot run away from the fact that they voted against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which recently received Royal Assent.
Let us just remind ourselves of the measures in that Act that the Opposition voted against, which include doubling the maximum penalty for assaulting an emergency worker; mandatory life sentences for unlawful act manslaughter of an emergency worker in the line of duty; a starting point of a whole-life tariff for premeditated child murder; increasing from 14 years to life the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving; increasing from 14 years to life the maximum sentence for causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs; and, among many other measures, abolishing automatic halfway release for serious, violent and sexual offenders. That is what is being tough on crime. Voting against that measure is being weak on crime.
Several hon. Members rose—
Grahame Morris
I thank the Minister for giving way. He is absolutely right about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which comes into force today, but the problem we had was that it was take it or leave it. We had to take the whole thing or reject the whole thing. Can I ask the Minister whether it is a good use of taxpayers’ money and police resources when more than a dozen of the Metropolitan police and several vehicles were involved in the arrest of Steven Bray under the terms of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act for using a loudhailer outside Parliament? I think it is outrageous.
James Cartlidge
These are operational matters for the police, who are independent of Government. The point I am making is that the Opposition could have chosen to support those many measures. If we look at those measures as a whole, they send a signal that this party is tough on crime. The Opposition voting against them sends a wholly different message.
James Cartlidge
I will take one more intervention, from the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown).
James Cartlidge
I am pleased to confirm to the hon. Lady, because it comes back to the speech of the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), who said that we were somehow legalising rape, that the average sentence for adult rape in this country was around 10 years in 2021. I can confirm that that amount has increased by 15% since 2010—not decreased; increased. Those are very tough sentences for what is a very serious crime. I think that when we speak in this House, we should send a message that deters people from carrying out these horrific crimes, instead of sending messages that somehow people are going to get away with it. That does not help anyone. It does not help my daughter and it does not help anyone in this House or any one of our constituents.
Turning to the contributions in this important debate, the hon. Member for West Ham made a very good point about the impact of community payback on women. She talked particularly about the effects of alcohol and drugs. When we talk about community sentencing, the rehabilitative part is important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) mentioned. As the hon. Lady knows, we are piloting residential women’s centres, and we announced in May that the first one will open in Swansea. I hope that she will support that.
James Cartlidge
I am glad to hear that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) speaks with great expertise. He made the important point that the motion criticises us for what happened to unpaid work, but it ignores the reality of the pandemic. He also made the crucial point that the Opposition would have kept us in lockdown for longer. Last December, they wanted us to have a lockdown because of omicron, but we resisted, which was the right thing to do for the country. If they had done that, it would have taken even longer for us to deal with the backlog in the courts, the backlog of unpaid work and everything else.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for being persistent on the subject of persistent offenders. He had a Westminster Hall debate on it last week, to which I enjoyed responding. As a constituency MP, he continually raises the case that he has written to me about—I promise that I will respond to him—and he is a champion of his constituents. We obviously disagree on some of the matters that he raised, but he is right to pay tribute to prison officers. We certainly cherish the huge role they play and appreciate all their efforts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) was typically robust and forthright in telling it like it is. He said that prisoners should go to work, and in the spirit of that point, I say that it is crucial to ensure that there is every chance for people to get a job when they leave prison. That is why I am proud to confirm that the number of persons released from custody who were employed six months after release is up by 66%. That is testament to the strength of the economy and to the Government’s commitment to reducing reoffending.
The hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), who is no longer in her place, made a very good speech. She made an important point that the evidence shows that, in many ways, if someone has a short prison sentence, it has less of an impact on reducing reoffending than community sentences can have. Hon. Members on both sides of the House agree with that, and it is certainly what the evidence suggests.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) made some good points. He encouraged his constituents to get involved in schemes and nominate where work can happen. If there is a problem with fly-tipping in a constituency, people should go to their parish councils, which should in turn go to the police and crime commissioner and say, “What about getting some of that unpaid work resource into our constituency?” He also made an excellent point about alcohol and the increasing use of sobriety tags; all hon. Members on both sides of the House surely know the impact of alcohol on crime. The Minister for Crime and Policing is committed to making more of that.
The Government have a clear plan to increase the number of community payback hours delivered via robust outdoor placements. We have made significant investments to bolster staffing levels and we continue to strengthen our engagement and collaboration with key local stakeholders to ensure that placements visibly improve the communities in which they are served. In that way, as the most timeless common law principle says, justice can be seen to be done.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes that the number of community sentences handed down fell by one quarter in the last three years; further notes that completed hours of unpaid work carried out by offenders has fallen by three quarters in the last three years; notes with concern that despite the end of lockdown restrictions in 2021, the number of offenders permitted to complete unpaid work from home has continued to rise; and calls on the Government to create community and victim payback boards to place communities and victims in control of the type of community projects that offenders complete to restore public faith in community payback.
Sarah Owen
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I ask the Minister to correct the record. He inadvertently misled the House by saying that I had said that rape is legal. That is clearly not the case. I find it particularly distasteful that the Minister is seeking to put responsibility for prosecuting rapists on a woman Opposition MP. I offer him the chance to correct that at the Dispatch Box, if not in Hansard.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. Obviously, it is not for the Chair to interpret what Ministers or other Members may say. She has put her concern on the record and the Minister will have heard it, so I suggest that we move on, unless the Minister wishes to say something.