Civil Service Fast Stream

Debate between Baroness Hussein-Ece and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords—

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Hussein-Ece and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Monday 21st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to all the speeches and I must say I find the arguments on both sides very powerful—some very powerful, convincing arguments have been put forward. It is a great pity and does a disservice to this House that an artificial division is being created on such an important matter merely because the Liberal Democrats want to have a conscious decoupling from the Conservatives in the run-up to the general election.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, was not going to take part but the previous contribution was not worthy. This is a very serious subject. I am the mother of a son who was mugged when he was a teenager. He came to the brink when he felt so scared that he wanted to carry a knife but luckily he did not—not to my knowledge, anyway. Young people, particularly young men, are more likely to be victims of crime and we need to have faith in the judicial system—as we have heard from noble and learned Lords this afternoon. We need to allow judges to take and judge each matter on its merits, case by case, and must not dictate from this Chamber and from Parliament.

We heard earlier from the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, about the issue of black youth. The argument was—with respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, whom I respect enormously—that they are disproportionately affected as they tend to be stopped and searched more. That means that others who may be carrying knives are unlikely to be stopped. That is a discrepancy that needs to be taken into account.

The idea that a 14 or 15 year-old boy who feels scared and vulnerable because he may not be in one gang or another but feels the need, however wrong it is—of course it is wrong, but there is no rationality here—to go out with a knife should then have his life ruined as a result of making one mistake is not something that we should support. We should leave it to the courts. We should be listening a little more to young people, which I do not think we are, about which things work and which do not. At a time when knife crime is falling I cannot for the life of me see why we should want to impose this mandatory obligation on the courts.