Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Andrew Griffiths

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to increase prison tariffs for people sentenced for carrying knives.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

Sentencing guidelines provide that the starting point for an adult convicted of knife possession is a custodial sentence. Where immediate custody is given, the average sentence length increased between June 2010 and June 2011. We are creating new offences so that those who carry a knife in a public place or school, and go on to threaten and cause immediate risk of serious physical harm to another, can expect to face at least a minimum custodial sentence.

[Andrew Griffiths]

Constituents in Burton will applaud the statements just made about sentences for the type of crime that is covered today on the front page of the Burton Mail, in which a young man was frogmarched to a cash point and forced to hand over money at knifepoint. They want to see that kind of tough sentencing as a deterrent. Will the Secretary of State back the Burton Mail campaign to make Burton a knife-free zone and to prevent these kinds of activities happening again?

[Mr Clarke]

If the newspaper report is accurate, then whoever carried out that crime committed quite a number of criminal offences, most of which carry very serious penalties, so I hope that the local courts deal with it with appropriate seriousness, having obviously considered all the circumstances. We are sending out, we hope, a strong message that we will not tolerate the use of knives. Threatening with a knife and putting someone in fear of injury is a very serious matter. I wish my hon. Friend every success in working with his constituents to try to reduce the scourge of knife crime in Burton.

Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Andrew Griffiths

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

A lot of that lies within the province of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. Many people in the health service realise that the key way to proceed is to settle claims and pay up promptly when someone has obviously made a mistake, while fighting resolutely cases brought by people who are acting speculatively. Many cases could be resolved by better complaints procedures or by attempts to discuss the matter. One of the things we are exploring is the early exchange of reports so that both sides know exactly what expert evidence is available to them and do not hold their own evidence back, because that paves the way to a resolution of the claim. I am sure that everyone in the NHS is as anxious as my hon. Friend and I are to see some progress on this. Perhaps making legal aid less available in this area will stop some people being quite so litigious and make them a little more constructive about how to sort out a proper remedy.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend’s statements about knife crime will be welcomed by my constituent, Yvonne Upton, who has been campaigning since she lost her son, Connor, to somebody who chose to carry a knife on a night out.

As regards drugs in prison, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that under the previous Government too many prisoners were on long-term methadone prescriptions and parked in state-induced dependency, and that getting those prisoners drug free with an abstinence programme is key to proper reform?

[Mr Clarke]

There are people with better clinical expertise on drug rehabilitation than I, but I share my hon. Friend’s instincts. We are seeking to make proper drug rehabilitation programmes work. There is obviously a danger that it sometimes becomes easier to maintain people on methadone, and that is going nowhere in some cases. I am sure that methadone has a place in all this, because people with more knowledge than I have insist that it does, but we are looking for proper rehabilitation wherever possible, with the aim of abstinence and making the person drug free.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Andrew Griffiths

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

6. What estimate he has made of the number of prisoners in England and Wales addicted to class A drugs.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

We estimate that on average, 55% of all people entering prison have a serious drug problem, but we are unable to give a robust and precise estimate of the number of prisoners who are addicted to class A drugs. A recent study reviewed 1,457 newly sentenced prisoners from 49 prisons. It showed that 62% of prisoners reported some drug use, and 41% of the sample reported heroin, cocaine powder or crack cocaine use during the four-week period prior to the study.

[Andrew Griffiths]

The Secretary of State will know that more than 60,000 prisoners received methadone or another drug intervention in our prisons last year alone. Almost 24,000 of them received a regular methadone prescription. Does he agree that that state-induced dependency must end?

[Mr Clarke]

rose—

[Andrew Griffiths]

And will he urgently bring forward proposals to tackle the problem?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is testing the knee muscles of his right hon. and learned Friend.