Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Angela Smith

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

T7. In the aftermath of the riots that so rocked the country last month, what lessons does the Justice Secretary think can be learned about the need to respond swiftly to public outrage at the actions of a lawless minority, balanced with the need to deliver justice?

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

We obviously have to study the events closely, looking for any lessons we can learn from recent experience. More and more facts will come to light, upon which we can base firm conclusions. The question that the hon. Lady raises about the rapidity of the response in the early days to the first threats to public order and to citizens is not primarily for my Department, but I know that the Home Office is taking it extremely seriously. It is easy with hindsight to criticise operational decisions. What is important is looking to see how we can improve the response in the future.

Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Angela Smith

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for welcoming our moves on prisoners’ earnings and their use to support victims. I agree that we have too litigious a society, and we should not have a legal aid system that just contributes to it. Our legal aid reforms are much overdue and will get us back to looking at more sensible ways of upholding the rights of citizens and enabling them to settle their disputes.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Will not this U-turn on sentencing mean that some of the long-term savings planned by the Ministry of Justice will no longer be achievable? If that is the case, which other parts of the justice budget will be cut to compensate?

[Mr Clarke]

Roughly, the spending reductions we are making are from £9 billion a year to £7 billion a year. The discount for early guilty pleas was meant to contribute about £100 million of that. The move away from indeterminate sentences to a more sensible determinate sentence-based system will in the long run save quite a lot of money, because at the moment thousands of people are in prison and no one has the first idea when or if they will ever get out. Of course we have to readdress the issue, now that we have consulted; we have now settled the financial position with the Chief Secretary and will look for more efficiencies and savings. I am quite confident that we will find them, because so far we are making very good progress in making considerable reductions in the bloated expenditure that we inherited.