Constitution and Home Affairs

Alun Michael Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I give way first to the right hon. Member for Blackburn.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That is a problem, and that is exactly why the acceleration of the individual voter registration system must be done in a way that successfully addresses that problem, rather than exacerbates it.

The right hon. Gentleman and all his colleagues basically have a choice about the issue of a referendum on the alternative vote and the linked issue of a boundary review. Either he tries to see the issue—slightly neurotically—through the prism of pure party interest, whereby all he wants to do is to adopt a defensive position to protect his own party’s arithmetical standing in this House, or he and his colleagues should in my view be prepared to engage with the serious issue at hand, which is that constituencies are unequal, the weight of people’s votes is unequal and that that is simply not an acceptable position at a time when we have this great opportunity to renew our democracy from top to toe. That is a choice that he should make.

On everything from this matter to the 55% threshold, I would say two things. First, it is a political choice for Labour Members as to whether they want to leap straight from government, having failed to move on all these things, to outright oppositionism driven by the slightly paranoid sense that everything is targeted at them and no one else, or engage seriously in what I believe is a promising moment in our political history to reform things, and reform things for good.

[Alun Michael]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will take one more intervention, and then make some progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Michael]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the basic democratic right is the right to vote and that nobody can exercise that right without being registered to vote? Therefore, dealing with the 3.5 million or so individuals who are not registered to vote is not just something that comes after the sort of changes that he is seeking—it needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Urgency? The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues had 13 years to do this. How often are they going constantly to ask us to do things urgently when we have had only three weeks and they had 13 years? Of course we need to find the 3.5 million people who are not on the register, alongside the progress towards individual voter registration, but I say this to him: please do not sit there all high and mighty and pretend that we are somehow responsible for a problem that he and his colleagues in government created over the past decade.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given the limited time, I will concentrate on crime reduction, the work of the police and community cohesion.

The slaughter in Cumbria last week showed how difficult it is to anticipate and prevent every event, but so far politicians of every hue have wisely resisted the temptation to produce instant solutions or demand legislation. The only instant comment that I have seen was a suggestion about merging police forces. I hope that Ministers in the new Government will treat that favourite Whitehall recipe with deep suspicion. The previous Conservative police Minister, whom I shadowed in the mid-1990s, was David Maclean and he resisted an over-centralised approach. I commend his approach to the new Ministers present. The larger the force, the more remote its leaders from the community that they police. Although there is tension between dealing with terrorism and major incidents and policing local communities, good management and co-operation are the answer rather than structural change.

We had a good example of that in Cardiff on Saturday. The bigots of the English Defence League came to our city to spread hatred and division. The police had to handle them and those of us who marched to oppose them. They had to do that on a day when the South Africans were playing Wales at rugby, the West Indians were in town for a cricket match and the Stereophonics were performing in concert. Hundreds of police were ready for problems and I commend all the forces who sent officers to help South Wales police maintain order. I also commend the good sense and good humour with which South Wales police managed the day. In the end, a couple of dozen English Defence League members came and went, while 1,000 people of all colours and religions marched under the banner of Unite Against Fascism in a quiet, peaceful demonstration that had real authority and truly reflected Cardiff’s nature as a multiracial city that is determined to maintain harmony. We want to celebrate difference and value each other’s strengths instead of looking for division. The police lead showed that they get that point.

My second home truth from Cardiff is the success of our violence reduction project. It is not led by police or politicians, but by a medic, Professor Jonathan Shepherd, an A and E specialist, who brought his skills as a scientist to an analysis of violence. Basically, he asked why the number and seriousness of injuries in car accidents were decreasing while injuries from violence were increasing. Over more than a decade, painstaking analysis has revealed a lot about violence in our city—things about which we thought we knew, but did not. Joint work by the NHS, the police and other agencies through the local crime reduction partnership has worked—measured not by police statistics or arrests, but by a drop of more than 40% in the number of victims coming to A and E for treatment. That is a real drop.

We need such a scientific approach to crime and policing, and I commend to Ministers the report on justice reinvestment that was published by the Select Committee on Justice a few months ago. Good work is being done by the police, Crown prosecutors and prison officers, but our report showed the need for better co-ordination and greater co-operation across agencies, both inside and outside the criminal justice system.

Too great a focus on agency priorities and targets blurs the clarity of purpose to which all parts of the criminal justice system ought to contribute. In particular, the Sentencing Guidelines Council needs clearly to focus on the extent and gravity of reoffending. I hope that Ministers in the new Government will require great clarity of purpose from that body, which is dominated by judges. I am not sure that that is a good thing, because as Victim Support told the Committee very clearly in its evidence, other than not to have been victims in the first place, victims want confidence that they will not become victims again in future. That must be our purpose in this House.

I am proud to have played a part in drawing up the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. That measure made life hard for the bad guys and avoided burdening the good guys with bureaucracy, and it has worked, so I commend to Ministers the idea of extending its remit beyond agriculture and food packaging to industries such as construction and catering. The temptation for Ministers—and indeed for Members of Parliament—is to legislate when we see a problem, but that is not always the right answer. The challenge is to design legislation that works. As Gibbon warns in “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, laws rarely prevent what they forbid.

I urge Ministers to heed that warning in relation to the growing issue of internet-related crime. There is a consensus that teamwork is the answer, with the Government working with industry, MPs of all parties and civil society to design out internet-related crime. The United Kingdom has led the world on internet governance. If that term puts people off, may I point out that the governance of banks seemed boring and esoteric before everything went pear-shaped? Governance matters. A partnership approach is vital, because the internet is so fast-changing, chameleon-like and universal that traditional legislative approaches will not work. There is not the time.

Let us promote a co-operative approach to internet safety as well as to the more mundane aspects of criminal activity in our local communities. What counts is what works—what counts is what reduces crime and the number of people who are made victims. The partnership approach works, and I commend it to Ministers and the House as the right approach.