Sentencing

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Although I am speaking in favour of this Opposition day motion, I think it is the height of hypocrisy for the Labour party to lead the charge on crime, given that it presided over the automatic release of people halfway through their sentences, which created many unnecessary victims of crime. As we have heard from my hon. Friends today, the Labour party released 18 days early almost 80,000 prisoners who between them went on to carry out an additional 1,512 offences, including three murders, rapes and assaults, while they should have still been in prison. One convict, originally jailed for battering a woman to death, was released, only to lure a 10-year-old boy back to a flat, where he threatened to slash his throat with a craft knife before raping him. That is not what I call being tough on crime, despite what the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) would like us to believe.

I would like to clarify that, no doubt contrary to popular opinion, as a Government Member I do not particularly enjoy voting in favour of Opposition day motions. However, the Justice Secretary’s recent proposals are simply unacceptable to the majority of my constituents and the British public as a whole.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I can assure my hon. Friend that they are also unacceptable to the people of Brigg and Goole. Is not the record of the previous Government which he described exactly why we entered the election promising tougher sentences, to end the early release scheme and to be more honest with the public about our plans?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right. It is astonishing that some of our hon. Friends, who were happy to enter the election promising to send more criminals to prison, and to put in place longer sentences and honesty in sentences, are now advocating sending fewer people to prison for a shorter time. I did not tell that to my constituents when I stood in the election.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Gummer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. Although there are many things on which I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who spoke previously, I differ on this issue. At the last election, I was very plain with people when they spoke about prison reform. The hon. Gentleman might know that I have had a long-running interest in the subject. I told people in Ipswich what I am about to explain to him now—that our current penal system does victims a disservice.

It is not a difficult equation to understand, although I know the Opposition do not understand problems in this way. It was the same with the hospital debate. Instead of looking at how to improve cancer survival rates, they look at the structures of GP fundholding. In this instance, they look not at how to improve the experience of victims or how to bring down crime, but at how many people we are sentencing and for how long. They are looking at processes and inputs rather than results. If we turn that on its head and look at the victim rather than the criminal, as we have been asked to do, we might find a different way out.

We want to do something for victims, of whom there are too many. We wish to cut crime. We know that the majority of crime is committed by people who have already offended once or many times previously. What do we do about it? Do we try to increase reoffending rates or do we try to reduce them? It is the experience of Members of all parties that the prison, probation and the community service system are failing on every single account to encourage rehabilitation and to cut the number of victims.

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend for his brave speech. No victim of crime in Brigg and Goole has ever written to me to say that they wished the people who had committed crimes against them had served shorter sentences. On this issue, he seems to be separating out the idea of prison from rehabilitation, but is it not possible to have both prison and rehabilitation by conducting rehabilitation in prison?

[Ben Gummer]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, as he will find out if he listens a little further. I am a great proponent of tougher prison sentences, of making them longer for certain crimes and of taking away the televisions and the PlayStations in favour of making prisoners do hard work during the day, learn a skill and work towards being creative members of society on coming out of prison.

The problem with the case of Labour Members, some of whom have made an alliance with some of the more extreme Conservative Members [Hon. Members: “Name them.”] No, they know who they are! It is an interesting alliance. [Interruption.] Just wait and they will be proposing flogging next. What Labour Members do not understand is that for short custodial sentences, we are seeing increasing rates of reoffending, which means only more victims. That is not to say that we should be putting people on pansy community sentencing; we should not, because many of those sentences do not work. Why can we not follow the example of the Germans, who have a prison population of 72,000 people in an overall population of 80 million; or of France, whose prison population is 60,000 in an overall population equivalent to our own? In both jurisdictions, crime is lower because their community rehabilitation systems are stronger, especially for short-term custodial sentences.

We have heard from Members representing constituencies in the north-east and the north-west, where more than two thirds of court cases crack before their end either through the incompetence of the Crown Prosecution Service or because of the guilty plea being made either mid way through or at the end of the trial. None of that does anything to help victims, which is important, and on top of that it commits millions of pounds that could be spent on picking up criminals, putting them in court, convicting them and keeping them in prison if they are a danger to the public.

Let me finish with another point about criminals. The victims commissioner, Louise Casey, said of these cracked trials that they increase “anxiety among victims” and cause great fear among witnesses at the “prospect of giving evidence”. Why cannot Opposition Members congratulate the Justice Secretary on bringing proposals to the House that will reduce anxiety among victims and help to improve the prospects of bringing people to justice rather than just jump once again on to a passing media bandwagon? I am afraid that they also show once again that in the absence of their own policy, the Opposition have nothing to offer this country—not even an apology for their grievous mistakes over the past 13 years.