Sentencing

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I will deal with both those points. Last week, the Justice Front-Bench team were asked how many of these foreign prisoners they had deported during the 12 months that they had been in power, and the answer was—quote of quotes—“about 60”. As to the end-of-custody licence, on four occasions between 1979 and 1997, the previous Conservative Government released prisoners early—without the checks and balances that we had, whereby no serious or violent offenders were let out on our watch.

How to balance these different purposes of sentencing is in the judges’ discretion, and plea bargaining is also a key part of our sentencing system. Part of plea bargaining is when an offender’s sentence is reduced on submission of a guilty plea. This is an aspect of our sentencing system that has evolved over many decades, becoming more formalised in recent years.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman brings up the matter of credits for those who plead guilty and he is right to say that it used to be at the judges’ discretion—until it was made mandatory by the previous Government. The discount of a third, which is given now, is one created by his Government, not by judicial discretion.

[Sadiq Khan]

I will come on to deal with that point in a moment, but the first part of what the hon. Gentleman said is factually wrong.

Successive Governments have sought to codify the amount of discount one gets off a sentence for pleading guilty, and the first real attempt at codification came with section 48 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. This introduced a requirement for the court to take account of a guilty plea. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) may have been alluding to section 144 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which included statutory provision on reductions in sentences for guilty pleas; the Sentencing Council sought to provide structure and judicial direction in this matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

The hon. Gentleman will have a fourth chance to intervene in a while.

[Ben Gummer]

rose—

[Sadiq Khan]

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Ben Gummer]

May I help the right hon. Gentleman? I do not like to disagree with my colleagues, but he did make a submission on the Government’s proposals. At the end of last year he was asked by The Guardian whether he agreed with anything the Justice Secretary had said on criminal justice, and his answer was no.

[Sadiq Khan]

I am happy to set out a timeline of when I have and when I have not agreed with the Lord Chancellor. He and I often comment on the fact that we agree on many issues, but I have said all along that I disagree with this particular proposal. I will discuss the timelines shortly, however.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

I think that the Opposition Front-Bench team do their Back Benchers a great disservice; we have heard some interesting and thoughtful contributions, especially from the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth). Once again, however, we have seen the Opposition Front-Bench team jumping on the bandwagon of the week. Three weeks ago it was Sure Start and the Opposition showed their commitment to that in the Opposition day debate with only four or five Members present, yet there were dozens on the Government Benches. Last week, we had the Opposition day debate on the health service, at which the car crash unfolded because Labour Members were unable to attack the proposals effectively. Now, today, we see an attack on Government proposals that were published in the autumn of last year, which had been supported in large part by the Leader of the Opposition and his Front-Bench team. Yet they have just discovered now that they find some truck with some elements of it. This shameless and shameful opportunism would be extraordinary in any other group of people, were it not for the fact that this Opposition have shown themselves to be experts in turning opportunism into a low art.

At the end of last year, the Opposition spokesman said:

“I am not going to say Ken Clarke is being soft on crime… because he is asking the right questions about rehabilitation rates”.

What of the speech of the Leader of the Opposition to the Labour party conference just minutes after he had been made the new leader? He said that

“when Ken Clarke says we need to look at short sentences in prison because of high re-offending rates, I’m not going to say he’s soft on crime… This new generation must find a new way of conducting politics.”

What a new way of conducting politics—to agree to radical and brave proposals by my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary and come here and attack them the minute the bandwagon is passing. The Opposition are so misguided because for the first time in a generation a Government have been brave enough to make difficult proposals that will help victims in the long run.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I am interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s forthright views on opportunism. He was not a Member before the last election, but his party, including his leader, were very good at opportunism at that time. Has he tested any of these ideas on the electorate of Ipswich?

[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.