Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that one example of the “blameless victims”—the language in the legislation—who will no longer be eligible for any compensation.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman began by referring to basic principles. Surely it is a basic principle that ideally it should be the offender who pays compensation to the victim, not the state? I am looking forward with some interest to the saving suggestions that he mentioned.

[Sadiq Khan]

There are many words that I would use to describe the former Justice Minister, but “ignorant” is not one of them. He will know that people are eligible for this compensation only if the offender cannot pay the compensation because he has not been found or has no insurance. I will come to that point shortly, and the hon. Gentleman will be able to rectify the error in what he has just said.

The compensation cut will cover injuries such as significant facial scarring, punctured lungs, permanent brain injuries affecting balance and fractured joints that lead to continual significant disability. Those are not minor scrapes, as the Government Front Bench would have us think—far from it. Some 60% of the victims of the 7/7 attacks who received compensation would be subject to these reductions. Only 9% of them would have their compensation protected under these plans. Government Members know this. Indeed, at the delegated legislation Committee that initially discussed the changes, the right hon. Member for Wokingham, who deserves credit for being part of the Cabinet that put this scheme on a statutory footing, said:

“I have never been shy about saying that I would like us as a Government to spend less overall, but I have never once thought that it had to be done by cutting something so sensitive or giving a worse deal to the disabled, the poor or the most vulnerable. I hope that the Government will think again.”

He also said:

“I want Members to understand that the last place I would look for savings would be benefits and payments to the vulnerable, injured and incapacitated—indeed, I would not look there at all. If anything, we should be more generous. I did not come into Parliament to see those things cut.”—[Official Report, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 10 September 2012; c. 19-22.]

To be fair to the right hon. Gentleman, I should say that he also suggested where savings could be made in the administrative costs of the scheme—as one would expect from him.

What about the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray)? She said that

“rowing back on compensation for postal workers seems strange”.—[Official Report, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 10 September 2012; c. 5.]

If the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) will forgive me, I will not read his entire speech, but, with his permission and the indulgence of House, I will read two paragraphs:

“The aspect of the greatest concern to me is dog attacks, certainly upon postal workers but particularly upon children. I will mention just one case, which relates to a Labour councillor in my constituency, Councillor Dilwar Ali—the hon. Member for Llanelli probably knows him, as he is very active in Welsh political circles. His young son was the victim of an horrific dog attack that has been the subject of widespread press and television attention. Reconstructive surgery was needed on this poor young child’s face. The person in charge of the dog did not set the dog on the child but failed to exercise any sort of control over it, and he was subsequently sent to prison. He will therefore not be in a position”—

the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) may want to listen to this—

“to be sued in the civil courts. Criminal injuries compensation is the only resource available to that child. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I do not want to be asked to vote today in favour of a change that says to that child, ‘From now on, because of the difficulties of the deficit, you’re not going to get any compensation.’”

The hon. Member for Cardiff North went on to say to his Front Bench:

“I have the greatest respect for my hon. Friend, and I congratulate her on her appointment, but she has just assumed the post and this is an inheritance—some would say a hospital pass—from her predecessors in the Department. I ask her and the Secretary of State to reconsider the proposal and examine the points made in this debate.”—[Official Report, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 10 September 2012; c. 19.]

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[Sadiq Khan]

To be fair to the Government, I will assume that this is an unintended consequence of their obsession with cutting budgets without considering the consequences of legislation on blameless victims. We will hear shortly from the Minister, who will have to respond to my hon. Friend’s important example. We all have examples from our own constituencies of where blameless victims will suffer as a consequence.

Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs were also told in the letter that the scheme was financially unsustainable, but the Government’s own figures in their impact assessment do not back that up. The average cost of the scheme over the past four years has been £192 million—this out of a departmental budget of more than £8 billion. We also hear that the scheme is too generous and that the taxpayer can no longer afford it. Well, the tariff payments were not generous in 1996, when they were first introduced, and there has only been one 10% increase in the intervening 16 years, even though inflation has reached almost 50%. It is also worth remembering that, in 2010, 79% of all compensation paid out was for awards below £5,000. Nor is it right to accuse the scheme of being poorly policed. In 2009-10, only 57% of applicants received any compensation. Ineligible applicants are weeded out.

The Government also claim that the scheme is not needed, because people can get compensation elsewhere —we heard that said by the former Justice Minister—but that is also wrong. The scheme only makes awards to those who cannot receive compensation from any other source—for instance, if no assailant has been apprehended or claims on insurance are not possible. Also, we should not believe the propaganda claim—I am not sure whether you received the letter, Mr Deputy Speaker—that the scheme is collapsing under the weight of ever-growing numbers of applications. The data are clear: over the past 10 years, the number of eligible applications has remained broadly stable, at about 38,000 to 39,000 a year. Nor is it right when Ministers claim that this is about refocusing resources on the most serious injuries. There is no refocusing. This is a plain and simple cut.

[Mr Blunt]

The right hon. Gentleman’s speech is devoid of context—the £750 million of debt associated with the scheme, the three-year backlog of payments and insufficient money to fund it. That context would have been helpful, but I am sure that the Minister will provide it. At the end of the process, however, the Government and offenders will be spending more money on victims of crime than when we started. That is the right place to be. More money will be being spent on victims at the end of this process. The right hon. Gentleman needs to put the scheme in the wider context of the Government’s victims policy.

[Sadiq Khan]

I can understand why the hon. Gentleman is so emotional about his legacy, which I will come to shortly. More money will not go to victims as a consequence of the Government’s plans. More money will be wasted on commissioning services for victims around the country, but more money will not go to victims.

The £50 million cut arising from the draft scheme is not being added to compensation for the most serious injuries. Not a single award is increasing. Even the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron)—the president of the Liberal Democrats, who is not in his place—who sat on the most recent Delegated Legislation Committee, repeated the myth. He is wrong. He said:

“Many of us feel that it is fair to redistribute money within the pot to the victims of crime with the most serious injuries,”

so that most of it goes to those

“who have suffered the most incapacitating injuries with the longest lasting impact.”—[Official Report, Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee, 1 November 2012; c. 19.]

That is another example of somebody being misled by the myths from the Front Bench.

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[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The speech we just heard from the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) in many ways mirrored the shadow Secretary of State’s rather narrow speech and failed to look at the context in which the Government have had to assess the scheme. As I was the junior Minister responsible at the time, I can explain the problems we were presented with. The scheme was £750 million in debt and it was taking years to get people paid properly.

The right hon. Member for Oxford East referred to some of the payments that have been made to address the backlog. Those payments could be made because other savings were found in the Ministry of Justice, under the excellent director of finance, Ann Beasley—one of the ways we can spend money quickly within the departmental budget is to take any left at year-end and put it into the criminal injuries compensation scheme to address the backlog. That was a priority because victims of crime are a priority for this Government.

We were faced with a situation in which the scheme was massively in debt, payments were horrendously late and, as the right hon. Member for Oxford East might have spotted, there was no money. The Ministry of Justice is trying to cut its budget by £2 billion a year over the course of the comprehensive spending review period. I noted the shadow Secretary of State’s opening comments about wanting to work with Ministers to help to look for savings, which he agreed have to be made. I listened, but I am afraid that I heard not a single suggestion for where other savings might be made in order to deal with the backlog.

The challenge for Ministers was to put the scheme into financial order, which meant taking some difficult decisions, and that, of course, is what we did. We had meeting after meeting to look at the bands, reductions that could be made and different ways of assessing it. That received the highest attention, including from the Prime Minister, who took an interest in it, because it is extremely important to get it right. But we are faced with the fact that savings have to be made, so the scheme proposed here is the one that has come forward. Of course uncomfortable decisions have to be made, as the right hon. Member for Oxford East acknowledged, but it is a pity that the Opposition never try to suggest what those difficult decisions should be or explain what they would do.

[Sadiq Khan]

Does the hon. Gentleman now accept that his Front Benchers are wrong to give the impression that the reason for the cuts is that they want to provide services for victims, because he has been honest and said that the reason for the cuts is that they want to make cuts?

[Mr Blunt]

The right hon. Gentleman is right: cuts have to be made to the departmental budget that we inherited and the scheme was, to all intents and purposes, bankrupt. That had to be addressed properly and in a hurry. Savings had to be made throughout the rest of the Department, so it was extremely difficult to include compensating expenditure in the scheme in order to rescue it.

The Government’s proposals will put the scheme in sensible order. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has outlined—as did the new Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) during the two Statutory Instrument Committees—they will get rid of bands 1 to 5 and make sure that victims of sexual crime and the most serious crimes are protected.

We then looked at the whole context of what we ought to do about victims of crime. Frankly, I am proud to say that we pushed to examine how we could stretch the victim surcharge so that we could get offenders to contribute to victims’ services. Under the proposals made, not in the statutory instrument, but in parallel with it, at least an extra £50 million will be raised from criminals for victims. Surely it is a basic principle that offenders should fund victims’ services and, indeed, compensation, which is an issue to which the shadow Secretary of State alluded, and which I will come on to later.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

My right hon. Friend is, of course, correct. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is fond of the American experience, where 2 million people are in prison. The logical result of that is the experience in California, where the prison system has become so overcrowded and inhumane that the Supreme Court of the United States has ordered the Californians to release 30,000 prisoners within two years to sort out the prison system. We certainly do not want to find ourselves in that situation.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I welcome the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) to the Front Bench to answer Justice questions. It is surely only a matter of time before the Prime Minister makes the move permanent. As has been said, half the ministerial team are not here today. For our part, we are flattered that both the Justice Secretary and the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice are running scared. Let us wait and see whether it makes a difference to the Front Benchers’ performance.

I will begin with an easy one. Do this Conservative-led Government still have a target of reducing the prison population by 3,000 from what it was in May 2010?

[Mr Blunt]

First, I am gratified by the confidence that the Justice Secretary and the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice have in the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), and in my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), our departmental Whip, who is also responding as a Minister.

We have never had a target. We have an estimate of what is happening and an estimate of the consequences of our policies.

[Sadiq Khan]

Sir David Latham, the former chairman of the Parole Board and Court of Appeal judge, who retired last month, has warned that due to decisions made by this Government, the only way to prevent a backlog of those who have completed their sentence is to change how the Parole Board reaches decisions, which means it

“may not actually be as effective in protecting the public”.

Does the Minister accept that by abolishing indeterminate sentences for public protection the Government are removing from the Parole Board the responsibility to deal properly with the most violent and serious offenders and taking a risk with public safety?

[Mr Blunt]

Absolutely not. The right hon. Gentleman’s attempt to juxtapose Sir David Latham’s points with the conduct of the current Government is pretty rich, given that the problem that we inherited came from the shambles of the administration of IPPs. The Labour Government estimated that there would be 900 such sentences, but we now have about 6,500 people in the prison system on IPPs, more than half of them beyond tariff. That presents the Parole Board with a huge problem, which his party’s Administration did not address in delivering its resources until far too late. The current Administration are now gripping all of that.

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[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Is there a maximum number or percentage of prisons that the Government are willing to have run by the private sector?

[Mr Blunt]

We have said that we do not intend to compete in the high-security estate. There is a limit on how fast the private sector could absorb new prisons and on the capacity of the Ministry of Justice to compete prisons. There is no stated policy, but there are practical restrictions on the speed with which we can increase private sector provision.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion, which is certainly one that I will be taking up in our ongoing examination and review, so that we improve the current, unsatisfactory state of affairs with foreign national offenders as quickly as we legally can.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

May I remind the Minister that it was the last, Labour Government who negotiated the groundbreaking EU prisoner transfer agreement, which came into force last December, to transfer foreign European prisoners back to their countries during their sentence? We have had lots of tough talk from the Minister and the Government, but what progress have the Government made on ensuring that the EU agreement is implemented across all EU states?

[Mr Blunt]

One of the reasons why I was visiting the European Union Commission on Friday and speaking to the official responsible for implementation of the agreement was to help deliver that. It is just a slight pity that in the negotiations undertaken by the last Administration, they managed to give Poland a five-year delay and Ireland a complete opt-out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

rose—

[Sadiq Khan]

Give us a figure.

[Mr Blunt]

The hon. Gentleman’s right hon. Friend may intervene from the Front Bench, but of course it is not possible to give a precise figure. The answer is that it will be as many as we can administratively deliver, and that it has to be done in co-operation with the receiving countries.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I am very grateful—[Interruption.] I am not embarrassed in the least. This measure forms part of the coalition agreement. We are delivering on that, sending a clear message and putting the law beyond doubt. Having things buried away in guidance to prosecutors, given that reassurance is needed for home owners and shopkeepers, is a distinctly sub-optimal way of proceeding on an issue such as this. When viewed in conjunction with the Home Secretary’s plans to strengthen the code of arrest for the police, we hope that these measures will help to fulfil the commitments in the coalition agreement on this issue. We must take together the instructions to Crown prosecutors, the legislation that I hope will go on to the statute book as a result of these Government measures and that code of arrest for the police, and I can therefore happily commend these proposals to the House.

[Sadiq Khan]

First, may I say, for the avoidance of doubt, that Labour Members do not intend to oppose new clause 27 or the consequential amendments, even though it is simply a rehash of an existing law and this valuable parliamentary time could have been used to discuss contentious issues that have caused real concern for many of our constituents? It was the previous Government, through section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, who placed the common law of self-defence into statute.

Since that time, there have been a number of calls, especially from those on the right, to “tighten” the laws on self-defence because they think that is good politics. Back in February 2010, the Prime Minister argued that the law needed further tightening to benefit the home owner against the burglar. Indeed, the Conservative party manifesto said that it would

“give householders greater legal protection if they have to defend themselves against intruders in their homes.”

The Conservatives have floated on a number of occasions the issue of reasonable force and changing the law to allow anything other than actions that are grossly disproportionate. Back in December 2009, the shadow Home Secretary, now Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) committed a future Conservative Home Secretary to changing the law so that convictions against householders would happen only in cases where the actions involved were “grossly disproportionate.” But despite all the spin, that change has not materialised. The new clause will not allow home owners to use grossly disproportionate force or disproportionate force. It will not even strengthen the law. That is because expert opinion and evidence on the issue of self-defence for home owners is pretty unanimous.

It is widely accepted by those at the coal face that the law on self-defence works pretty well and it is unclear in many quarters why the law would need strengthening. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, has said:

“There are many cases, some involving death, where no prosecutions are brought. We would only ever bring a prosecution where we thought that the degree of force was unreasonable in such a way that the jury would realistically convict. So these are very rare cases and history tells us that the current test works very well.”

That approach is further reinforced by what has happened in recent months. That is why the Minister, whom we all like, is embarrassed by having to move the new clause and why his right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary, whom we all love, has disappeared from the Chamber. Recent cases involving home owners such as Vincent Cooke in Cheshire, Peter Flanagan in Salford and Cecil Coley in Old Trafford, in which intruders were killed, have demonstrated that when reasonable force is deemed to have been used, the Crown Prosecution Service has not brought any charges, so the current law works. I see that a note is desperately being passed to the Minister—it is probably a sick note from the Justice Secretary.

Paul Mendelle QC, a previous chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said:

“The law should always encourage people to be reasonable, not unreasonable; to be proportionate, not disproportionate.”

He went on to add that the current law worked perfectly well and was well understood by juries. Just yesterday he argued in The Guardian that the two areas of change proposed by the Government are nothing of the sort. By amending section 76 of the 2008 Act so that there is no duty to retreat before force they are restating the current law. I think it is called rearranging the furniture: things might look different, but nothing of substance will have changed.

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[Mr Blunt]

I will turn to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) towards the end of my speech, but first let me say how grateful I am to the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) for his kind personal remarks. I was marginally upset that I did not leap the amorous threshold that my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary did, but I am grateful for the limited extent of his affection compared to that for my right hon. and learned Friend.

I was amazed at the chutzpah of the right hon. Member for Tooting in lecturing the Government about a public relations stunt and spin. It took me a moment to pick my jaw back up off the Bench as I listened to him. There is a clear answer to the right hon. Gentleman. He properly stood up for the legal system as it now sits. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) said, it is an inconsistent message if we have changed section 76 of the Criminal Justice Act but have not applied it to property, so let us make the position absolutely clear to everyone that not only in the code for crown prosecutors and in the common law but in statute law, as passed by the House, property is included. That is a clear reason for making this change.

The right hon. Gentleman said that presumably the change was for an audience outside the Chamber. Yes, it is. It is all very well for sophisticates such as us, who understand the word “otiose”—used by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd)—but the issue goes right to people’s hearts. They feel that they are entitled to defend their home or their shop, and we owe it to them to make it crystal clear that we absolutely support them in defending themselves, their families and their property. The proposals make that absolutely clear. We need to understand that when something is so central to how everybody feels about their home, shop or place of business we must send a clear signal from this place about whose side we are on.

[Sadiq Khan]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister’s flow, but I have a simple question. Once the law is on the statute book, will a home owner have more rights, fewer rights or the same rights as they have now?

[Mr Blunt]

The home owner will have much greater reassurance about exercising their rights. [Interruption.] It is all for well for the lawyers on the Opposition Benches to cackle and say that the provision will not make any strict legal difference; it makes a profound difference in the reassurance that people will feel about operating in defence of their property and their life, which is why I am happy to commend the new clause to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time and added to the Bill.

New Clause 26

Offence of squatting in a residential building

‘(1) A person commits an offence if—

(a) the person is in a residential building as a trespasser having entered it as a trespasser,

(b) the person knows or ought to know that he or she is a trespasser, and

(c) the person is living in the building or intends to live there for any period.

(2) The offence is not committed by a person holding over after the end of a lease or licence (even if the person leaves and re-enters the building).

(3) For the purposes of this section—

(a) “building” includes any structure or part of a structure (including a temporary or moveable structure), and

(b) a building is “residential” if it is designed or adapted, before the time of entry, for use as a place to live.

(4) For the purposes of this section the fact that a person derives title from a trespasser, or has the permission of a trespasser, does not prevent the person from being a trespasser.

(5) A person convicted of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale (or both).

(6) In relation to an offence committed before the commencement of section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the reference in subsection (5) to 51 weeks is to be read as a reference to 6 months.

(7) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a) it is irrelevant whether the person entered the building as a trespasser before or after the commencement of this section.’.—(Mr Blunt.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

What the hon. Gentleman has to understand is that in magistrates courts 10,098 people were remanded into custody, a very substantial number of whom did not receive a custodial sentence, so we have to deal with that reality.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

We believe that victims and witnesses should be at the heart of our justice system, and that they are crucial to its effective functioning. Victims groups have expressed alarm about the proposals in clause 73 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, and there is a concern that judges will be forced to prejudge cases prematurely, which could lead to the remanding on bail of people—offenders—who might interfere with witnesses, and could reoffend or fail to attend court. The Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses is against the plans as well. Does the Minister understand that the proposal could deter witnesses and victims from coming forward?

[Mr Blunt]

No. What the shadow Secretary of State needs to understand is that if there is any doubt about the issue, it will be up to the judge or the magistrate to make the appropriate decision on remand. The only factor that will be considered is whether imprisonment is at all likely in a particular case. If those other factors are in play, they will come into effect. We have listened during the consultation, and even if those other factors are not present, it will still be possible to remand in custody people in domestic violence cases.

[Sadiq Khan]

It is not just the shadow Justice Secretary who does not understand the proposals: the Council of Her Majesty’s Circuit Judges is “wholly opposed” to them, and the Sentencing Guidelines Council, the Magistrates’ Association, the senior presiding judge of England and Wales and the vice-president of the Queen’s bench division have all responded to the consultation and are against them. The Minister has given no evidence to the House to justify the change other than the cost savings, involving 1,400 prison places and £40 million, so will he take this opportunity to explain why he is limiting judges’ and magistrates’ discretion?

[Mr Blunt]

Because we need to restrict the availability of custodial sentences on remand when there is no real prospect of the defendant being sentenced to imprisonment if convicted—[Interruption.] Thousands of people who are remanded in custody and then convicted do not receive a custodial sentence—and in the case of those whom magistrates remand, the numbers are very significant indeed.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

As my hon. Friend heard from the previous answer of the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice on the centrality of rehabilitation, clinical interventions are the responsibility of the Department of Health. It is important that we work with clinical services to ensure that there is a proper path towards detoxification and abstinence, not only in prison but during the transfer between prison and the community. We are working hard with our colleagues in the Department of Health to deliver that.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Last week the Prime Minister announced the Justice Secretary’s new law on self-defence. However, there is no mention of it in the Green Paper, the Government response or the 119-page Bill. Is the Justice Secretary aware that the Director of Public Prosecutions is on record as saying that the current guidelines, which permit people to use reasonable force to protect their property, work well? Will he spell out how his proposal differs from the current law?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I have a question for this Government. Given that the prison population is rising—it was 82,991 on 7 January and last week it stood at 85,454—and that, at the same time, this Government are closing prisons and slashing the prison building programme, what is the Minister going to do if the number of people who should be in prison exceeds the number of places?

[Mr Blunt]

Unlike the previous Administration, we will not get ourselves into that position. As the shadow Secretary of State will know—he will be well on top of his brief—there is a seasonal rise in prison numbers following Christmas. I am happy to say, however, that our policies are already having an effect. The prediction we inherited that we would end up with 96,000 prisoners by 2014-15 is unlikely to come true.

[Sadiq Khan]

Those of us who stayed awake for the entire Budget know that the Chancellor has no plan B and I am afraid that the complacency of that answer shows that the Ministry of Justice has no plan B. If crime goes up, as the Secretary of State predicts it may well do, and if the prison population continues to rise, the Government will have no choice but to release offenders who should be in prison without due process or to use police cells. Which will it be?

[Mr Blunt]

As of now, we have an overhead in managing the prison estate of about 3,000 places. We will manage the estate to ensure that we sustain an overhead and do not get ourselves into a position whereby we run out of space, as the last Administration did. It is basic administration. We will keep a very careful eye on the prison numbers and ensure that we have sufficient capacity.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss squatting. I would hate to think that anyone would use the example of the Gaddafi house as any excuse for this pernicious offence.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

The Justice Secretary is not afraid to speak his mind, and he has many fans on the Labour Benches as a result. Does he agree that there has been a great deal of confusion on the Government’s policy on the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Bill of Rights? Can he explain in plain, simple English whether his Government are in favour of abolishing, or in favour of keeping, the Human Rights Act, which brought into domestic law the European convention on human rights?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

The first thing is to have increased early intervention to avoid their needing a second chance in the first place. Then we need to ensure that young offenders are offered more of an opportunity to pay back their victims and communities, and to incentivise local partners to reduce youth offending and reoffending by using new payment-by-results models.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

In this Saturday’s excellent Mary Riddell interview in The Daily Telegraph, the Lord Chancellor said:

“I slightly expect that some crimes will go up”.

I remind the House that in times of both growth and recession between 1997 and 2010 the level of crime consistently went down. I know that he is neither sloppy nor complacent, so can he tell the House what crimes he thinks will go up, why he thinks they will go up and what he is going to do about it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I can well understand my hon. Friend’s concern. All offences of sufficient seriousness to be tried only in the Crown court can be referred through the unduly lenient sentences process to the Attorney-General or the Solicitor-General; and 17 of the 31 offences that are triable either way and listed in statutory instrument 2006/1116 refer to offences against children, which reflects how seriously the House takes the matter.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. You will be aware that on three occasions over the past two weeks the Secretary of State for Justice and the Deputy Prime Minister’s deputy—the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper)—have come to the Chamber and essentially repeated from the Dispatch Box announcements already made in the media.

I want to ask the Minister about reports in this Sunday’s papers on the Department’s sentencing plans. The current Prime Minister in March, the Conservative party manifesto in April and the Secretary of State in June all said words to the effect: “We will introduce a system where the courts will specify minimum and maximum sentences for certain offenders. These prisoners will only be able to leave jail after their minimum sentence is served by having earned their release, not simply by right.” Will the sentencing review ditch that policy or keep it?

[Mr Blunt]

I am afraid the shadow Secretary of State will have to wait until we produce the policy. It is entirely appropriate that it be presented to the House first.

[Sadiq Khan]

It is outrageous that we have to buy The Times and read The Daily Telegraph to see what the Government are planning. That is not new politics, that is not the way to do things, and the Secretary of State, who has been an MP for 40 years and served in three Cabinets, should know better.

The Minister ducked the previous question, but he and, indeed, the Secretary of State know that knife-crime cases cause real and lasting misery to the victims, to bereaved families and to communities. Before the general election and in their manifesto, the Conservatives were quite clear, because they said that

“anyone convicted of a knife crime can expect to face a prison sentence.”

We know what the press say their Government will do, but what will the Minister do in the sentencing review to be published next week?

[Mr Blunt]

This may be slightly tedious, but I must say again that the shadow Secretary of State will have to wait until the proposals are presented in a comprehensive fashion to the House. Of course, knife crime is an extremely serious offence, as we have acknowledged, but, as far as the precise proposals are concerned, the right hon. Gentleman, like everyone else, will have to wait until they are presented in a coherent fashion to the House first, as is appropriate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

My hon. Friend has pointed out some of the problems with the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 as it operates in today’s climate. I can confirm that this will be covered by our review of sentencing and rehabilitation.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Will the Lord Chancellor confirm that in the forthcoming review of the Human Rights Act, its abolition has been ruled out?