Debate on the Address

Debate between David Amess and Elfyn Llwyd

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Amess]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and that is what I was about to say. I hope that in November there will be a huge turnout in Essex and we will elect a very good commissioner.

Another point about Essex police is that I have had to resort to using the Freedom of Information Act to get confirmation that the chief constable was chosen from a shortlist of one. Why should a Member of Parliament have to use the Freedom of Information Act? Then there is the closure of police stations. When the Leigh-on-Sea police station was closed there was no consultation. The consultation took place in the car park of a large supermarket in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), which is on the other side of town, and received about 20 responses, which meant that they could close the police station. That is not good enough, which is why I think Members of Parliament should get power back from some of these public bodies. I have been trying to find out more information about Essex probation service, the Crown Prosecution Service in Essex and a range of public bodies. Members of Parliament are scrutinised all the time and have to submit themselves to the electorate. Why cannot we have more scrutiny of at least the management of public bodies? I hope that the Government might consider introducing a Bill to deal with that matter.

I said earlier in my speech that I was concerned about the proposal to introduce the televising of sentencing in major criminal trials. I thought that the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, who mentioned it earlier, was going to agree with me entirely, but he threw me when he said that it works well in Scotland. As far as I am concerned, once the TV cameras get into our courts it will not end there. Coverage will get wider and soon we will be like America, with coverage for the trial of the basketball player who shot someone, or whatever it was he did, and the cameras panning across to see the jurors. I think that cameras would be a very retrograde step.

[Mr Llwyd]

I clearly understand the hon. Gentleman’s fears, but if he looks at what has happened in Scotland over the past seven or eight years, he will see that televised coverage is strictly confined to sentencing remarks and possibly the summing up by the judge and there is nothing whatsoever outside that remit. Given that there will be only an experimentation period, his fears might well be allayed. Clearly, I would share his concerns if coverage were to be extended in any way, but it is limited to an experimental period and confined strictly to such use.

[Mr Amess]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is right—he obviously knows much more about the proposal and where it came from than I do—but I am puzzled about who thought it was a good idea; has the proposal somehow come from the media? At first, televising this place was going to be static, but all that has gone out the window. Once we let the TV cameras into our courts, it will become an opportunity for voyeurism of the worst possible kind. I cannot understand why we need to see the judge deliver the sentence. Will it be shown on “News at 10”, or will there be a dedicated channel?

[Mr Llwyd]

The limited televising would help with legal education and it would help practitioners. For example, when we had the awful riots in August, some courts were not sure how to deal with the circumstances, which were exceptional. If anything of that kind happened again—God forbid—televised remarks of sentencing in the courts would be available so that people would know exactly where they are going and what the going rate is. It would be a deterrent to those members of the public who might otherwise get involved and it would also have an educative process. I seem to be defending the Government on this, and I really should not be.

[Mr Amess]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is right, but I have grave concerns about the proposal. Will it be like the guillotine, with everyone standing around gathering heads, and will it become gory? We will have to see what happens.

In conclusion, I welcome the measures in the Gracious Speech concerning the energy Bill, the interception of communications Bill—I thought that a co-operative Bill would be included—public sector pensions, individual electronic registration, EU accession treaties and the justice and security Green Paper. I think that this will be a year of real celebrations for our country. We have the diamond jubilee, the Olympic games and the Gracious Speech leading our country back to recovery.