Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I never advocated—nor did the Government —the replacement, as it were, of short prison sentences with community sentences. I have some very curious opponents in sections of the media, and this was one of the bees they got in their bonnet almost as soon as we started, but we never proposed that. Community sentences need to carry public confidence so that magistrates can consider them properly as an alternative to prison in suitable cases—they do now, but more would. What I have in mind with tougher sentences is better organised sentences, so that, for example, unpaid work—which is one of the best community-based punishments that one can impose—doing genuinely worthwhile things for the community should be better organised and better disciplined. It should not have to be fitted in on the odd day over several years; it should be better organised on the day and based round a pretty normal working pattern of so many hours each week when it is under way. There are plenty of things that we can do—that and making more use of curfews and tagging—to build up public confidence in community sentences, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman and I both agree would be a good thing to do, but which we would also agree is lacking at the moment.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

What on earth did my right hon. and learned Friend mean when he said that he would introduce drug-free wings in jails? Does he not understand that, for the public, that is an extraordinary statement? They believe that all parts of all jails should be drug-free. To them, this sums up the irretrievably soft attitude of our entire prison system. In particular, will he protect our people—vulnerable old people—from burglars, and promise the House today that all burglars of private dwelling houses will be put in prison?

[Mr Clarke]

On the first point, I share my hon. Friend’s amazement, as I am sure anyone would on their first introduction to the criminal justice system. The fact is, however, that drugs are very widely available in our prisons, and 9% of people who have taken heroin say that they first did so in prison, where they were introduced to the drug. I am sorry that I have had to refer to “introducing drug-free wings”, but that is what we are proposing to do, and we are going to address the problems of security and rehabilitation in order to do it.

Of course burglary is always a serious offence. It is actually one of those that are rising at the moment, although that has nothing to do with the sentence level. It is going up rather alarmingly compared with a year ago. I regard all burglary, but particularly household burglary, as a very serious offence. In the end, however, the punishment has to fit the particular crime. I shall consider what my hon. Friend has said, but I think that there should be a limit to the number of automatic sentences according to what it says on the label. Proper sentencing should be directed towards what we both agree is the first priority—namely, the proper protection of the public.

Sentencing (Green Paper)

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael]

We have twice as many people in prison as the French. Do you think that we are twice as naughty or that our system is not quite good enough?

[Mr Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. I do not think anything. You must refer to the hon. Gentleman.

[Neil Carmichael]

My apologies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry]

Let us take that example. That could be someone who is, for example, committing shop thefts on a regular basis. The maximum sentence for something such as that would be around 12 months at the most, or 18 months if they were very unfortunate. This is a persistent but very low-level offender. Clearly, in the example that my hon. Friend puts forward, prison is not working, because the person keeps on committing crimes and keeps on going back to prison. It is to end that revolving door that we are doing the things that have been laid out in the Green Paper. That person is not necessarily a nasty person; they are not violent otherwise they would go away for a lot longer. Those who steal from shops are exactly the sort of people we are addressing.

[Mr Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should be shorter.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am sorry, but that person is a nasty person. Just because someone is not violent does not mean that they are not nasty. I contend that the reason that they are reoffending is that they never serve their sentence in full. Even if someone is sentenced to 18 months for shoplifting, no one in this country will ever serve such a sentence. They might be sentenced to that, but the chances are that they will be out reoffending within six months. My contention is that such people need to be in jail for at least a year to enable proper rehabilitation to take place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Djanogly]

I do. The figure of more than 3,000 new offences comes to mind. We had the situation in which a new offence was being created before the previous one had commenced.

We want to simplify the sentencing framework and make it more comprehensible for the public. We also want to enhance judicial discretion, to allow the judges and magistrates who hear the cases to make the most appropriate decisions on sentencing within the legal framework set by Parliament.

I accept that some people, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering, want to see longer sentences, but we need to be proportionate. We could not accommodate the much longer sentences that he suggests without raising taxes to build more prisons.

Sentences have, however, got longer and longer over the past couple of decades, and for many years offenders have not spent their sentence in custody. We do not propose to make fundamental changes to determinate sentences. At present, offenders serving a determinate sentence spend half of their sentence in custody and half on licence in the community. If an offender breaches the condition of their licence, they may be returned to prison. We recognise—

[Mr Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order.

Rehabilitation and Sentencing

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The answer is yes. One thing on which I totally agree with the right hon. Gentleman is that we have to concentrate our resources on what works. By that I mean, from the point of view of the potential victims and society at large, what gets down the level of crime committed by young offenders in particular.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I notice that my Conservative Secretary of State says: “Prison cannot continue to be simply an expensive way of giving communities a break.” I am sorry, but communities deserve a break—they deserve a break from being burgled. Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure me that on his watch, people who cause absolute misery by thieving from people’s homes, particularly those of elderly people, can expect to go to prison, where they deserve to be?

[Mr Clarke]

The answer to the last part of the question is obviously yes. Burglars should usually go to prison—nobody has ever suggested that they should not. I have read extraordinary suggestions that we are letting out burglars, robbers and all kinds of people. They are the core population of a prison and should remain so. The main purpose of prison is that it is the best form of punishment: it is a way of exacting some reparation from somebody for the crime they have committed. It also, of course, gives us a break from their offences while they are in prison. However, if we concentrate on that aspect of imprisonment, it is a very expensive way of giving people temporary relief from the crimes of those incarcerated. Prison should be producing people most of whom, on release, will not go back to a life of crime. Unfortunately, over a period of years, three quarters of them have eventually committted further crime. That is the failure and weakness in the system, and that is where the concentration now has to be.