Community Payback

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris]

I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention. However, let me return to the frequent criticism of Labour for not being definitive enough in proposing alternatives. Let us be no doubt about this: Labour is not soft on crime. Through new community and victim payback orders, we would make offenders pay back to the communities they have harmed. I think that that is an excellent idea, and I hope there is a basis for us to move forward together, given that Labour has a solid policy that commands support in the community.

Labour would set up police hubs—indeed, we have an embryonic police hub in Horden, in my constituency—in our towns and larger villages, and would put more police back on the streets. That would give residents direct access to a way of sharing their concerns about their community. We all know that the most effective policing is intelligence-led, and features close co-operation with a community who can often identify those who are involved in crime. Finally, Labour would create new neighbourhood prevention teams, which would bring together police, community support officers, youth workers—that is very important—and council staff to tackle the causes of the antisocial behaviour that is blighting so many communities.

The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary know that the cuts of the past 12 years were wrong, and I welcome the U-turn at the 2019 election, when it was proposed that 20,000 police officers be rehired, but the public should remember that they were, in the main, present for, and voted for, each and every cut to our criminal justice system over the past 12 years. When it comes to community payback and rehabilitation—although I believe in the concept—the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary are repeat offenders. It will take many generations for the criminal justice system to recover from the wanton attacks and mismanagement of this Government.

While we can restore numbers relatively easily, the decades of experience that we have lost among skilled professionals—in the police and the probation service, and among prison officers—are not so easily recovered. Even following the recruitment drive to which the Minister referred, there are still nearly 24,000 fewer police staff today than there were in 2010, and over 6,000 fewer special constables. That is 30,000 fewer people seeking to prevent crime and catch offenders. Moreover, the closure of so many magistrates courts means that we have halved the court capacity to process offenders who are caught and charged.

The probation service recently launched a recruitment drive—the Minister mentioned this—to attract 500 extra community payback staff. The question I want to ask is this: how does the Minister expect to attract people to these important roles, given that retention, let alone recruitment, is struggling? The probation union Napo tells me of issues involving staff feeling unsafe at work—that may be partly due to concerns about covid—frustrations over stagnant pay and a lack of progression in jobs, and, overwhelmingly, covid-induced backlogs that are still clogging up the system.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I hope that he will soon bring his remarks to a conclusion. He has not done anything wrong—he is behaving perfectly properly—but although I did not impose a time limit originally because I thought that that would allow freer debate, I will have to ask Members who speak after the hon. Gentleman to take about six or seven minutes, because we want to finish the debate at about 4 pm.

[Grahame Morris]

I shall heed your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. Let me end by saying this. In the opinion of many—myself included—our criminal justice system is falling apart, and the Government should be finding a way to fix it rather than just using it as a means of silencing their critics. I must say how disappointed I am that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 is being used to silence Steve Bray just yards away from here. I know that many of us have had brushes with Mr Bray, but his voice is being silenced today, and by tomorrow, many of us who have never demonstrated before could be subject to prosecution under that law.