Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nick de Bois]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely valid and pertinent point. I will put it much cruder: the scaremongering on penknives is absolute nonsense and defies common sense. I confirm exactly what the right hon. Gentleman has said. He and other Members may be interested to know that a scout leader—I seem to recall that scout leaders use penknives quite a lot—fully supported the proposals. He had no fear, so I hope the Deputy Prime Minister is reassured.

Let us accept that when an offender comes before a court for carrying a knife, current sentencing guidelines point to the expectation of prison. However, only one in four end up in prison. Our new clauses will make it clear to the court, the criminals, the public and the victims that the minimum expectation is a six-month sentence for over-18s.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nick de Bois]

I was just about to wind up, but I give way to my fellow member of the Justice Committee.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and apologise for missing the first part of this speech: I was in a meeting. He and I are members of the Justice Committee and we have interviewed at length people who have served either prison sentences or community service orders. Some have said that community service orders and restorative justice are much tougher and much more effective than going to prison, because they had to make decisions themselves and follow a programme. Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that we should think about this a bit more?

[Nick de Bois]

I remember those evidence sessions and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of them, but I have to look at the evidence on the day and the total numbers involved. We have not had mandatory sentencing under the existing system. I do not dispute the argument that some other measures are tough and are seen as such—I accept that—but the reality is that we do not have mandatory sentencing and I am afraid the record shows that current sentencing is not doing an acceptable job given the statistics I gave at the beginning of my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that this debate ends at 6 o’clock and we have to go back to the mover of the new clause, which means that we will entirely lose the last group of amendments. It is not possible in the time available for every Member to speak for 25 minutes. Therefore I ask Members to speak for 10 minutes or less and to be courteous to their colleagues in order to try to make time for them.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will restrict my remarks to new clauses 6 and 7 moved by the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who has left the Chamber. Much as I respect his work and his commitment to dealing with knife crime, I cannot agree with or support his amendments. I agree very much with the points just made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on mandatory sentencing. There is a principle at stake here. There is a Sentencing Council and legislation on what is and is not a crime, but surely it must be for the courts to determine what is appropriate for the prisoner in front of them, rather than to have that laid down by statute. Surely that is the right way forward, and we should respect it.

I do not underestimate the issue of knife crime. Less than two weeks ago a young man was killed in my constituency by yet another knife crime. As I have done with the other families concerned, I went to see the family afterwards. The shock, the horror, the loss and the waste, and then seeing the flowers placed alongside the spot where the young man died, and young people congregating around it—that is a pretty significant message to an awful lot of young people that that person died because of a knife crime. It is an important message to them about the loss involved in it.

I have been to funerals where the families have turned up grieving, and hundreds of young people have turned up. We have held memorial events at which an incredibly strong message has been given to young people that carrying knives is not a protection; it is in fact an increased danger to themselves and they are more likely to be injured by the knife they are carrying than they are to be able to defend themselves with it, and it is simply not the right way forward. Surely that is a strong message to get across. The sense of shock that affects young people is considerable. I was astonished when visiting a primary school last week to be asked questions about knife crime, because the pupils had all seen the stories of the murder in the community.

We must ask ourselves a number of questions. Is a mandatory sentence for someone who is carrying a knife for the second time the right thing to introduce? Will it reduce reoffending? Will it make the person who is convicted of carrying a knife for the second time more or less likely to reoffend, or is it more likely to brutalise them—because that is what our prison and youth justice system does—making them more likely to reoffend than someone who has not been given a custodial sentence?

The hon. Member for Enfield North kindly allowed me to intervene and I drew attention to the evidence taken in the Justice Committee when we were examining issues of youth justice. We visited a number of young offenders institutions and took evidence from former inmates and victims of crime. We took evidence from large numbers of people, and the piece of evidence that most strongly sticks in my mind is being told in no uncertain terms by a repeat offender—though not for knife crime—that their toughest sentence was a community service order in which they had to attend a place, carry out a task and do something to try to turn their lives around, because somebody was on their case, in a way that never happens when someone is in prison, and happens only to some extent in young offenders institutions.

Mandatory sentencing looks tough, sounds tough and will please some of the less thoughtful media in our society, but its implications are not helpful. I draw attention to the advisory note given to us for this debate by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, which has looked at the issue and knows a thing or two about it. Its estimate is that 200 more young people—children actually, in law— will be put in prison as a result of the new clauses that we are discussing today, should they be agreed to and should the House of Lords want to put them into law.

I also draw attention to another, perhaps more difficult question. Those who are found in possession of a knife and convicted of that have not necessarily committed a crime. They have been found carrying a knife with a blade more than 3 inches in length. Often they have been found by stop and search or by intelligence gathering by the police. The House should not misunderstand me: I do not approve of anyone carrying a knife, but when one then looks at who is stopped and searched, one rapidly finds a wholly disproportionate picture of modern Britain and modern youth. A disproportionate number of black youngsters will have been stopped and searched, therefore a disproportionate number will be in possession of knives, and there will then be a disproportionate number in the prison system and a disproportionate number will reoffend. Surely the courts should have discretion on this matter, and instead we should redouble our efforts to provide young people with the opportunities, inspiration and ambition that takes them beyond gang culture and the idea that possession of a knife will protect them and provide them with some degree of security in the future.

The Prison Reform Trust has also looked at the issue in some detail and the latest Ministry of Justice figures show the rates of child and adult convictions for knife possession. In the first quarter of 2014, 652 offences involving knife possession were committed by children aged 10 to 17, resulting in a caution or a sentence. The adult figure was 3,262. The number of knife possession offences committed by children under 18 in the last quarter reduced by 34%, and I pay tribute to all those who have ensured that it has reduced. The number of knife possession offences committed in the last quarter by adults over 18 fell by 23% over the same period. It is also evidential that custodial sentences have the worst outcome of the sentencing options available, with nearly 70% of children and 58% of young people aged 18 to 20 being reconvicted within a year of release. The Prison Reform Trust says:

“Mandatory prison sentences for knife possession could drive up the numbers of children and young people in custody following a welcome period of decline both in youth imprisonment and youth crime.”

The Standing Committee for Youth Justice and the Prison Reform Trust have highlighted the disproportionate effect on black youngsters that will result if the new clause goes through.