Home Affairs

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Would the Home Secretary be prepared to revisit the report produced by Baroness Jean Corston, and perhaps talk to her, about the crucial issue of how we treat people in our communities, as well those coming into them, in relation to the conditions they live in?

[Mrs May]

The report by Baroness Corston was indeed significant in its findings on the treatment of women and girls, particularly in the criminal justice system in relation to custodial sentences. I have had a number of discussions with Baroness Corston on this matter in the past, especially when I held the women’s brief, when I was considering it particularly. I have also had discussions with the prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright). I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Ministry of Justice is aware that the matter needs to be considered. I am sure that it will be looking at Baroness Corston’s report—although it was done a few years ago, of course—to see what she proposed.

We must ensure that modern courts run efficiently and effectively without undue costs to the taxpayer. We are therefore introducing criminal court charges to ensure that criminals contribute to the cost of their cases being heard through the courts system. It is only right that criminals who give rise to those costs in the first place should carry some of the burden placed on the taxpayer. We will also introduce reforms to judicial review to ensure that it is used for the right reasons and not merely to cause unnecessary delays or to court publicity. Judicial review is vital in holding authorities and others to account, but this must be balanced to avoid costly and time-wasting applications and abuse of the system.

The Modern Slavery Bill will ensure that law enforcement and the judiciary have effective powers available to put slave drivers and traffickers behind bars, where they belong.

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[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I have a declared interest that relates to higher education, which might crop up in my speech.

I thank the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) for his reference to the work of my late friend, Paul Goggins, who was referred to by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on the day of the Queen’s Speech. I appreciate that reference, because Paul would have been proud that his work, like that of so many in this House, has borne fruit in the form of legislation.

Before I turn to the substance of the Queen’s Speech and the related issues that my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has deliberated on very effectively, may I reflect on the nature of last week’s events? Having been the Home Secretary at the time of the 11 September attack and the subsequent dangers, I am mindful of the need for security. However, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the way in which we operate the closures in central London around the Queen’s Speech. To close substantial portions of the area around Westminster from Monday to Friday is, in my view, unnecessary. We should protect the Queen—the royal personage—in any way we can, but there has been an extension in what happens over recent years. I mention that only because it is damaging to the London economy and extremely frustrating for the populace, and it does not necessarily do Parliament any good.

Secondly, as we have seen in the debate over the past few days and way beyond, a fixed-term, five-year Parliament can be seen to run out of steam. If we are to continue with fixed-term Parliaments, I think that it is time to re-examine whether they should last for four years, rather than five. Irrespective of whether a coalition is still required, which I sincerely hope it is not, it is clear from history that Governments need to refresh themselves. That is part of our democracy and considering such a change would be a positive move in responding to the changing needs of the population and the political debate. Four-year Parliaments might allow us to have two Queen’s Speeches: one at the beginning of a Parliament and one two years in, which would allow time for substantive debate and measures that have been carefully planned and thought through. I commend the idea of returning to those issues to Front Benchers on both sides of the House.

We face a moment of rapid change that is unprecedented in our history. There is economic, social and cultural change, some of which we touched on yesterday afternoon during the urgent question and the statement. We face an explosion in communications that brings globalisation and issues on a moment-by-moment basis not just into people’s front rooms, which we used to say in relation to television, but into their hands as they use mobile technology. The immediacy of such issues has changed how people see the rapid change in the world around them.

When we were in a position of economic success, with continuing growth, continuing substantial falls in unemployment and rises in wages, and it was possible to invest in improved public services, globalisation appeared to be benign, if not somewhat bewildering, to the populace. The same is not true at a time of deep austerity, with the results of the global banking meltdown—and it was a global banking meltdown; the previous Labour Government were not responsible for the collapse of the sub-prime market in the United States or the recession across Europe. It is risible that people still repeat that calumny over and again, particularly members of the junior partner in the coalition, who were enthusiastically in favour of the public spending that we were engaged in before 2010 and suddenly changed their mind. Indeed, so was the Conservative party, because until autumn 2008 and a change of mind at the Tory party conference, the main thrust of public expenditure was supported by the Conservative Opposition.

I mention that because the confusion, bewilderment and sense of powerlessness that affects so many of our constituents has a knock-on effect on the way they see the political environment around them, and on whether they trust or believe that traditional politics can meet their needs—hence the rise of the UK Independence party and its temporary, God willing, success in the European Union elections and some local government contests.

Old certainties have gone and people are unclear who they should blame for what is happening around them. Is it a change in the world situation and the insecurities that drive asylum seekers and movements of people across the world? Ten and a half million people have been moved outside their homeland either compulsorily or through fear of the danger of death and torture. People are desperately looking for a better life, and hearing about it in the way I have just described and in a fashion that was not present years ago. Bewilderment and a subliminal fear come from those uncertainties, and people are looking to someone to find answers.

We have the chance to debate these issues today, but that rarely happens any more on television or radio, and certainly not in the print media or through the inanity of many bloggers. We are not reaching, talking to or having a dialogue with—never mind listening to—the fears of people, but there is nothing new about that.

One great advantage of being a Back Bencher is that one has the chance to read. I have been reading the biography of Roy Jenkins that came out a few months ago. He was not a favourite politician of mine, not least because he was paraded as one of the most liberal and radical Home Secretaries in history, whereas most of the legislation he took credit for was promoted by Back Benchers. My irritation at that has been overwhelmed by going back and reading extracts of speeches and articles that he wrote. Fifty-five years ago, he was talking about the challenge of whether we should enter what was then the European Economic Community. He talked about a bigger issue of people living in an atmosphere of illusion or reality, and the unwillingness to address Britain’s position in the world. He spoke about a challenge of living in a sullen and incomprehensible environment in which people looked only to the past.

I fear that we are in that moment once again. People hanker for a past that did not really exist, and they look for certainties that are no longer there. They fear that politicians do not have answers to their questions, and they lash out at anyone near them. I think we must try in our own way across all three major political parties to provide answers that are credible. Nobody can underestimate the bewilderment, and no one should belittle the cry for help from our constituents, above all in a constituency such as mine.

People will be aware of the considerable tensions that have arisen after a large influx of people from Slovakia of a Roma background. They are fleeing unbelievable persecution and standards of living that are third world, to say the least. Incidentally, Slovakia managed a turnout of only 13% in the European Union election—I do not think that is a functioning democracy. People come to the UK from that background and those norms of living, and as part of the debate about British values and a society that can address those challenges, we need to invest in and help people through those difficulties. That applies to both the host community, which suddenly finds its way of life affected dramatically, and incomers who need to learn quickly how best to adapt to and adopt the standards of behaviour and norms that we take for granted.

Those big issues require us not to provide simplistic soundbites but to address the underlying complexities. This afternoon I appeal for us all to come together to address those things that are practical and can be addressed. In essence, we are dealing with the transitions of life—transitions that are brought about by economic, social and cultural change globally, and those that affect people in their daily lives as the language and the vista and nature of the community around them changes. We must consider how best the Government, and therefore politics, can assist in that endeavour.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) mentioned immigration, and the importance of getting a grip on things that are possible within the current powers of the Westminster Parliament. There are many pressures outside and many changes we all want, and people can collaborate and work together at local level. There are also global changes that need to be dealt with by a proper debate in a reformed European Union and on the transnational scene. As my right hon. Friend rightly said, many things that could be dealt with at a local as well as national level would assist. I want to touch on some of those today and suggest that in doing so, we might politically give people hope that not only will they be listened to, they will be talked to realistically, be respected, and be told the truth about what we can and cannot do.

For instance, it was never going to be feasible to get net migration below 100,000 unless, as has been pointed out, we rapidly changed the passport system and encouraged our own people to leave the country. We could achieve it that way but that is nonsense. We could never achieve net migration of under 100,000 unless we remove from the statistics those who come here to study as graduate and postgraduate students. The commonsense of doing that has been pressed on the Government over the past four years, and I think it would have got all-party support and told people the truth. If we do not tell people the truth, and if we pretend that we can achieve targets that are frankly unachievable, when we do not achieve those targets we undermine confidence in all the other measures that have been taken.

We have a tendency at the moment to rewrite history—I imagine there is nothing new about that. We all like to paint what we are doing as day zero, and that what came before as either inadequate or totally deniable.

[Pete Wishart]

I am one of the people who think that Labour got it just about right on immigration when they were in government. Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in not being bullied by the Tories and UKIP who want Labour to apologise? Labour should stand up for what it did because it did the right thing. Will it say to the Tories and UKIP, “We got it right on immigration and we will not be bullied out of our former position”?

[Mr Blunkett]

The truth is that we did not get it entirely right because no Government get everything entirely right. That is another part of rebuilding trust in the political system.

I mentioned day zero because the tendency to suggest that nothing that came before was satisfactory, adequate or even addressed the issues undermines fundamentally people’s belief that we know what we are doing, or that what happened in the past can be recorded as at least partially successful.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Blunkett]

I will give way but I first want to tell the House about Peter Kellner, the president of YouGov. Earlier this year he pointed out that if the five major retailers in this country acted like political parties, nobody would shop at Tesco, Asda or Morrisons ever again. Although they compete—and rightly make offers to people, as part of the market—they do not trash the idea of supermarkets. If they did, people would turn, as they do with UKIP, to the corner shop. I will give way before I go too far on the analogy between corner shops and Nigel Farage.

[Mr Field]

Perhaps if I represented a Scottish constituency I would hold the same view on immigration as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), given that very few of the newcomers wish to go to Scotland—they wish to settle elsewhere. Would my right hon. Friend accept that the ball is in the court of the vice-chancellors? They all have tough policies that students must pay outstanding fees before they get their degrees. If the vice-chancellors ran a similar system—refusing to award degrees until students fulfil their promise to go home—perhaps the Government would have a different attitude to the number of students coming here. It would not be a problem if they actually went home.

[Mr Blunkett]

There are all sorts of practical ways in which we could assist universities to ensure that people in those circumstances leave the country after graduating, such as the possibility of returning part of the fee. My right hon. Friend has strong and, I think, reasonable arguments to make on this issue, but I do not agree with him on some issues.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned targets and suggested that, in principle, they are not wrong, but that the Government’s target—of reducing net migration to tens of thousands—was wrong. I think he mentioned a figure of 100,000. If he agrees with targets in principle, but disagrees with the target set by the Government, what does he think is the right target for net migration?

[Mr Blunkett]

I did not actually say that I agreed with targets, but in one perverse way I do. The points system that I started to introduce before I left the Home Office at the end of 2004, and how it is used now to bring in the skills that we need from outside the European Union, are themselves targets, by the very nature of the way in which they are set, the advice that is taken from the independent commission and the way that we respond. Part of the difficulty that we have been debating—and it gets tangled up with the issue of whether we should be in or out of the European Union—is the nature of free movement.

[Mark Pritchard]

The Leader of the Opposition has apologised to the British people, who want to see net migration come down. It is not just the policy of the coalition Government: it is the British people who want to see net migration come down. Non-EU migration has come down. EU migration is still a challenge, and it is one that the Government will face as the Prime Minister renegotiates power back from Europe—

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[Mr Blunkett]

I mentioned a moment ago that there were things that we did not get right. For instance, we did not do anything like enough to work with host communities to prepare them for integration. We did not do enough to expand the gateway programme for entry into the UK under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which would have provided a sensible, planned process—as the small experiments we indulged in did achieve—for giving people the chance to escape from horrendous circumstances. I pay tribute to the Home Secretary for introducing the anti-slavery legislation, which builds on the modest progress we made 10 years ago, including the sexual offences legislation. It raises, of course, the issue that people face death and torture, organised criminality and slavery, and we need to deal with that. Expanding the gateway programme would have reduced the fear of a massive influx of asylum seekers. Incidentally, the number was reduced from 110,000 in 2002 to under 30,000 by the time I left the Home Office, and it is much lower today. The asylum issue was paramount in people’s minds 12 years ago, but now the issue is movement within the European Union.

Incidentally, before that, when we were not doing so well as an economy, British workers went to other parts of Europe. Those of us who are old enough—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and I are—remember the television series, “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” about British workers working in Germany. There is nothing new about this—the question is the volume, the flow, the preparations made and the measures taken. Some—indeed, all—of the measures outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford are reasonable, and we could add others.

First, we could include conditionality in relation to entitlement to benefits, toughening that entitlement substantially, and ensuring that people cannot draw benefits for family who live abroad, including child benefit. In 2007, I talked at length to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer about this, and his officials were adamant that proper checks were made—but I doubt it. We need clear, enforceable rules that give people confidence that we know what we are doing. We also need points systems and clarity about the need for particular skills; tough benefit rules; tough conditionality requirements; action to avoid exploitation, by working with employers to enforce the minimum wage; and action to ensure that people return to their country of origin if they do not find a job, because they are not holidaymakers or visitors. Those are all practical steps that all three major parties could support.

What would not be practical—and I say this honestly to some of my good friends with whom I agree on many other issues—is to withdraw the right of free movement. We could go back to the time we joined the European Union, or to 1958 and the treaty of Rome, and pretend that everything should have been different, but we are where we are. If we have freedom of movement, we should not prohibit people from working legally. If we did that, they would work in the sub-economy. They would be here, and they would undercut British workers, their conditions and their wages. In 2004, at a time of substantial economic growth and when we needed people to work—and the offer was on the table for young people in our country to gain the skills and take up the jobs—the vacancies were filled by people from what are now the central and eastern parts of the European Union, the E8 countries. We found that when we allowed—and I take total responsibility for this—people to register, work legally and pay tax and national insurance, 40% of them were already in the country. It is the same now for the Romanian and Bulgarian entry, which was not a calamity as people in UKIP predicted. Some of the people now working openly were in the country before January and had been to and fro from Bulgaria and Romania under the existing limited scheme.

We need to tell people the truth: there are things we can do and things we cannot do. There are targets that can be met and targets that are foolish. If we tell people the truth we might get their respect. The Office for National Statistics needs to be very careful in the assumptions it makes—I have had correspondence with Andrew Dilnot on this—from very dubious source evidence.

I am sorry to keep going back into history, but we have to learn from history rather than live in it. In 1968, Anthony Crosland, who was a very radical, free-thinking moderniser at the time, made a speech at a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference which was then written up into an article. In it, he said there was a real fear that by the year 2000 there would be a population explosion of between 15 million and 20 million. Between the census of 1971 and 2001, the actual uplift was 3.2 million.

I do not underestimate the bigger challenge that we face now, but I simply say to the House—one does not get this opportunity very often, Madam Deputy Speaker; in all the recent debates I have spoken in I have had between six and 10 minutes to speak, so forgive me—that we need to have a serious, open, non-partisan, non-knockabout debate on immigration, otherwise the issue will corrode people’s confidence in the political system. It will erode any kind of sensible debate on our future in Europe. It will undermine people’s belief that we can do things sensibly on their behalf and that we are listening to their cry for help; not patronising them by simply mouthing whatever it is that they want to hear, but suggesting practical measures we can carry through. If we do that, we might be able to calm the debate and deal with the issues thrown up in recent weeks. What are British values? What do we expect from people in our communities? What can we demand of people who come in from the rest of the European Union or the rest of the world in terms of their response to the norms of our society? Getting those questions right might do all of us a favour.

Above all, it might restore confidence in the democratic political process, which is so crucial to getting people to vote and to take seriously the one other thing that is offered to them—hope. At the moment, so many people in the most deprived parts of Britain, who are facing the most severe aspects of the austerity programme, lack hope. Above all, in the general election next year we must give people that aspiration and hope for the future. If we do that, they might respond with a belief in becoming engaged as active citizens and backing their party of choice by voting, and above all with a belief that democratic politics is something they want to espouse and support; that might come to fruition.

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[Damian Green]

I do not feel the need to transmit that message to my right hon. Friend, who has no doubt heard it. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.

I am grateful that there is broad support for many of the provisions in the Serious Crime Bill. It will make a significant contribution to the Government’s continuing fight against serious and organised crime, of which the National Crime Agency is perhaps the most visible manifestation.

Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friends the Members for Erewash (Jessica Lee) and for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), both of whom have great records of campaigning in this area, talked about the child cruelty clauses. I am sure that the whole House recognises that child cruelty is an abhorrent crime that needs to be punished. Every child should be able to grow up in a safe environment. The changes that we will take forward in the Serious Crime Bill make it absolutely clear that cruelty likely to cause psychological suffering or injury is covered under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. We are modernising the language used in that section to help the courts to implement it more effectively.

A number of other matters have been raised, including the fact that the Serious Crime Bill will create a new offence targeting people who possess any items containing advice or guidance that could be useful to someone committing or preparing to commit a sexual offence against a child—so-called paedophile manuals. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) not just for his kind remarks about ministerial action on this, but for the long-running and extremely effective campaign that he has carried out in this field, of which, as he said, this is one small step forward. I am delighted to have his support in this matter.

The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, which is a carry-over Bill, delivers the vital next stage in this Government’s mission to deliver a more credible justice system. Much has been achieved to date. Prisons are now places of hard work and discipline; we have implemented fundamental reforms to transform rehabilitation by bringing together the best of the public, private and voluntary sectors; and all community sentences now contain an element of punishment. The Bill builds on those achievements, by ensuring that criminals are properly punished, young offenders turn their lives around through education and modern courts run efficiently and effectively.

[Mr Blunkett]

Will the Minister acknowledge that the probation service faces a very serious position with the changes from 1 June? Will he, with the Home Secretary, make representations to the Justice Secretary to take a look at exactly what is happening on the ground?

[Damian Green]

As the right hon. Gentleman would expect, the Justice Secretary and the prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), take a close interest in what is happening on the ground. I hope the right hon. Gentleman would acknowledge that the purpose of the changes in probation, as I explained to the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), is to make rehabilitation more effective than it has been in the past. Reoffending rates have not fallen despite the great efforts made by the National Offender Management Service and those who work in the probation service. We need change to get those reoffending rates down. The vast majority of crime is committed by a very small number of people, so if we can get the reoffending rates down, we can continue to get overall crime down. That is the most effective thing we can do.

As I said, this is a carry-over Bill. I am grateful for the work the House has done to progress this important piece of legislation. There has been very thorough and lively scrutiny of the Bill during its Commons stages, and I am sure that the quality of debate will continue as it completes its second day on Report. I should inform the House that we have today tabled an amendment to introduce an offence of police corruption, because it is untenable that we should be relying on an 18th-century common law offence of misconduct in public office to deal with serious issues of compliance in modern policing. We tabled the amendment to establish a statutory offence of police corruption to supplement the common law offence and to focus on those who hold police powers.

A number of references have been made to the social action, responsibility and heroism Bill. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for his speech, not least because he was reporting from the front line as a first responder and, as he told us, a regular snow clearer in his constituency. He knows what these situations are like, and he said precisely why this Bill is necessary. [Interruption.] The shadow Attorney-General is expressing some cynicism—or, to be fair, scepticism—about the Bill. My hon. Friend knows that legislation is necessary, because people are worried about doing something that their conscience wants them to do. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) is chuntering from a sedentary position.