King’s Speech

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to open by saying how sorry I am to hear of the death of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. He was personally very kind to me, and I know he was very kind to many other Members of this House.

I also welcome our three maiden speakers to today’s debate: the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, and the noble Lords, Lord Houchen of High Leven and Lord Bailey of Paddington. Of course, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, has reached the very pinnacle of the judiciary in England and Wales, but I have to say that I feel more affinity with the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington, as we share an interest in youth justice. I very much look forward to his contributions to this House on that subject.

Yesterday, my noble friend Lady Smith moved the Motion to adjourn the debate on the gracious Speech. It was a good-humoured speech by convention, but also because of her temperament. Nevertheless, my noble friend expressed her frustration with the lack of ambition expressed in the gracious Speech. She said:

“For a country to thrive requires good governance, with competence, optimism, confidence and vision”.—[Official Report, 7/11/23; col. 11.]


She then went on to analyse the gracious Speech against those criteria. I want to do the same, while directing my comments towards justice and home affairs. My noble friend Lady Taylor will comment on the devolution and union aspects of this debate.

I will be judging the proposals against good governance, competence, optimism, confidence and vision. After 13 years of Tory Government, over 90% of crimes are going unsolved, meaning that criminals are less than half as likely to be caught now compared with under the last Labour Government. More criminals are being let off and far more victims are being let down. When the Government claim that overall crime is going down, that excludes fraud and computer misuse. Computers, of course, play an ever-greater part in all our lives.

Stronger sentences for rape and child sexual abuse and tougher powers to retrieve stolen items are welcome. But they mean little when only 2% of accused rapists receive a court summons, two-thirds of child abuse cases are closed due to evidential difficulties, and arrests for theft are down 40% on just a few years ago. Recorded serious violence is up by 60% since 2015. Knife crime, gun crime and robbery have all increased, with over 50,000 knife crimes this past year alone and a 70% rise in recorded knife crime since 2015. But there was no mention of tackling this in the King’s Speech.

Under the Tories, shoplifting has reached record levels, driven by organised criminal gangs, with a 25% surge in recorded crime over the last 12 months alone. But the Tories’ shoplifting charter means that offences under £200 are rarely enforced and town centre police patrols have been cut, as there are still 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police officers than in 2015. There was nothing in the King’s Speech to turn things around.

Near record numbers of victims are dropping out of criminal proceedings—1.6 million last year alone. Record numbers of crimes are being dropped due to no suspect being identified—2.3 million last year. The proportion of crimes charged has dropped by 60% since 2015, and the average time it takes for a crime to be charged has trebled since 2016, from 14 to 42 days. Regarding victims, I look forward to the speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and to working with her and other colleagues on the forthcoming Bill.

So, what will Labour do? We will put 13,000 more officers and PCSOs on our streets, with guaranteed town centre patrols, and give every community a named officer they can get in touch with. We will reverse the Government’s decision to downgrade the response to shoplifting under £200, which will make it easier to take action against repeat offenders. We will also create a specific new offence of assault against retail workers. Our ambition is to halve violence against women and girls after the next election. We will put domestic abuse specialists in police control rooms and set up dedicated courts for rape trials.

We will get tough with those who blight our towns, with new powers to ban repeat anti-social behaviour in town centres and stamp out public drinking and drug use. Over the summer period, I travelled to the United States and visited Portland, in Oregon, and Seattle, in Washington state. The level of public drug use and homelessness, and the lack of medical care for homeless people, was truly shocking. I have never seen anything remotely like that in London or other British towns and cities. But the message I took from that trip is that things could get worse here if we do not provide homes and medical treatment for the homeless, and action to stamp out public drinking and, in particular, drug use.

Turning to asylum and migration, the Prime Minister promised to stop the boats, yet the asylum backlog has surged to a record high of 175,000, and 33,742 people have come across in 708 small boats since he has been in power. Spending on hotels has reached £8 million a day, and convictions of people smugglers are 30% lower than under the last Labour Government. During the passage of the Illegal Migration Act, the Government voted against amendments proposing tougher action on criminal gangs. Already, £140 million has been sent to Rwanda to fund an extortionate deal that is currently stuck in the courts and is likely to be ineffective.

The Labour Party would crack down on criminal smuggler gangs through a new cross-border police unit and deeper security co-operation with our European friends; end hotel use, clear the asylum backlog and speed up returns to safe countries; reform resettlement routes to stop people being exploited by gangs; reach new agreements with France and other countries on returns and family reunion; and tackle humanitarian crises at their source by helping refugees in their regions.

I return to my noble friend’s tests of how our country can thrive: good governance, competence, optimism, confidence and vision. The record on good governance and competence speaks for itself. The degradation of our criminal justice system has led to a lack of trust that undermines our communities and fails my noble friend’s tests. But what of optimism, confidence and vision? Where are they? Where are the optimism, confidence and vision for our Probation Service, which is surely at the heart of any strategy to contain our ever-growing prison population? Where are the optimism, confidence and vision for our courts service, with victims, witnesses and defendants too often feeling poorly served and lacking confidence that justice will be done in a timely manner? Where are the optimism, confidence and vision for our Prison Service, as we lurch from one predicted crisis to another, and the core purposes of security, rehabilitation and protection of the public are barely met? No, the party opposite has failed my noble friend’s tests. But we on these Benches will scrutinise the Bills to the best of our abilities while we wait for the election to come.