Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Huppert]

I am fascinated that the hon. Gentleman is prepared to pay £20 million. My point is not for or against saving lives, but about which approach will save lives more effectively. Will we save more lives by agreeing the new clauses, at a cost of £20 million? Or will we save more lives by spending that money on reducing the gang crime that blights our cities and other areas? Which will reduce knife crime by more? I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman’s proposals would not have any effect at all, but I would challenge whether they are the best way of proceeding and of saving the most lives.

If we had that extra money, we could do many more of the things that we should be doing. We could do more to teach 11 to 16-year-olds of the consequences of knife crime and the harm that can come to them, and to encourage them to report knife carrying so that it happens less in our schools and on our streets. We could make more young people aware of the downsides of gang culture and run much more effective anti-gang programs. We could extend the highly successful “This is abuse” campaign to girls who are associated with gang members and who are at particular risk of sexual exploitation. Those are all things that the Government could do that would stop people picking up a knife in the first place. We could use money for that instead of just locking people up.

The Secretary of State used to understand that. When he gave evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, he said that what

“I would seek to bring to Government, if we win the election, is all around the principle of early intervention...I think that the way in which we make the biggest difference to knife crime and indeed to other violent crimes, particularly amongst the young, is through more effective early intervention.”

He was right when he said that; the money should be spent on early intervention, as I think, and the Justice Secretary used to think, that that is more effective. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock, as he was then, also explained why we are going to get this wrong, as I highlighted earlier.

We should make it very clear that carrying a knife for whatever reason, whether it is driven by fear or to threaten others, is not tolerated, but banging up people who have been misguided and making the situation worse is not the way to do that. This is about finding alternatives, and there are some fantastically effective alternatives. Since 2006, the organisation Redthread has been embedding workers in the trauma centre at King’s College hospital. Its staff work closely with accident and emergency staff to try to disrupt the cycle of violence that brings hundreds of young people to the hospital each year. Every week, their clinical colleagues see mostly young men who for a range of reasons find themselves victims or perpetrators of gun and knife crime. Redthread staff take the opportunity to try to turn around people who have been involved, injured and seen the worst that can happen as a result of such crime—at a time when they are shocked and their lives can be changed. Supporting anti-gang work at the scene in A and E, with better education and more awareness-raising in schools, seems to me to be the way to reduce knife crime further.

There is another thing we should do and which I am surprised the Justice Secretary has not done: insist that the Sentencing Council re-examine the current guidelines for knife crime. They were last looked at in 2008. There is a strong case to look at them again, and to look at them in the round to make sure that we have the right sentences. I do not know why the Justice Secretary has not done that ahead of time. He could have done so easily, as he did recently for one-punch killing.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with my proposal that in order to ensure that sentences are looked at in the round, that they reflect the views of the public who elect us and that they are effective, the Sentencing Council should be a committee of this Parliament?

[Dr Huppert]

rose—