Nick de Bois
Main Page: Nick de Bois (Conservative - Enfield North)Department Debates - View all Nick de Bois's debates with the Cabinet Office
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
A whole lot less than the influence the trade unions have on anything asked by Labour MPs in this Chamber.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
Further to the answer the Deputy Prime Minister gave my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), does he recognise the inconsistency of his position on minimum sentencing for knife crime, given that he voted for it in 2011 on amendments I introduced with the Government for mandatory sentencing for knife crime offences?
The Deputy Prime Minister
That was for a different offence, as the hon. Gentleman knows. His proposal would make simply possessing a knife an offence, assuming that the individual already has a knife-related offence against their name. In those circumstances, in which judges would have no discretion whatsoever, the proposal could, in my view, lead unwittingly to precisely the revolving door of higher rates of reoffending that we saw time and again under the Labour Government, when endless populist gimmicks led to higher rates of reoffending. One of the things that I am proud of is that this coalition Government, by avoiding that approach, have seen crime fall to the lowest levels ever recorded.