Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Because the judge, in full knowledge of the circumstances of the offence and the offender, has decided that such a serious offender should get life imprisonment, it is—

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

The same now.

[Mr Clarke]

It is not. What I think the right hon. Gentleman is saying—I will listen to him in a moment—is that he proposes to defend what is left of the last Government’s proposals, the author of which acknowledged quite early in my speech that they plainly needed to be changed. If I get the chance, I will listen to what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) is trying to argue, but he seems to be reassuring us that life sentences fulfil that requirement for the very worst people—that they are looked at carefully before being let out again—and those people will be on licence for life: once they start going in for aberrant behaviour, they can be recalled to prison and punished once more.

Apart from the very outlying people on the right and the left, I hope that I have satisfied everybody. It is high time that we reformed indeterminate sentences. Personally, I am amazed that they have survived judicial review and challenge in the courts thus far, but if something was not done, they would not survive very much further, which would lead to unfortunate consequences if a court suddenly started ordering us to release such prisoners and decided that they were being held unlawfully. I have recently described them as a “stain on the system”. I said that at a private meeting in the House of Lords—although it soon found its way into the press—but it is my opinion. What we are putting in place is protection for the public: far more rational, certain, determinate sentences, which is much more in line with how we think the British system should behave.

I will, of course, be followed in this debate by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). I have already expressed my amazement at his position, and I have found some other quotations from him in my time. I cannot understand how he can match up to his present position. For example, when we both started in July last year, his leader—the current Leader of the Opposition—said:

“I don’t think we should try to out-right the right on crime,”

and said that I was

“opening up an opportunity for us to redefine part of the debate about criminal justice.”

Only a few weeks ago, addressing the Howard League, the right hon. Member for Tooting said—in a lecture that I thought put him in a very convoluted position between his conscience and where he is at present—that

“our big challenge is to communicate that punishment and reform can and should go hand-in-hand…To deliver this calls for an honest debate”.

The right hon. Gentleman, the shadow Justice Secretary, is a radical lawyer from south London—he is more radical than I am—and he is trying to “out-right” me in what is an absurd and hopeless case. What we are putting in place is an altogether rational and sensible system.

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank the Justice Secretary.

“Public safety remains our primary concern and indeterminate sentences will always be appropriate for the most serious crimes”—

not my words, although I agree with them entirely, but those of this Government’s Green Paper, “Breaking the Cycle”, which was published in December 2010. How things have changed in just 11 months: instead of what was said then, at the last minute—and after interference from No. 10 Downing street—there was suddenly no mention of indeterminate sentences when the Bill was published in June, more than four months ago. At the last possible moment—at one minute to midnight—we are presented with new clauses that propose the total abolition of indeterminate sentences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

The right hon. Gentleman seems to be using his time to complain about not having enough time. Before he develops any conspiracy theories, may I make my position clear? I have spoken out against indeterminate sentences in the House before. The Green Paper proposed to restrict them, and I explained why. The announcement in June was made after the most careful discussion with the Prime Minister. We both agreed it, and the idea that I have been forced into accepting the abolition of indeterminate sentences is complete nonsense. The consultation process encouraged me to believe that serious people in the justice system were prepared to go for total abolition, and I leapt at the opportunity, as should the right hon. Gentleman, as a former chairman of Justice and of the Fabian Society. I cannot imagine where he thinks he is taking the labour movement to.

[Sadiq Khan]

We now know that, when this Government review policy, it means that they abolish it. This is the same Justice Secretary who signed off the Green Paper last December.

Not for the first time, the Government will have to leave it to colleagues from all parties and none in the other place to perform the scrutiny that this Bill deserves. The Justice Secretary is presenting us today with a blueprint that will risk more crime, more victims, and more serious and dangerous offenders being out on the streets. It is as simple as that, and he knows it. No amount of smoke and mirrors can disguise the fact that, by abolishing indeterminate sentences, he is risking the safety of communities in each and every constituency.

“Many dangerous criminals will be released, including repeat offenders, regardless of the risk they pose to the public.”

Those are not my words, but those of the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), now the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, back in 2008, when he was commenting on the changes to indeterminate sentences that we made when we were in government. We made changes to them, but this Government are now proposing to abolish them altogether. What happened to the party that believed in law and order?

I spent a few minutes this morning finding recent cases in which judges had given an indeterminate sentence to a convicted offender to protect the public. I will not give the names of the offenders or the victims, as I do not want to cause the victims further distress. A South Wales police press release from September this year bears the heading “Indeterminate prison sentence for convicted rapist”.

It goes on:

“A Cynon Valley man described as a ‘dangerous individual’ has been given an indeterminate sentence for the rape of two women and wounding of another…D, who the judge described as a dangerous individual, will not be considered for parole for six years. D’s victims have released the following…statement: ‘Our lives will never be the same after the trauma D has put us through. We were physically, mentally, financially and emotionally abused and controlled by him. We are satisfied with the court’s decision to give him an indeterminate sentence and relieved that no-one else will suffer like we have.’”

In this October’s online version of the Birmingham Mail was the headline, “Teenager jailed for stab attacks on father and son in West Heath”. The article stated:

“A teenager has been given an indeterminate sentence for stabbing a father and son while they tried to protect a ‘petrified’ youngster who sought refuge in their Birmingham home…Judge William Davis QC said: ‘You stabbed both the householder and his son causing both of them significant injury. It is a very serious offence because two people were attacked on their own door step and one of them left perilously close to death.’ The judge said he believed J to be a ‘dangerous young man’. After sentencing”,

the victim said,

“I am extremely pleased the judge recognised the seriousness of the offence. It shows the public that carrying knives will not be accepted in society today.”

This month’s North-West Evening Mail contained the headline, “Caustic soda brute loses appeal against sentence”, and continued:

“A ‘dangerous and manipulative’ thug, who scarred a teenager for life by pouring caustic soda on her face, has been told by top judges he deserved his indefinite jail term…On Thursday G challenged his indefinite jail terms, with his lawyers also arguing the minimum five years he was ordered to serve before applying for parole was ‘excessive’. But his appeal was thrown out by judges sitting at London’s Criminal Appeal Court, who described G as a ‘very dangerous man’ who should not be released from prison until the Parole Board considers it safe to do so…Sentencing him, the crown court judge said he was a ‘controlling, manipulative, emotionless and uncaring man’ who was a danger to women…The appeal judge”,

Mr Justice Spencer,

“said: ‘The judge was quite correct to conclude that the appellant should not be released until the Parole Board deems it safe for him to be released.’”

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Can the right hon. Gentleman think of any good reason why, given the remarks he has provided about the sentences, that the perpetrators would not have been given a life sentence? Normally, people like that would get a life sentence. Since there have been IPP sentences, some people have got them, but in the cases the right hon. Gentleman describes, judges will go back to the normal practice of giving a life sentence.

[Sadiq Khan]

They will not. The right hon. and learned Gentleman’s proposals require there to have been a first offence, and the schedule provides for sentences of 10 or more years. The person found guilty will have to have come back for a second offence and be found guilty of an offence that also requires a sentence of 10 or more years. In all these cases—the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows this—the Government will have taken away from the judge who has heard all the evidence and knows the facts of the case the power to give the IPP sentence.

[Mr Clarke]

There is no qualification for a life sentence. People can be sent down for a life sentence for their first offence if it is serious enough and demonstrates the danger posed to the public. We are not introducing any qualifications at all to the power to give life imprisonment.

[Sadiq Khan]

I could not have demolished the arguments better than the right hon. and learned Gentleman just has. He makes the exact point for me. Under the proposals we are presented with today, our judges will be stripped of the power to prevent the most serious criminals from being released and going on to be a danger to society. We can imagine a scenario—and an horrific one at that—of someone committing a serious and violent assault being caught, charged and found guilty. Under the Government’s new proposals, I accept that they might receive an extended determinate sentence and be eligible for release after two thirds of their sentence, should the Parole Board be satisfied. However, even if the Parole Board were not satisfied after two thirds of the sentence had elapsed, there would be nothing to prevent release at the end of the full sentence handed down by the judge. Dangerous individuals would be released at the end of their extended determinate sentence irrespective of whether they posed a risk to the public. Under the new proposals, judges will be able to do absolutely nothing about that. They will be powerless to deprive the offender further of his liberty in order to keep the public safe. I should be happy for the Justice Secretary to intervene on that point, but he apparently does not wish to do so.

[Mr Clarke]

The right hon. Gentleman clearly did not understand my question. He gave some dreadful descriptions of dreadful cases, featuring what—when the full circumstances are known—are clearly some of the worst examples of violence and sexual offences that could be found. The point is, however, that such people will receive life sentences, because such sentences are available to the court, and they will not be released until someone is satisfied that they are no longer as great a risk as they were. They will be subject to licence for the rest of their lives, and it will be possible to recall them if they start behaving in any sort of threatening way. The life sentence fills the gap that the right hon. Gentleman claims I am creating. We are not changing the position at all.

[Sadiq Khan]

I realise that the Justice Secretary has not practised law recently, but if a judge could deliver a life sentence for such offences now, he or she would do so. It is because judges have the power under the IPP sentence to deliver indeterminate sentences to protect the public that they deliver those sentences. I am afraid that the Justice Secretary is not right.

A critical weapon will be absent from a judge’s arsenal, preventing that judge from handing down the most appropriate sentence. The judge will simply not be able to sentence the offender with the condition that only when the authorities are satisfied that he is not a risk to society will he be released. I know that that will free up prison places and save the Government money, but taking risks with public safety is plain wrong, which is why we will oppose new clause 30.

Public safety will also be compromised by the proposed “two strikes and you’re out” sentences. That is a great media soundbite and a sure-fire way of making the Government seem tougher than they really are, and it is precisely the kind of thinking that lies behind the inclusion of the words “punishment of offenders” in the Bill, but policies relating to public safety cannot be determined by a public relations strategy.

We do not have to scratch very far beneath the surface to see that the Government’s plans are riddled with problems. Not only are they a rehash of failed Conservative policy from the 1990s, but they introduce a worrying amount of risk—risk that will undermine public safety. Through their “two strikes” policy, the Government absolve themselves totally of any responsibility to identify the serious, violent offenders who are most likely to reoffend. That should be done at the time when the first sentence is handed down for the commission of a heinous crime. It was for the purposes of precisely this scenario that the previous Government created indeterminate sentences, but this Government are making no effort to protect the public from those who are most likely to commit further serious and violent crime following their release. They will address the problem only once the offender has committed a second crime.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman has cited cases, and appalling cases at that, in which he feels that an indeterminate sentence is appropriate. Can he give any examples of cases in which he thinks that an indeterminate sentence has not led to justice—in which people have been locked up for many years, perhaps longer than they should have been?

[Sadiq Khan]

I shall come to the challenges posed by IPP sentencing. I accept that criticisms could be made about cases of people who should perhaps have been released and have not been. The hon. Gentleman has made a fair point. However, I do not think that the Government should risk the possibility that their policy will create countless additional victims, pain and misery that could be prevented if they took seriously their responsibility to keep the public safe. It should also be noted that the threshold for the handing down of a mandatory life sentence for the second offence is higher than that required for an indeterminate sentence. As a result, there is a risk that some of the most dangerous and serious criminals will not even be covered by the “two strikes” proposals. All that points to the need for some kind of indeterminate sentence that judges could use only in the most serious circumstances.

The 2008 reforms helped to deal with some of the problems that were inherent in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and I pay tribute, as did the Justice Secretary, to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) for the work that he did at that time. If the Government think that further reform is required, they can take many positive lessons from Northern Ireland’s successful introduction of indeterminate custodial sentences. I know that the Justice Secretary has corresponded with Northern Ireland colleagues, and has had discussions with my right hon. Friends the Members for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) on this very matter. He has said nothing, however, about why he believes the Northern Ireland experience does not contain lessons for England and Wales; instead, he simply dismissed that possibility out of hand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

Unlike the Front Benchers, I will try to keep my speech brief so as to allow other Members to contribute.

The Government are making a serious mistake by getting rid of indeterminate sentences, and I believe the decision will come back to bite them on the bottom. The vast majority of people serving indeterminate sentences have committed crimes such as manslaughter, other homicide and attempted homicide, other violence against the person, rape, other sexual offences, robbery and arson. Why on earth would we want a Government who think it is perfectly acceptable to let those people out of prison before they are deemed safe to be released out among the public?

[Sadiq Khan]

It is being done to save money.

[Philip Davies]

The shadow Secretary of State has hit the nail on the head. The Secretary of State started off in his post by saying that the most important thing for him was reducing reoffending. Well, we are talking about the crown jewel in the criminal justice system for dealing with reoffending. [Interruption.] I know that the Liberal Democrats do not believe that—they are soft on crime so I would not expect them to accept it. By the end of last year, 206 people who had served indeterminate sentences had been released from prison and 30% of them had committed more than 15 previous offences. Many of these people were not just dangerous offenders, but persistent offenders. How many of those 206 had committed another offence by the end of last year? The answer is just 11, or about 5%. The Secretary of State would give his right arm for reoffending rates of that order across the criminal justice system, so why on earth does someone who is supposedly committed to reducing the reoffending rate want to scrap the best-performing part of the criminal justice system on reoffending? This beggars belief. It comes back to the point that his real motive is not about reducing reoffending or protecting the public; it is about reducing the prison population. That is the only thing that he has ever been interested in, and this measure is all the proof we ever needed that that is his only motivation. It is absolutely appalling that a Government supposedly dominated by the Conservative party—the party of law and order—could be letting dangerous offenders out of prison before they are deemed safe to be released.

I wish to give a couple of examples of the people we are talking about from my local area of Bradford. Toffozul Ali was a convicted killer who was locked up indefinitely for a sudden and sustained knife attack in Bradford. Ali shook hands with his victim, Darren Jones, before stabbing him from behind, causing wounds to his arm, chest and knee. Ali already had a conviction for manslaughter for stabbing an Asian man to death when he was only 16, and he was branded a public danger and sentenced to an IPP. This Government seem to think it is fine that he can be released from prison before he is deemed safe to be released from prison—it is an absolute disgrace. Martin Ellerton was locked up indefinitely for stabbing his father to death, and he confessed to a six-year crime spree involving more than 630 offences of burglary and theft. These are the types of people we are talking about. The Secretary of State seems more concerned with their rights than with those of the people in places such as Shipley, who want to be protected from these people.

Stephen Ayre was a convicted killer who abducted and raped a 10-year-old boy in my constituency when he was unnecessarily released from prison. The father of that boy has gone through the trauma of that to call publicly for the Secretary of State to rethink his proposals on indeterminate sentences, saying:

“I would not wish what we’ve been through on anyone. The system failed my son six years ago. But Ken Clarke’s changes will only make things worse.”

I guarantee that people will be released from prison who otherwise would not have been and I guarantee that those people will go on to commit serious offences. What will the people who voted for this measure think about that, given that they will have created unnecessary victims of crime?

[Sadiq Khan]

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the new proposals mean that it is possible for somebody to receive an extended determinate sentence, to go on no courses or programmes, to sit in their cell for the duration of the sentence and still be released at the end of their determinate sentence?

[Philip Davies]

I have a lot of sympathy with what the shadow Secretary of State says. The point is that, at the moment, these people are released only when they are deemed safe to be released. Under a determinate sentence—irrespective of whether or not people are safe to be released, whether or not they have gone through the programmes they need to go through to address their offending behaviour and whether or not they have behaved well in prison—they will be released back out to the public. That is an absolute disgrace, as is debating this issue in just 73 minutes, with 30 minutes for speeches by Back Benchers. I will give up at that point to make room for other people, but the Secretary of State should be ashamed of himself as this will measure create further unnecessary victims of crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Blunt]

I am very grateful—[Interruption.] I am not embarrassed in the least. This measure forms part of the coalition agreement. We are delivering on that, sending a clear message and putting the law beyond doubt. Having things buried away in guidance to prosecutors, given that reassurance is needed for home owners and shopkeepers, is a distinctly sub-optimal way of proceeding on an issue such as this. When viewed in conjunction with the Home Secretary’s plans to strengthen the code of arrest for the police, we hope that these measures will help to fulfil the commitments in the coalition agreement on this issue. We must take together the instructions to Crown prosecutors, the legislation that I hope will go on to the statute book as a result of these Government measures and that code of arrest for the police, and I can therefore happily commend these proposals to the House.

[Sadiq Khan]

First, may I say, for the avoidance of doubt, that Labour Members do not intend to oppose new clause 27 or the consequential amendments, even though it is simply a rehash of an existing law and this valuable parliamentary time could have been used to discuss contentious issues that have caused real concern for many of our constituents? It was the previous Government, through section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, who placed the common law of self-defence into statute.

Since that time, there have been a number of calls, especially from those on the right, to “tighten” the laws on self-defence because they think that is good politics. Back in February 2010, the Prime Minister argued that the law needed further tightening to benefit the home owner against the burglar. Indeed, the Conservative party manifesto said that it would

“give householders greater legal protection if they have to defend themselves against intruders in their homes.”

The Conservatives have floated on a number of occasions the issue of reasonable force and changing the law to allow anything other than actions that are grossly disproportionate. Back in December 2009, the shadow Home Secretary, now Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) committed a future Conservative Home Secretary to changing the law so that convictions against householders would happen only in cases where the actions involved were “grossly disproportionate.” But despite all the spin, that change has not materialised. The new clause will not allow home owners to use grossly disproportionate force or disproportionate force. It will not even strengthen the law. That is because expert opinion and evidence on the issue of self-defence for home owners is pretty unanimous.

It is widely accepted by those at the coal face that the law on self-defence works pretty well and it is unclear in many quarters why the law would need strengthening. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, has said:

“There are many cases, some involving death, where no prosecutions are brought. We would only ever bring a prosecution where we thought that the degree of force was unreasonable in such a way that the jury would realistically convict. So these are very rare cases and history tells us that the current test works very well.”

That approach is further reinforced by what has happened in recent months. That is why the Minister, whom we all like, is embarrassed by having to move the new clause and why his right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary, whom we all love, has disappeared from the Chamber. Recent cases involving home owners such as Vincent Cooke in Cheshire, Peter Flanagan in Salford and Cecil Coley in Old Trafford, in which intruders were killed, have demonstrated that when reasonable force is deemed to have been used, the Crown Prosecution Service has not brought any charges, so the current law works. I see that a note is desperately being passed to the Minister—it is probably a sick note from the Justice Secretary.

Paul Mendelle QC, a previous chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said:

“The law should always encourage people to be reasonable, not unreasonable; to be proportionate, not disproportionate.”

He went on to add that the current law worked perfectly well and was well understood by juries. Just yesterday he argued in The Guardian that the two areas of change proposed by the Government are nothing of the sort. By amending section 76 of the 2008 Act so that there is no duty to retreat before force they are restating the current law. I think it is called rearranging the furniture: things might look different, but nothing of substance will have changed.

[Mr Cox]

I understand the import and effect of the right hon. Gentleman’s criticisms, but what was done by section 76 if not precisely what the Government are doing—namely putting the common law on a statutory footing?

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[Sadiq Khan]

I am glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman welcomed the Labour Government’s section 76, but it is because we have already done that that there is no point in doing it again. I appreciate that he would like to seek the glory for doing so, but we have already done it. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

[Mr Cox]

The right hon. Gentleman did not do this and neither did his Government. In seeking to codify the common law, they left out the defence of defending property. All the Government are doing now is making good a lacuna left by the Labour Government.

[Sadiq Khan]

With the greatest respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, he is wrong.

Far from requiring retreat, the current law allows that even the first blow can still be reasonable force in self-defence. It is unclear what including the defence of property in the 2008 Act will add to the law as it does not differ from existing interpretations. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who speaks for Plaid Cymru, has given examples from the CPS guidance written in plain English. Perhaps he is suggesting that we should publish the CPS guidance and deliver it to every household in England and Wales, but I think that would be a waste of time. The Minister seems to believe that voters—home owners—will read the Bill to seek clarification of the law.

Using legislation as a public relations stunt is no way to run a Government, especially when measures are introduced at the eleventh hour. Not only have the clauses on self-defence not been subjected to scrutiny or consultation, but it is not clear how much they will add to legislation on self-defence. The Government’s own impact assessment confirms that there will be no impact on the MOJ, so what we have today is not the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge—that is another broken promise, by the way—or a strengthening of the law, as it has been spun as being, but a simple restatement of the policy on self-defence, which had already been restated excellently back in 2008. For those reasons, we will not oppose the measures.

[Mr Llwyd]

It is often said in parliamentary circles that amendments, especially those moved by Opposition Members, are otiose, although I venture to suggest that few people outside this Chamber use that word, let alone know what it means: namely, that something is pointless. I start on the basis that this is pointless and I shall develop my argument point by point, if I am allowed to do so.

[Sadiq Khan]

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean the Justice Secretary or this new clause?

[Mr Llwyd]

No, like the right hon. Gentleman, I have the highest regard for the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I presume that this evening he is exercising his own right to self-defence by not being here. He has withdrawn from the Chamber and the possibility of being dealt a few blows that could actually hurt him. I say that not in a rude or pejorative fashion but in a semi-jocular way.

Yesterday, I asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman to answer the very question I also asked the Minister: what would be the exact difference in the law after this measure was introduced? Answer came there none from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, except, “Hang on until tomorrow and all will be revealed.” In the past few minutes, the Minister has revealed all and, blow me, I am underwhelmed! I listened intently but reason or logic came there none and changes less still, so I am still none the wiser. “Could it be,” I ask myself, “that the Government are speaking to an audience outside the Chamber?” Surely not; surely, they are not actually addressing an audience outside the Chamber such as the tabloid groups. No, never, that could not be right—I have dismissed that idea.

Currently, a householder may use reasonable force to defend him or herself or another, or in the prevention of crime, which includes defending a person’s property. The new clause therefore does nothing. The use of force in self-defence is governed by common law and the use of force in the prevention of crime is governed by section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967. In both cases, the test to be applied is whether the force used was necessary and, if so, whether the degree of force used was reasonable in all the circumstances.

Whether the force used can be considered reasonable is decided according to the circumstances and the danger that the householder perceived him or herself to be in. The beauty of that law is the fact that it is so open, because circumstances change and one looks at the circumstances of each case. We have heard about someone having his ear sliced off and I can tell hon. Members about a case I defended in which, in a public house in north Wales, two families who were not very friendly met up. One was a family of poachers and the other of gamekeepers. Three members of one family jumped on top of one member of the other family in the toilets and the only way in which the lad, who was by himself, felt he could defend himself was by squeezing one of the others’ testicles in the most awful way. It left some permanent damage by the way, so it was not altogether a laughing matter—certainly not for the man involved. Anyway, the question for the court was whether the force used there and then was reasonable in all the circumstances and the court said, yes. So every case is decided on its merits; that is the beauty of the law of self-defence.

I deduce therefore that the only possible justification for the change is to provide some form of clarification and/or, possibly, that somebody is addressing somebody outside. Section 76 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 clarifies the operation of the common law and section 3 defences as listed in the 1967 Act. The 2003 Act did not change the current test that allows the use of reasonable force and neither, I suspect, will new clause 27.

Nor, indeed, can the Government argue that the law surrounding reasonable force is badly understood by the judiciary—professional or lay. The existing position with regard to property is set out clearly in layman’s terms in the CPS guidance “Self-defence and the prevention of crime”. It says:

“Reasonable force. A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances for the purposes of: self-defence; or defence of another; or defence of property; or prevention of crime; or lawful arrest.

In assessing the reasonableness of the force used, prosecutors should ask two questions:

was the use of force necessary in the circumstances, i.e. Was there a need for any force at all? and

was the force used reasonable in the circumstances?”

The existing law works well and is well understood; 99% of the time it is well applied in courts and I do not know of any great tide of concern that the law needs further clarification.

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[Mr Blunt]

I will turn to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) towards the end of my speech, but first let me say how grateful I am to the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) for his kind personal remarks. I was marginally upset that I did not leap the amorous threshold that my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary did, but I am grateful for the limited extent of his affection compared to that for my right hon. and learned Friend.

I was amazed at the chutzpah of the right hon. Member for Tooting in lecturing the Government about a public relations stunt and spin. It took me a moment to pick my jaw back up off the Bench as I listened to him. There is a clear answer to the right hon. Gentleman. He properly stood up for the legal system as it now sits. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) said, it is an inconsistent message if we have changed section 76 of the Criminal Justice Act but have not applied it to property, so let us make the position absolutely clear to everyone that not only in the code for crown prosecutors and in the common law but in statute law, as passed by the House, property is included. That is a clear reason for making this change.

The right hon. Gentleman said that presumably the change was for an audience outside the Chamber. Yes, it is. It is all very well for sophisticates such as us, who understand the word “otiose”—used by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd)—but the issue goes right to people’s hearts. They feel that they are entitled to defend their home or their shop, and we owe it to them to make it crystal clear that we absolutely support them in defending themselves, their families and their property. The proposals make that absolutely clear. We need to understand that when something is so central to how everybody feels about their home, shop or place of business we must send a clear signal from this place about whose side we are on.

[Sadiq Khan]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister’s flow, but I have a simple question. Once the law is on the statute book, will a home owner have more rights, fewer rights or the same rights as they have now?

[Mr Blunt]

The home owner will have much greater reassurance about exercising their rights. [Interruption.] It is all for well for the lawyers on the Opposition Benches to cackle and say that the provision will not make any strict legal difference; it makes a profound difference in the reassurance that people will feel about operating in defence of their property and their life, which is why I am happy to commend the new clause to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time and added to the Bill.

New Clause 26

Offence of squatting in a residential building

‘(1) A person commits an offence if—

(a) the person is in a residential building as a trespasser having entered it as a trespasser,

(b) the person knows or ought to know that he or she is a trespasser, and

(c) the person is living in the building or intends to live there for any period.

(2) The offence is not committed by a person holding over after the end of a lease or licence (even if the person leaves and re-enters the building).

(3) For the purposes of this section—

(a) “building” includes any structure or part of a structure (including a temporary or moveable structure), and

(b) a building is “residential” if it is designed or adapted, before the time of entry, for use as a place to live.

(4) For the purposes of this section the fact that a person derives title from a trespasser, or has the permission of a trespasser, does not prevent the person from being a trespasser.

(5) A person convicted of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale (or both).

(6) In relation to an offence committed before the commencement of section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the reference in subsection (5) to 51 weeks is to be read as a reference to 6 months.

(7) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a) it is irrelevant whether the person entered the building as a trespasser before or after the commencement of this section.’.—(Mr Blunt.)

Brought up, and read the First time.