Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification, because the Deputy Prime Minister’s lack of knowledge is frankly shocking. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that a police officer would still have the discretion to decide not to charge little Johnny for carrying a penknife and that, even if he was arrested and taken to a police station, the custody officer and others would still be able to make the appropriate decision? It is completely wrong to say that the police’s hands will be tied if they stop a young person carrying an offensive weapon or a knife.

[Nick de Bois]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely valid and pertinent point. I will put it much cruder: the scaremongering on penknives is absolute nonsense and defies common sense. I confirm exactly what the right hon. Gentleman has said. He and other Members may be interested to know that a scout leader—I seem to recall that scout leaders use penknives quite a lot—fully supported the proposals. He had no fear, so I hope the Deputy Prime Minister is reassured.

Let us accept that when an offender comes before a court for carrying a knife, current sentencing guidelines point to the expectation of prison. However, only one in four end up in prison. Our new clauses will make it clear to the court, the criminals, the public and the victims that the minimum expectation is a six-month sentence for over-18s.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

I also begin by thanking Members from both sides of the House who have worked extremely hard during the passage of the Bill. The respective Front-Bench spokesmen have given a lot of time to the Bill and the various officials, Clerks and Members’ advisers have also worked hard.

There is no point beating about the bush—this is a poor Bill. We know that the Justice Secretary was sucking up to the Prime Minister when he begged his Cabinet colleagues earlier this year for Bills—any Bills—to fill the gaping hole in the parliamentary schedule. What he brought forward was a mish-mash of leftovers. Ministers have thrown into the Bill their scrag ends and afterthoughts, making for an incoherent mess. It is a Christmas tree Bill on which many baubles have been hung.

The Bill includes proposals for toughening up sentences. No one disagrees with the need to keep the public safe, but part 1 is about repairing the damage done by the Lord Chancellor’s predecessor, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who abolished indeterminate sentences for public protection—IPPs—in 2012. The Justice Secretary is clearly embarrassed now by the actions of his predecessor, but he was not embarrassed when he marched through the Aye Lobby in support of the abolition of IPPs in 2012. Were it not for the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, there would be little need for part 1 at all. Madam Deputy Speaker, you know, from your long experience, that a Government are in a mess when they reverse legislation that they themselves passed only two years ago.

The Justice Secretary’s secure college plans in part 2 are supported by no one. He calls them borstals when speaking to his Back Benchers, but uses softer language when he is talking to others. He is fooling no one. There is no evidence base to support the model. He has no justification for spending £85 million on a 400-place youth prison when the numbers of young people behind bars are down 65%. Nothing has been said on whether girls and the very youngest offenders will be thrown into the same prison, putting them in danger. The plans are so rushed and half-baked that the use of restraint being proposed is illegal. Yet Ministers have pushed ahead, with contracts being agreed on the construction before Parliament has even approved the measure—a discourtesy to colleagues in the Commons and the other place. This teenage Titan prison is a monument to the Justice Secretary’s ideologically fuelled hobby horses. The money would deliver so much more if spent on education, training and skills in existing establishments rather than on an unsafe vanity project.

On judicial review in part 4, the Lord Chancellor continues with his assault on our citizens’ rights. Not content with trying to dismantle legal aid and railing against human rights, he is now trying to limit judicial review as a means by which communities and citizens challenge the illegality of actions taken by public authorities, citing one or two bad cases to justify changes that affect many other potential good ones. I will not rehearse the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) and I have already expressed on these judicial review changes during the Bill’s passage, but it is ironic that on the eve of the Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary, when the Prime Minister is claiming to want to teach our children of its significance, the Government are depriving citizens and communities of their rights to challenge power.

We should not forget the 18 new clauses and schedules that the Justice Secretary tabled on Report—14 for today’s debate alone, some of which we have not even discussed. Those have received no decent scrutiny form the House. That indicates the disdain that the Justice Secretary shows towards this place.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I was unfortunate enough to practise at the Bar when the previous Government had 13 years and dozens of criminal justice Acts, most of which were highly inefficient and a great bar to proper justice. In relation to judicial review, what was the situation compared with Magna Carta 800 years ago and prior to 1971? We still have a judicial review system, however imperfect the right hon. Gentleman may think it is, and to criticise it as something that Magna Carta would lose by is laughable.

[Sadiq Khan]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has read the Prime Minister’s article that was published on Sunday in which he talked about the importance of citizens’ rights and of empowering citizens, reminding us of a 13th-century king who gave citizens power to challenge power. The Justice Secretary clearly does not understand that it is ironic that, at a time when Ministers are reminding citizens of Magna Carta, they are taking away and diluting some of those citizens’ rights to challenge power. If he thinks that is acceptable, that is for him to explain. In the context of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, the changes to legal aid, and the attacks on human rights, the hon. Gentleman will accept when he is outside the Chamber—

[Guy Opperman]

rose—

[Sadiq Khan]

I appreciate that a reshuffle is due and the hon. Gentleman needs to impress the Whips, but he will recognise during a quieter moment—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) knows that in all professional practice one stands when one is speaking; otherwise one does not speak.

[Sadiq Khan]

I was reminding the House of the 18 new clauses that the Justice Secretary brought before the House today, 14 of which we have seen for the first time and many of which have not been debated. His lack of respect for due process has led to him crow-barring many new proposals into the Bill. Some of them have merit, but we should at least have been able to debate them in detail. We have been deprived of that opportunity.

The clauses on wilful neglect by social care workers are a welcome move, as is the new offence regarding police corruption. However, without further scrutiny we do not know whether they, or the changes to planning decisions and personal injury claims, will do as the Government claim or whether there will be any unintended negative consequences. What is more, there are no impact assessments, so there is no sense of how much they will cost and who will benefit.

Efforts to tackle repeat knife crime are to be welcomed, even though the Government could not come to an agreed position. I am disappointed that during the course of his speech the Secretary of State made no mention of knife crime—that is one of the downsides of other people writing your speech for you. Ministers should give up any pretence that this Government are any longer a coalition. They are not; they are disintegrating by the day.

Unlike this Government, we have focused on the issue at hand, as it is only right that the seriousness of a second knife offence is recognised. It is crucial to send a strong signal that carrying a knife is unacceptable, even more so for those who repeatedly do so. The new clauses still give judges the power to apply important discretion as there may be circumstances when a prison sentence might not be appropriate. More importantly, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service will still have complete discretion to decide whether somebody should be charged with the relevant offence, despite what some would have us believe.

However, Labour Members know that it is a huge disservice to victims of knife crime to pretend that this change in the law is a panacea; it is not. The hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who is now in his place, recognises, as he said, that we need to do much more to educate people that carrying a knife is unnecessary and unacceptable, working in schools, colleges and youth clubs, and with families, to tackle the problem. Those approaches are not mutually exclusive. Only then will we divert people away from a destructive lifestyle.

Given the long list of unanswered concerns and late additions to the Bill that have passed without scrutiny, Labour Members cannot give it our support. Once more, we will be looking to the other place to refine and improve on these proposals and rescue the Government’s Bill from mediocrity.