Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Steve Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher), for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick), for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) and, of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for making some really thoughtful contributions. They have made it clear in the debate that the Conservative party has gone high on tax and is now also soft on crime. What a sorry situation for a party that once proudly stood for the precise opposite of the record that it now holds.

The Conservative Government took 21,000 police officers off our streets. They closed courts, created a backlog of nearly 60,000 cases and targeted cuts on the youth services that prevent crime at source. At every stage in the criminal justice system, the Government have let criminals off and let victims down, and now we have this thin, meagre Queen’s Speech, offering nothing to put that right.

As we have heard from Opposition Members, the Conservatives have promised a victims Bill in every Queen’s Speech since 2015, and yet, seven years on, a Bill has still not appeared in Parliament. Yesterday, we were promised only a draft Bill, meaning that it will take even longer to become law. A victims Bill should be at the centre of the legislative programme, not an afterthought, because the Government have let victims down for far too long.

It is nothing short of scandalous that only 1.3% of reported rapes ever result in a prosecution; the other 98.7% never reach court. In those rare cases where a prosecution actually happens, the average delay in getting to court has now exceeded 1,000 days for the first time ever. Rape survivors deserve so much better than this. Letting an offender walk free for nearly three years—especially when so many of them live in the same neighbourhood as the person they attacked—is a major contributing factor in why so many cases are dropped. At a time when rape involving a knife has gone up by nearly 10%, the Government have effectively decriminalised rape.

The Home Secretary—I am sorry that she is not in her place—mentioned paedophilia in her opening speech. Let me respectfully remind her that her party ignored the child victim of the predatory former Conservative MP for Wakefield and allowed him to stand as its candidate. She might reflect on that before she debases herself with slurs against other parties ever again. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler) did not hear what the Home Secretary said from the Dispatch Box. Those comments are directed at what she said, and she debased her office in how she said it.

Labour proposed a victims Bill that would have put victims and survivors back at the heart of the criminal justice system, but the Government refused to work with us. We can only conclude, after seven years of delay and dither, low prosecution rates and eye-watering court delays, that they just do not care about victims. A fundamental part of supporting victims is catching the criminals who offended against them in the first place, but the Government’s police cuts are so extreme that they have effectively decriminalised many of the crimes that worry people the most. They fail to prosecute 93% of reported robberies, 95% of violent assaults, 96% of thefts, 99% of reported rapes and 99.9% of reported cases of fraud. Shops and supermarket managers say that the police no longer come to arrest shoplifters, so there has been an explosion of shoplifting to order. The criminals march in and unload what they like off the shelves—[Interruption.] I suggest the Minister for Crime and Policing, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) speaks to some supermarket managers in his constituency. The criminals march in and unload what they like off the shelves and there is no one to stop them. If there are not enough police because the Conservatives took them off the streets, they cannot catch the criminals. It really is as simple and common-sensical as that.

Fraud is the fastest-growing crime of all. Scammers target people’s life savings and bank accounts with ever more intricate online schemes. We have recently even seen low-life criminals set up fake funds claiming to be helping Ukrainians, when they are just fraudsters helping themselves to decent people’s money. Yet the Business Secretary of this Conservative Government tells us fraud is not a real crime. No wonder their own fraud Minister resigned in disgust at the Government’s failure to take these serious crimes seriously.

The Government are also letting down the victims of violent crime. Custodial sentences for knife offenders have fallen to the lowest level for seven years. Almost half of all knife offenders dodged jail because the Conservatives broke their election pledge of “two strikes and you’re out”. I know from my time as a council leader how to cut violent youth crime. My council reduced it by—[Interruption.] Conservative Members might scoff and laugh, but my council reduced it by a third in 18 months. [Interruption.] I suggest the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) listens to this. We did it by investing in better support for parents, more community-led projects that divert young offenders away from crime, and tougher enforcement against law breakers. It works, but this Government have done the polar opposite. They have presided over a 70% cut in youth service funding that has left some areas with no funding at all—zero funding. They have closed 750 youth centres and sacked 4,500 youth workers who did vital work steering the most vulnerable young people away from crime.

Drug and alcohol addiction lies behind many criminals’ offending. They steal to feed their habit and their habit often makes them more violent. We would expect any serious Government to tackle that, but the Conservatives have done the opposite. The House of Commons Library found that, thanks to this Government, £100 million a year less was spent on tackling drug and alcohol addiction in the three years to 2020, a decision that is right now fuelling crime. Under the Conservatives, a prisoner is more likely to leave prison addicted to drugs than when they first arrived. The think-tank Reform tells us that one in seven prisoners are now addicted to drugs, more than double the figure five years ago.

Under the Conservatives, our prisons have become colleges of crime that breed offending, instead of places of punishment and rehabilitation that prevent it. It is alarming how many serious criminals walk out of jail at will. In February, the dangerous sex offender Paul Robson walked out of HMP North Sea Camp. In March, the murderer Shane Farrington walked out of HMP Thorn Cross. [Interruption.] The Minister for Crime and Policing should take responsibility for the Government’s record after 12 years in power. This Government should never have allowed such dangerous criminals to be placed in a low category prison where they could simply walk out and menace the public. With drugs and violence running out of control in our prisons, we are seeing more prisoners leave prison to commit even more serious crimes afterwards. Over the last decade, 685 ex-offenders have been convicted for murders committed after they were released. More than a third of those murders were committed between 2018 and 2020, showing that the rate of the most serious reoffending is speeding up under this Government.

Terrorism worries everyone in this country. We heard some heartfelt contributions today, for instance from Members talking about the horrific attack that targeted young people at the Manchester Arena. We remember those victims with great sorrow in our hearts. Of the last four major terrorist attacks, three were carried out by prisoners released on licence and one by a serving inmate. So it beggars belief that the Justice Secretary wants to blunder ahead with his ill-conceived plan to rip up protections against terrorism in his bonfire of British people’s rights. This country’s security services have explained in The Times that his plans will make it harder to deport dangerous foreign terrorists, and in some cases, terrorists could get away with their crimes because of the reforms in the Queen’s Speech.

Our security services give evidence to the British courts in secret for terrorism cases. That is necessary so that their sources and operations are not exposed to the terrorists that they are tracking down. Under the Government’s disastrous proposals, however, these cases would have to be heard in Strasbourg at the European Court where secret evidence is not allowed. Rather than exposing their agents, the security services would be forced to drop cases and let terrorists walk free. The Government’s warped ideology threatens to put the British people at greater risk of terrorist attacks. It is our job in the Opposition to stop them doing that.

This Government have gone soft on crime. They do not prosecute criminals because they cut the police by 21,000. They do not punish criminals because they do not catch them in the first place. Our prisons have become drug-addicted colleges of crime and the Government cut the diversionary programmes that knock low-level offenders off the crime escalator, so they then progress on to more serious forms of offending.

Labour’s approach would be so very different. We would put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system with a strengthened victims Bill. We would make offenders pay back communities with new community and victim payback orders that stop young offenders in their tracks, and we would let victims choose the work that offenders have to carry out. We would crack down on drugs in prison and keep dangerous prisoners in high-security prisons that they cannot walk out of. We would set up new neighbourhood crime prevention teams in every community, bringing together police, youth workers, mental health services and, importantly, victims’ representatives to tackle the causes of crime and antisocial behaviour. While the Conservatives sack the police, we back the police, and we would put more of them back on the streets catching criminals.

Under this Prime Minister, crime is up 18% and prosecutions are down 18%. Perhaps it is no surprise that the Government have gone soft on crime when they are led by people who break the law themselves. The Leader of the Opposition has promised to resign if he is issued with a fine for breaking covid lockdown rules. The Prime Minister broke those laws repeatedly and shamelessly, yet he hopes to cling on to office. That sends criminals a very dangerous message: if the Prime Minister does not obey the law, why should they? This Government are led by law-breakers who believe that laws are for the little people. No wonder they have gone soft on crime; no wonder they are letting criminals off and letting victims down.