§ 12. Mr. MichaelTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will outline her Department's strategy for providing secure accommodation for young people who currently have to be held in prison accommodation.
§ Mr. YeoA number of local authorities have already registered an intention to provide some of the 60 to 65 additional secure places that we have assessed as being required nationally. We are continuing to discuss with other authorities how the balance might best be provided.
§ Mr. MichaelDoes the Minister realise that the problem exists now and has existed for many years? It was two years ago that the Government accepted, under pressure from Labour Members and others, the need for 759 secure places to end the scandal of young people being kept in prison accommodation because there was nowhere else for them to be kept, and there remains nowhere else for them to be kept. Two years later his Department has not provided one additional place anywhere in England and Wales. Is it not time that the Government slopped talking about doing something about this problem and started to provide the places?
§ Mr. YeoAs the hon. Gentleman supports South Glamorgan county council, which is resisting a proposal to build a secure unit in Wales—it is almost the only Welsh local authority that is doing so—I am amazed that he asked that question. I assure him that no Conservative Member will take any lessons in how to tackle crime from a party that opposed the Public Order Act 1986, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Criminal Justice Act 1987, the Criminal Justice Act 1988, the Prison Security Act 1992 and the Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Act 1992, which banned joyriding. No amount of philosophising by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) can conceal the fact that Labour always has been soft on crime and always will be. It is always ready to shed crocodile tears for the camera on behalf of victims, but its real and deep sympathy is always for the criminal.