HC Deb 10 February 1994 vol 237 cc430-1
1. Mr. Bates

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his policy towards the right to silence.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard)

In appropriate circumstances, a court should be able to draw proper inferences from an accused person's failure to answer questions before and at his trial. At present, courts are precluded from drawing any inferences of guilt from the failure of an accused person answer such questions. I do not think that that artificial restriction can be justified and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill contains provisions to modify it.

Mr. Bates

In welcoming my right hon. and learned Friend's answer, may I ask whether he agrees with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) that no one has anything to fear from being asked reasonable questions? Does he accept that many of our right hon. and hon. Friends are puzzled at the Labour party's failure to support such a modest measure in Committee?

Mr. Howard

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and, on that matter, with the hon. Member for Brightside. It is a matter of considerable regret that the hon. Gentleman's Front-Bench colleagues have not seen fit to follow his opinion on that question.

Mr. Gunnell

The Secretary of State will know that many of those who have made representations to us on that issue have pointed out that there will be a significant increase in the number of miscarriages of justice as a result of the proposed legislation, especially when it applies to those who have disabilities. Does the Secretary of Stale agree that, before he makes any changes, it would be better to wait until we have procedures in force to deal with miscarriages of justice, as recommended by the Royal Commission on criminal justice?

Mr. Howard

We should like to put those procedures in place as soon as posssible. The truth of the matter is that those who make disproportionate use of the so-called right to silence are professional criminals and terrorists. They make a mockery of our system of criminal justice and the sooner that we put an end to that abuse the better.

Mr. Heald

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the Lord Chief Justice said clearly in his Tom Sergant lecture that there is no reason why proper inferences should not be drawn under such circumstances? Does he agree with that statement?

Mr. Howard

I certainly agree. That was also the view of the majority of judges who gave evidence to the Royal Commission on criminal justice.

Mr. Allen

While unemployment and poor housing can never be an excuse for crime, does the Secretary of State accept that 14 years of Government policies on unemployment, housing and education could have contributed in any way to the appalling rise in the levels of crime over that same 14-year period?

Madam Speaker

Order. The question is a specific one dealing with the right to silence. I must ask the hon. Member to relate his question directly to the question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Allen

Does the Secretary of State feel that the current Bill will in any way affect those factors?

Madam Speaker

Order. Those factors have nothing to do with the question.

Dame Jill Knight

On the question of miscarriages of justice, will the changes that my right hon. and learned Friend envisages take into account the appalling case, which aroused such public concern, of the parents who undoubtedly killed their small baby and yet walked free from the court because of that right to silence?

Mr. Howard

I very much hope that the changes that we are making will go some considerable way towards remedying the manifest injustice of the case to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention. The whole House will have seen just a moment ago the extraordinary extent to which Labour Front-Bench Members will go to talk about anything other than the real issues affecting law and order.