Right to Silence (Hansard, 19 May 1994)

§ 6. Mr. Streeter
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what priority he gives to reform of the right to silence; and if he will make a statement.

§ 7. Mr. Page
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress he has made on his plans to abolish the right to silence.

§ Mr. Maclean
Current restrictions on drawing proper inferences from a suspect's silence are repugnant to common sense and open to exploitation by experienced criminals. I attach a high priority to our reforms of the so-called right to silence rules.

§ Mr. Streeter
Does my hon. Friend think that our reform of right to silence is one of the measures that the chairman of the Police Federation had in mind when he said yesterday: Our Home Secretary is more in tune with the Police Federation than any other Home Secretary for 30 years"?

§ Mr. Maclean
Yes, I am aware of that remark. I am sure that in the spirit of fairness the hon. Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. O'Brien) intended to make that quotation available to the House as well. In addition, the Police Federation has written to me about the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill saying: If the measures contained in this Bill are implemented, they will enhance the stature and ability of the criminal justice system to reduce crime, successfully bring criminals to justice and significantly reduce the fear of crime, thereby improving the quality of life for many members of society. That is the police view; it is the Government's view as well.

§ Mr. Page
Does my hon. Friend find it rather odd, as I do, that a person accused of serious fraud has to provide information under threat of a penalty while a person accused of a criminal offence can remain silent? Does he 944 agree that the guilty are the only people who are worried and frightened about the removal of the right to silence and is it not common sense to see it go?

§ Mr. Maclean
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but it is not merely the police who agree that those changes to the so-called right to silence are essential. The Lord Chief Justice confirmed that our proposals are absolutely right, saying: I do not think the proposed measures are unfair. On the contrary I think they introduce an element of common sense and realism which has been sadly lacking hitherto. And so say all of us.

§ Mr. Gerrard
How can the Minister justify his proposals to allow an adverse inference to be drawn if a person remains silent when questioned not by police officers but by people who may be completely untrained, such as private security officers or store detectives? Is that not guaranteed to lead to more miscarriages of justice?

§ Mr. Maclean
I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. Nor did the House accept it, as I seem to recall that on Third Reading the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill received a majority of 176 votes in this Chamber. If the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends—I know that some of them voted against it, including the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and others—and the Opposition Front Bench had thought that that part of the Bill was so reprehensible I am sure that they would have voted against it.

§ Mr. Trimble
May I refer the Minister to the speech in another place by the former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland? In relation to the Northern Ireland provisions on which the measure is based, he said that he had heard no complaints from the Bar in Northern Ireland about its operation? May I also refer the Minister to the report published this week which shows that the operation of the legislation in Northern Ireland has made very little impact on the system there, thus disproving the alarmist stories put about here and reinforcing our point that his proposals are modest? What should be done is seriously to address the right to silence, properly so called, to ensure that it is modified for certain persons in certain categories.

§ Mr. Maclean
I do not entirely accept that the proposals are modest, but they are not so draconian or radical as some people who are trying to damage the Bill make out. A lot of crystal ball gazing has been going on about the so-called right to silence, which I find quite unnecessary because if one looks at the Northern Ireland experience one can read the book, and it is a book that has worked. We should be guided by what the Lord Chief Justice said, based on the experience in the courts there.