§ 2. Mr. Harry GreenwayTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new measures he is planning to tackle juvenile crime; and if he will make a statement. [34518]
§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard)The Government continue to take firm action to tackle juvenile crime and its causes. In particular, we have strengthened the courts' powers to give young offenders custodial sentences where they commit serious crimes or offend persistently; we have given the police the power to attach stricter conditions to bail; we are proposing to give the police new powers to seize alcohol from young people drinking in public and to destroy it; and we have set up a ministerial group on juveniles, which is working to ensure that all relevant Departments and Government agencies, together with local government and voluntary agencies, co-ordinate their efforts—so as to target children who are at greatest risk of offending and to maximise the efforts made to steer them away from a life of crime.
§ Mr. GreenwayI welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's reply and all the measures that he is taking. Does he agree that if juveniles are set on a life of crime, that will prove disastrous for the rest of their lives and for their families? Does my right hon. and learned Friend further agree that if juveniles receive moral and spiritual teaching, that will assist them to move away from crime? Will my right hon. and learned Friend do all that he can to provide such education, as well as preventing juveniles from reoffending if they commit a crime for any reason?
§ Mr. HowardI agree with my hon. Friend, whose points go far beyond the criminal justice system. Greater emphasis must be placed on the part that teachers and parents can play in educating children in the difference between right and wrong. The greater the emphasis placed on that matter in children's formative years, the less prospect there will be of them becoming career criminals later in life.
§ Mr. StrawI entirely endorse what the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) said. But is the Secretary of State aware that, so great has been the Government's failure over 17 years to tackle juvenile crime, there are countless examples across the country of persistent young offenders who wait for months—in some cases for more than a year—before being punished? Meanwhile, they offend again and again before their cases get to court. Why are these delays continually becoming worse? Does not the Government's inability to tackle youth crime contrast starkly with Labour's proposals to 1037 reform the youth justice system, and particularly with our pledge to halve the time that it takes to bring serious young criminals to justice?
§ Mr. HowardThe pledge might be just a trifle more impressive if the document to which the hon. Gentleman refers gave the slightest indication of how the pledge is to be maintained—but it does not deal with that at all. What we have seen from the Labour party is a series of attempts to undermine all the measures that we have taken. It has attempted to wreck the steps that we have taken to give police the power to attach conditions to bail, and it has sought to make it impossible for secure accommodation to be made available for young offenders, with Labour-controlled local authorities consistently refusing to provide such accommodation. What we get from the hon. Gentleman is a conspicuous example of the new dangers that new Labour brings.