Loss OF BENEFIT FOR BREACH OF COMMUNITY ORDER (Hansard, 29 March 2000)

§ Angela Eagle
I beg to move amendment No. 26, in page 61, line 6, leave out— 'Part I of the Criminal Justice Act 1991' and insert— 'the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 27.

§ Angela Eagle
These amendments make two technical changes to clause 57. They introduce no policy changes but reflect the consolidation of existing legislation, and I commend them to the House.

§ Mr. Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South)
I am grateful to be able to address the House briefly on this matter. I support the amendments, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will address some of the loopholes and contradictions that remain in clause 57 and its associated clauses.
I declare a personal interest in this matter. More years ago than I care to remember, I was responsible for setting up the pilot schemes for non-custodial treatment of offenders. In the context of the aims of that programme and of the operation of community services in the interim, I want to point out some of the gaps that remain in the amended clause that will progress for consideration in another place.
By way of background, let me say that one of the elements of the community service by offenders scheme that the House should recognise is that it was introduced to pursue entirely laudable aims. We wanted to find positive alternatives to incarceration, and to find ways of reducing the cost to the public purse—although at that time we did not anticipate a time when it would cost some £2 billion a year to keep people in prison. That amounts to about £30,000 per person, per year.
However, we also wanted to study notions of social reparation. The clauses that I am interested in address the question of obligation in the reparation process. The scheme that I set up also had the objective of trying to break the cycles of criminality.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman may be somewhat mistaken about the scope of the amendments. His remarks seem to be going rather wide of the minor changes that the amendments entail. They would have been more suited to a general debate on 456 the clause, or to a debate on new clause 29, had that been selected. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to confine his remarks to the very specific amendment before the House.

§ Mr. Simpson
I checked with the Clerks a little earlier, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to make sure that it would be legitimate to ask the Minister to address the loopholes that remain and that ought to be considered when the Bill moves on to another place. I was advised that this was the most appropriate slot for drawing the Minister's attention to those loopholes.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman may know that I did not make up the guidance that I gave him out of my own head. The advice that I am giving him is as up-to-date as it can possible be. Therefore, I am not sure that this is the opportunity that he thought that it might be.

§ Mr. Simpson
I am not entirely clear how to proceed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I am sure that you will give me guidance if I stray further than is legitimate.
My point has to do with the pursuit of new policies on constraint and obligation. Such policies are usually evidence based, and that is quite right. I am worried that we have yet to show that the existing system does not work, and that the amendments under discussion will close the loopholes that remain. My concern about this is that we will be left with a clause that does not make it desirable, workable or necessarily even legal. I hope that the Minister will address the specifics of three points that I hope can still be incorporated into that framework when it comes back to this House.
First, can the Minister demonstrate and spell out how the clauses, as amended, will be consistent with the European convention on human rights, particularly article 6 on fair trials, article 7 on no punishments without law and article 14 on non-discrimination? It appears that article 7 is breached on the basis—

Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I have given the hon. Gentleman some run, and I am sorry if he feels that he may have been misled by previous advice. The fact is that this is the only amendment to clause 57 that we have before us. The hon. Gentleman may have gained the impression that, because it was the only amendment, it would be the convenient amendment to which to relate his remarks. I am afraid that he is going far too wide, as he is talking about the clause as a whole and even beyond the clause. I really cannot permit this to go on. He has made one point and, if the Minister is disposed to comment on it, he will have to be content with that.

§ Angela Eagle
This is a very narrow technical amendment, as my hon. Friend has pointed out. I do not want to go out of order by responding in detail to the issues that he has raised. However, I refer him to Hansard. We had long and detailed debates about these matters in Committee, and it is in Hansard that he will find his answers.