Criminal Justice (Hansard, 16 June 2003)

§ 1. Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North)
When he next plans to visit the council estates of Nottingham, North to explain Government policy on the criminal justice system; and if he will make a statement. [119011]

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Paul Goggins)
The Home Secretary visited Nottingham on 11 April. He attended a meeting on gun crime and visited local community projects. He has no plans to visit Nottingham, North in the near future.

§ Mr. Allen
I welcome my hon. Friend to his first Question Time. I note that he is one of the most experienced Ministers on the Front Bench and I wish him and his colleagues well in their new positions—and, indeed, those who have their old positions.
2 The ministerial team in the Home Department and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary have made heroic efforts to amend the criminal justice system to make it more relevant to today's circumstances. However, will my hon. Friend re-examine the possibility of trying to reconnect the criminal justice system more with those who pay for it, by which I mean people living on the estates in our constituencies, many of whom feel disengaged from it? Will my hon. Friend reflect on how best to put that right? Could he run a pilot scheme, for example, to—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. That question is far too long. I call the Minister.

§ Paul Goggins
I thank my hon. Friend for his good wishes, and, in saying that, I am sure that I speak not just for myself but for other members of the Front-Bench team.
It is important to understand that criminal justice policy and legislation are not for the House alone; they must go out right across estates such as those in my hon. Friend's constituency. In Nottinghamshire, as elsewhere throughout the country, we now have local criminal justice boards whose job it is to ensure that these policies are better communicated to build public confidence in the criminal justice system. The local criminal justice boards have to produce an annual report and can also publish newsletters and other forms of communication. I am sure that he will be pleased to know that CJS Online includes a page dedicated to the local board in his area.

§ Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Will the Minister encourage the Home Secretary to go to Nottingham, North, whose electors doubtless wish to be reassured that the Minister responsible for the criminal justice system is based in this House, has 3 political legitimacy by election and does not owe his present position to the fact that he is a friend of the Prime Minister?

§ Paul Goggins
I am sure that my right hon. Friend will take every opportunity to visit Nottingham, but when he goes there, or anywhere else in the country, it will be abundantly clear that he, as Home Secretary, is in charge of criminal justice policy.

§ Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset)
I, too, welcome the new Minister—and, indeed, the other new Ministers—to the Dispatch Box. We hope to add considerably to their work load.
I am sorry that the Home Secretary will not visit Nottingham's council estates in the near future. When he eventually does so, will he explain to the people living there the difference between the Prime Minister's early pledge that he would halve the time from arrest to sentencing for young offenders, and the Government's press release of June this year in which they claim to meet the pledge only by redefining it as to halve the time it takes to get persistent young offenders into court from the time they were arrested"? Does the Minister believe that the people of Nottingham cannot spot the difference between getting young people into court and getting them convicted?

§ Paul Goggins
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his good wishes and I can reassure him that we kept the pledge that we made. I took an early look into the problem: when we took office in 1997, it was 142 days, whereas it is now consistently 71 days or fewer.

§ Mr. Letwin
Oh yes, the "it" has been kept, but it has changed. Getting people into court is not the same as getting them convicted. If it were, the Home Secretary's vast legislative energies would be entirely wasted.
When the Minister eventually visits Nottingham, will he also tell people living on the council estates why he is today quietly bringing to a Committee Upstairs a regulation that will abolish the statutory time limits for youth justice that the Government themselves introduced in 1999? Will he explain to the people of Nottingham why on 14 May 1998, the Minister's predecessor, the then Under-Secretary, said that abolishing those regulations would undermine our wish to administer justice expeditiously, particularly for young offenders"?—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 14 May 1998; c. 399.] Why have the Government been pretending, as the Minister just has, that they have fulfilled the Prime Minister's pledge when, in reality, the failure to fulfil it is so abject that they are now repealing the legislation that sought to implement it in the first place? Will the Minister explain to the people of Nottingham why the Government have descended to the level of fiddling their own pledges?

§ Paul Goggins
May I explain to the right hon. Gentleman that the pledge and the time limits are two entirely different but complementary objectives? The pledge that he read out from the pledge card has been kept, and we have reflected on the need for time limits. 4 The fact that we are removing statutory time limits does not remove the urgency of timeliness within the criminal justice system.