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Offender Management Bill

The hon. Gentleman has far more legal experience than me. As a practising barrister, he will know that young people are already allowed out, as they can be released on temporary licence to undertake work in the community. However, clause 25 will put into a children’s home people who have been sentenced to detention—and, in this day and age, they are not given such a sentence for nothing. I have given the issue a good airing, and I sincerely hope that those two clauses are not included in the Bill on Third Reading. I shall certainly attempt to address the matter again on Report. Turning to the Bill overall, I commend the Carter report, which is well written. It is certainly much better than the usual literary behemoths that come crashing through our letter boxes every day, as it is clear, concise and readable. It is short, sharp and to the point, which is very good stuff indeed. I cannot be quite as complimentary about its content. In fairness, Carter provided some useful information, but he ignored a great deal of important evidence, and that failing clouded some of his conclusions. He began by stating as a given fact that people are now serving longer sentences. I do not accept that at all. People are given longer sentences in court than they receive in other European countries, but they do not serve them. The sentences that they serve bear hardly any relation to the ones that we read about in the newspapers. For all their talk of being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, the Government have extended the availability of early release. Previously, people were allowed out halfway through their sentence if they were sentenced to less than four years, but now everyone on a fixed sentence is let out automatically, whether or not they have been well behaved. The Government have extended tagging, which has been a disaster. Does the Minister know, for example, that many people refuse to allow the tagging authorities entry to their home, and are not recalled to prison? In some cases, it takes up to eight days to find people so that they can be tagged. Not content with that, the Government have brought the same principle to bear on community service. We may read that someone receives 160 hours of community service, but that is not what they serve. If they turn up a few times and paint the walls that they have been told to paint, the probation service goes back to the court and says, ““They are doing very well, so we would like the sentence to be reduced.”” Once again, the public are led up the garden path, as they are not told what sentences people really serve. Carter went on to state that more people go to prison in the UK than anywhere else in Europe. The Home Secretary made quite a good defence, as he pointed out that in a comparison of crimes that attract sentences, Britain is much more lenient than most other European countries. Unfortunately, however, we have more criminals. Carter did not state that of the 80,000 people in prison, 11,000 are foreign nationals, so they should not be included in the results. Of those 80,000 people, 20,000 have been recalled to prison, either while serving a community sentence or after committing further crimes on early release. If they have been given that many chances, what else can we do? There are 6,000 lifers, which is a pleasant surprise, as since 2000, the Government have released 53 people who were sentenced to life imprisonment. Some 13,000 people are on remand and are deemed to dangerous to walk the streets, so they certainly should not be included in the 80,000 total. That leaves about 30,000 people whom judges choose to send to prison. If we compare that record with that of the rest of Europe, we do not appear to be harsh at all. In their response to the Carter report, the Government say that only serious, dangerous and persistent offenders should go to prison. Does the Minister consider council tax protestors to be serious, dangerous and persistent offenders? Personally, I would not mind living next door to a council tax protestor, yet when such a crime is committed against them, the Government seem to think that prison is a deterrent that works, and are happy for council tax protestors to be locked up. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen said that prison is an expensive option. I am not a statistician or a probation officer, but the evidence in the reports does not suggest that that is the case. The Library notes state that a 5 per cent. reduction in crime will lead to a £1.7 billion saving. A Home Office report estimates the cost to society as £60 billion. We can extrapolate a cost to society of about £34 billion, and agree that the cost of crime to Britain is £34 billion to £60 billion a year on Government figures. We spend about £3.5 billion a year on prisons. Carter, like many people, says that if we imprison 85,000 more of the most persistent offenders, we could reduce crime by up to 50 per cent. If we double the prison population, we can reduce crime by 50 per cent. If we spend an extra £3.5 billion on prison, the net saving to society is £17 billion to £30 billion, depending on which set of Home Office figures we want to believe. Either way, it is a bargain. Build more prisons—they are a bargain. At £20,000 to £30,000 a place, let us get as many people in as we can, and we will save ourselves billions and billions of pounds.