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Crime Reduction

I thank the Home Secretary for early sight of her statement. For 10 years, the Government have been trying to claim that crime is coming down. Unfortunately for the Government, the public obstinately insist on believing their own experience rather than ministerial claims and simply know that crime is going up, and all the fiddled figures in the world will not change their minds. The central contention of the Home Secretary’s statement today is based on flawed data. The Home Secretary repeats the mantra that crime has fallen, based on the British crime survey, but the BCS ignores the most serious crimes, such as murders. Despite the Home Secretary’s comments, for many years, it ignored crimes against children, and it ignores a total of at least 18 million crimes. How can the Home Secretary tackle crime, when she cannot even count it properly? However, let me start by welcoming some aspects of the Home Secretary’s announcements, where she has adopted Conservative policy. We have been calling for years for direct, local accountability of police forces. She announced a small step in that direction. I congratulate her on that small step, and hope that we will see more. We have been calling for years for local crime data to inform that local accountability. Again, she has announced a small step in that direction, and I congratulate her on that. For the past three years, I have been calling for an initiative on designing out crime, so I particularly congratulate her on that. Some crimes are going down, but the evidence is that this has little to do with the Government, and according to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, it has nothing to do with Government spending. The Government must take responsibility for overall recorded crime going up by 300,000, and more importantly, for the most serious crimes going up sharply. Recorded violent crime has doubled. This morning on television the Home Secretary said that drug crime is down. I just do not know where that idea came from—perhaps from the same advisers who told her predecessors to declassify cannabis. Drug offences have increased by about 50 per cent. during the term of this Government, and by 9 per cent. this year, and that figure is increasing faster every year because of the confused and contradictory signals they have sent out. The Government should not go in for self-deception. Let us look at the news of the last 48 hours. The Government said that 24-hour drinking would convert binge drinkers to a café-style culture. The doctors say that alcohol-related assaults have doubled in one year. The Government claimed an increase in the number of offenders brought to justice. The Home Affairs Committee says that nearly half of those offenders receive just a slap on the wrist and that they should not be counted. The Government say that crime is down by a third. The Home Secretary might take time to read some of the documents produced by the people who work for her—in this case, the police. I quote Detective Constable Marsh, who said:"““At conference John Reid congratulated us for reducing crime. I have been in CID virtually all my service and crime has not reduced. It is out of control.””" Should people believe the Government, or doctors, the Home Affairs Committee and the police? If the Home Secretary thinks that the Government’s strategy has been such a success, can she answer some questions for me? First, why has violent crime doubled, knife crime doubled and gun crime doubled? Secondly, can she explain why only three in every 100 crimes is ever brought to justice—even under her Government’s figures? Thirdly, can she explain why she considers the drugs policy a success when 80 per cent. of addicts abandon drug treatment orders before they are completed? Fourthly, can she tell us when it will be that policemen spend more time on patrol than on paperwork? I have to tell the Home Secretary that very few members of the public think that the Government’s crime policy is a success. If she thinks it a success, heaven help the country when she thinks it a failure.