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Home Affairs and Justice

My hon. Friend is right—Durham constabulary has a very good record on this issue, including in my constituency. However, the responsibility needs to fall on shopkeepers and supermarkets, as well. There has to be a combined initiative in cracking down on this problem. I have always thought that, before we start criticising young people, we as a community must offer them the opportunity to do something else other than stand on street corners. That is why the Bill introduced in the Gracious Speech to use money from dormant bank accounts to invest in our communities, especially in youth services, is a tremendous idea. Giving young people something to do in their spare time is surely more productive than their becoming frustrated and taking out that frustration on local communities. My approach is this: if young people want to use youth centres, that is fine; if they do not, that, too, is fine. However, if they choose the third option—being disruptive in their community—the police and local agencies should have the powers to ensure that that disruption is stopped. However, it would be wrong to give the impression that all of today's young people want to cause trouble—they do not. Just the other day, two young people, Grant Parker and Georgia Howe, came to my constituency office to ask for support in starting a youth forum in Newton Aycliffe. I will support them. They want to gather together a group of young people to talk about the changes that they would like to see in their area, and to get across the very valid point that a lot of young people do a great deal of good in the local community. Last week, I visited 1407 air cadet squadron in Newton Aycliffe, which consists of 54 young people between the ages of 13 and 20 from Newton Aycliffe, Chilton and elsewhere in the constituency. They are commanded by Flying Officer Karin Scott, and they have won the Lindisfarne trophy in two out of the past three years because they are seen as the most outstanding air cadet squadron in the north-east. Their squadron is one of many throughout the country. They learn to fly, sit for a diploma in public service—equivalent to four GCSEs—and take part in the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. Many of them wear the millennium volunteer badge because of the work that they do in the local community. Their funding arrangements are fragile, and they are not treated the same as Army cadets. That is an issue for another day, but I wanted to highlight the work that they do as an example to us all. I am proud that they are a part of my constituency. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill will be another laudable addition to the statute book and it will make sure that the police have the powers to ensure that our communities are safe. Given the activities undertaken by the communities themselves, I believe that great progress can be made in securing a safe environment for all our people. I must add at this juncture that the Bill is yet another piece of legislation protecting our people that the Opposition voted against. They talk tough—and then vote soft. They voted against the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and the Police and Justice Act 2006. When they were in government, crime doubled, violent crime rose by 170 per cent., robberies increased by 400 per cent. and convictions fell by a third. It gets worse. They cannot even make up their minds on whether they want to punish offenders. As for the Liberal Democrats, they have said that they definitely do not want to punish offenders. In Committee on the afternoon of 25 October, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and their colleagues moved an amendment to clause 9 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. The clause was on sentencing. Their amendment addressed the purpose of sentencing and proposed to delete the phrase ““the punishment of offenders””. They saw the purpose of sentencing not as being to punish offenders. I had been an MP for just three months at the time and was amazed to be sitting in a room with legislators who were seriously considering removing from a Bill on criminal justice the fact that the main purpose of sentencing an offender was to punish him or her. The amendment was put to a vote. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome and his one Liberal Democrat colleague voted against punishing the offender. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough and his colleagues abstained; they could not make their mind up whether they wanted to punish the offender or not. The voting patterns of the Opposition on that day took talking tough and voting soft to a new dimension. They have now entered the realm of not only voting soft, but talking soft. Their approach to criminal justice is bizarre and bears no relation to the needs of the community that we represent. I, like the rest of my Labour colleagues, voted to keep punishment as an integral part of the criminal justice system. We now know that no matter how much the Opposition parties talk about crime in future, they either do not want to punish the offender or cannot make up their mind about whether or not they want to do so.