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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), who talked a great deal of common sense. He spoke of the danger of our shooting ourselves in the foot. I suspect that the foot is well and truly shot already by the actions that have been taken, and in particular by the circumstances that have led to what the Lord Chancellor has done today. The problem is not, in fact, what is proposed. We would all prefer a voluntary agreement to a statutory agreement if it could be made to work, but we live in circumstances in which wildcat action took place, and that cannot be ignored. As I said on Monday and am happy to repeat, I do not believe that strike action is ever proper in a prison environment, and that is the end of it. The other side of the coin is that avoiding industrial action, and ensuring that we have an environment in which it is inconceivable, requires proper negotiating machinery and proper, binding arbitration on issues of grievance, and it requires management and Government who listen to what the people in the service are saying. It is transparently obvious that that has not been the case for a good many years. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) spoke of a cosy little teatime chat between the Lord Chancellor and the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). The two of them could reminisce for a long time about the various deficiencies of the prison system under their respective stewardships, although it might be a rather one-sided conversation. I seem to remember that the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe was somewhat reticent when asked questions about the system, and famously found it difficult to give a response. The fact is, however, that we have had a significant problem with industrial relations in our prisons for a long time—in England and Wales. I made that point on Monday. Ed Sweeney's report makes it absolutely clear that the same does not apply in Scotland. We must ask ourselves in all humility what the Liberal Democrat-Labour Administration in Scotland were able to do—[Interruption.] It was a Liberal Democrat Minister of Justice, as the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) may recall. We must ask ourselves what that Administration were able to do that eluded Ministers in this House with the same responsibilities, because we have clearly reached a point at which there has been a breakdown in trust. I said on Monday, and I say again now, that I believe that the staging of the pay award was a key component. If we do not treat the public services fairly by providing an independent assessment of pay, we must clearly expect a degree of resentment. All I have said to date is that I wish we were not starting from here. But we are starting from here, and I recognise the Lord Chancellor's difficulty. He must deal with a prison system in which there is recent experience of strike action, and that is not acceptable. However, the timing is most unfortunate. The fact that we are legislating today when the Sweeney report was published only on Monday, containing very positive proposals for improving the situation, is extremely regrettable. My fear is that it will poison the well in terms of future negotiations, and we will not secure the successful outcome that we all want. I am concerned to hear the Lord Chancellor tell his hon. Friends that he did not really mean what the new clauses and amendments say, and that he will rewrite them before the Bill goes to another place. That is yet another example of why it is wrong to legislate on Report on important matters of this kind, and expect us to rubber-stamp the legislation in the context of a very abbreviated time scale when it should be subjected to proper reflection, consideration and scrutiny before moving to the other place. It seems, however, that we must wait until the Government have done their work in the other place and brought the Bill back to us with revised wording which we hope will deal with some of the issues of scope identified by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, and perhaps with the issue of the commencement on Royal Assent—which may or may not be helpful, depending on the circumstances that apply when the Bill reaches its final stages in both Houses. However, I have to say to the Lord Chancellor that, if there were an affirmative procedure, that would not be a problem in any case. In those circumstances, we would not need to make commencement automatic on Royal Assent. We could bring forward the affirmative procedure at that point in order to bring it into action if it is considered to be necessary to do so. Although I am prepared to accept for the purposes of today that the Lord Chancellor has to bring forward these proposals, I think that it is intensely regrettable that they are here. It speaks of failure of management and failure of the negotiating machinery between the Government, the management of the Prison Service and the work force. It suggests that industrial relations are at an unacceptable level in a key public service. My message to the Government is: they really must do better.