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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

The hon. Gentleman is well known for his antediluvian views. I do not think that they are shared by hon. Members on his own Front Bench, let alone in the rest of the House. My starting point always on matters of deterrence and rehabilitation is to ask, ““What works?”” I agree with the hon. Gentleman to the extent that prison can work for some people, as long as the proper requirements in terms of rehabilitation and education are met. But it is transparently the case that for many young people prison is not the best disposal if we want to deter them from future criminality. There is abundant evidence for that, and that is why most sensible people realise that putting children—the hon. Gentleman will start to chunter about that in a moment, because he thinks that they are yobs, as he said last time we had this discussion—in jail is not necessarily the answer.