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Constitution and Home Affairs

I am not sure whether that can be recorded as a slip of the tongue; I think that the right hon. Gentleman has made the first U-turn. I believe he also thought that the basic state pension was £33 a week—that was probably a basic slip of the tongue too. This is not a good start for the Deputy Prime Minister, because Labour Members were behind him in his stated preference for the Government to support a referendum on devolving power in Wales. We shall see what happens, but my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) was right in what he said. I welcome the Home Secretary to the Dispatch Box. Labour Members like to think that we smoothed her path to this position as Home Secretary by helping to remove the former shadow Home Secretary, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), before he could do any significant damage. Among his many gaffes was a propensity to be disingenuous about crime statistics, which led to his having his knuckles severely rapped by the UK Statistics Authority. He is now in the political equivalent of a Siberian salt mine, locked away somewhere in the Department for Work and Pensions and condemned to work with a Lib Dem, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), about whom the Deputy Prime Minister once said the following—this may also have been a slip of the tongue:"““Webb must go...He's a problem. I can't stand the man. We need a new spokesman. We have to move him. But…As a backbencher, he'd be a pain in the””." A word beginning with ““a”” follows, but if I said it, Mr Speaker, you would be off yours to call me to order. It seems to me that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister managed to sort out both their little problems at the expense of the DWP. I am confident that the new Home Secretary will not repeat the mistakes of her predecessor as shadow Home Secretary and that she will confirm, in her reply, that crime has reduced substantially since her party left office in 1997. On violent crime, she will be able to correct the mistake made on page 55 of the Conservative manifesto, which said that"““violent crime…has risen sharply under Labour””." It should, of course, have said ““reduced”” instead of ““risen””. There are three measures of violent crime: the British crime survey's figures, which show a decline of 41%; the recorded crime figures, which, since the 2003 changes in the formulation, have shown a 13% reduction; and the figures from accident and emergency departments collated by Cardiff university, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) drew attention, that show a reduction of 15% since they commenced in 2001. The murder rate is at its lowest for 20 years and the murder rate in London is at its lowest since 1978. No incoming Home Secretary in living memory has inherited such a consistent fall in crime and no incoming Government could have done more to undermine that position in their first few weeks. On 19 May, in her speech to the Police Federation, the Home Secretary said"““make no mistake: I will be tough on crime.””" But she could give no commitment to retain the record number of police and police community support officers who are vital to that objective. How is it that under this Conservative-led Government the funding for international development can be guaranteed but the funding for fighting crime cannot? Labour would have protected them both. Do her Government consider international development a greater priority? How is it that while front-line services in health and education can be safeguarded, police numbers cannot? Will she stand up for her Department against such warped priorities? When will she ensure that, similar to what happens in health and education, the savings made within constabularies are reinvested in front-line policing? How will she be tough on crime while restricting the police's ability to catch criminals? The Government talk of adopting the safeguards of the Scottish system in respect of DNA retention, but they do not explain whether those are safeguards for the victims or the perpetrators of crime. The Scottish system retains the DNA of those arrested but not convicted, but only if they are arrested for a serious crime. That would be logical only if there was evidence to suggest that it was people in that category who had a higher propensity to be re-arrested, but the best available evidence indicates that the type of offence a person is first arrested for is not an indicator of the seriousness of the offence he or she might subsequently be arrested or convicted for in future. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) have made these points, but let me remind the House that, each year, in about 800 cases of rape, murder and manslaughter, DNA is central to police inquiries. In about 10% of those cases, matches are made to people who have been arrested but not convicted, of which a quarter involve people who have been arrested but not convicted of non-serious offences. That is one reason why in 2008-09, the England and Wales DNA database had a 13% higher success rate than Scotland's. On the period of retention, there is no evidence to support the Scottish period of three years, which was plucked from the air. The best evidence available shows that the so-called hazard curve—the propensity for those who have been arrested but not convicted to be re-arrested—remains higher than that for the rest of the population for six years following first arrest. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition said in the debate last week, the Government should"““give the benefit of the doubt to the victim.””—[Official Report, 25 May 2010; Vol. 510, c. 43.]" The retention period of six years should remain in force until 2012, when we will have, for the first time, six years' worth of statistics upon which to make a further judgment. Why pull that information off the DNA database and then find in 2012 that we should have kept it? The Home Secretary intends to be tough on crime while failing to protect police numbers and restricting their ability to catch criminals, and she intends to do that while embroiling them in the operational upheaval of having elected commissioners. Aside from the fact that that will lead to years of internal turmoil and cost about £50 million for each police authority area, that idea's time has gone. The debate on accountability has moved on. It is now focused on making neighbourhood police teams answerable to the public they serve, on doing more to ensure that police authorities have a higher profile and more expertise, and, crucially, on enhancing and increasing the role and responsibilities of local government. Notwithstanding the comments of the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), local authority leaders from all three main parties oppose this measure, as do the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Police Federation. I have yet to meet a single police officer or local councillor who supports it. The measure is, as ACPO says, driven purely by dogma, and I urge the Home Secretary to think again before taking it further. In the time available to me, I cannot deal with every issue that has been raised, but I should like to make a final point. We will discuss identity cards on Wednesday on Second Reading of the Identity Documents Bill, but the Deputy Prime Minister has, in a hyperbolic speech that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) has already pointed out was historically inaccurate, promised the end of the ““culture of spying”” on British citizens, praying in aid ID cards, the national identity register and CCTV. We are told that CCTV is part of the evil infringement of our rights and that it must therefore be ““properly regulated””, to use the Deputy Prime Minister's words. Will the Home Secretary tell us what that means, and will she say if she has ever been approached by a constituent who wants fewer CCTV cameras? That is important, because, apparently, as part of the big society, which is what most of us thought we would get if we failed to tackle obesity, the Deputy Prime Minister promises to ask the public which laws to repeal. We stand on the side of the Home Secretary's constituents. An article in the Maidenhead Advertiser, entitled, ““CCTV will help stop crime in Furze Platt””, which is in her constituency, says:"““Almost every resident of Bridle Road, Bridle Close and Calder Close has signed a petition asking the council to put””" CCTV cameras in ““as a deterrent.”” We are on the side of Furze Platt. Indeed, the term could be used as cockney rhyming slang, as in, the Deputy Prime Minister must be a right Furze Platt if he thinks people want fewer CCTV cameras. The Conservative-led Administration will either recognise the need for control orders, second-generation biometric passports, the detention of families and the DNA database, or they will endanger our national security, weaken our controls on immigration, reduce our ability to return failed asylum seekers and restrict the police's ability to catch dangerous criminals. The Gracious Speech gave no indication that they recognise those basic facts.