BBC On The Record - Broadcast: 13.05.01

Interview: Jack Straw, Home Secretary, Ann Widdecombe, Shadow Home Secretary and Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat Spokesman.

Debate crime, policing, sentencing, prisons, the causes of crime, drugs, asylum and race relations ahead of the general election on June 7th.



HUMPHRYS: So, the first of our live election debates. The same format every week for the next four weeks. This week our audience - as politically balanced as we can make it - will be putting their questions about crime, asylum, drugs, police numbers and all the rest of it to: the Home Secretary Jack Straw, to his Conservative Shadow Ann Widdecombe and to the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman Simon Hughes. We're going to start with a subject that worries all of us. The polls show it is one of the most important issues and it is, of course, crime. Labour promised to be tough on crime and the causes of crime and the statistics do show that the number of crimes overall has been falling. But the number of violent crimes reported to the police is going up. So our first question on that from Valerie Wilks who used to work herself for the Police Federation and is now retired. Mrs Wilks, your question. VALERIE WILKS: All parties keep talking about increasing numbers of police on the beat but none of you ever provide them, which party is really going to do something to increase the police numbers? HUMPHRYS: Home Secretary - increase police numbers. JACK STRAW MP: We are is the answer to that and that is very clear. What's happened to police numbers is that they started to fall in 1993 for the reasons that we made very clear at the last election, namely that we had to stick to the Conservative spending plans in the first two years because of the state of the economy. They carried on falling. We are now turning those numbers round, they are within about twelve hundred of where they were in 1997 and under us they will rise first of all back to the levels they were at in 1997, just over a hundred and twenty-seven thousand, then to record levels which is about a hundred and twenty-eight thousand and then to about a hundred and thirty thousand, well over three thousand more than they are today. Now your questions Mrs Wilks was, which party is likely to do better on that. If you read the Conservative Manifesto, as I am sure you will have done, what you will see in that Manifesto is all that it says is a claim that the Conservatives will bring numbers back to where they were in 1997. Well, in many areas of the country, they are already back to that level. They are back to that level in Wales, in Scotland, in the North East of England, in the West Midlands, in the East Midlands, in the South West, in Thames Valley and in Kent and they will be back to that level later this year. The reason that Ann Widdecombe could not get a pledge from Michael Portillo to match our promise to increase them first to record levels and then to a hundred and thirty thousand is because of the other part of the Conservatives' pledges which is that to meet their tax cuts, they are going to have to keep down public spending and to cut public spending. It's a good example of the choice before the electorate. You can't have something for nothing. Under us there will be record police numbers and then three thousand more than under they are now. Under the Conservatives there will literally be fewer police officers than under us. HUMPHRYS: Ann Widdecombe is that true? ANN WIDDECOMBE MP: Well, if you believe that, I think you will believe anything at all. If we want first of all just to address the question of how many, we left behind sixteen thousand more police officers than we inherited, even during the period towards the end of our time when numbers started to fall we still increased year on year the number of constables and between '96 and '97 the numbers actually had started to rise again. If you want to address it in dry statistics, we've got a very good record of recruiting police. If you look at what they do, they came in promising more police, there was a three year fall, we actually had not only three thousand fewer regular officers than we left behind, but what is always forgotten in this debate, the Special Constabulary has actually fallen by a third. So there are less of a reserve which the regulars can rely on. Jack stood up at his Party Conference and he said five thousand more police, that stood the test of forty-eight hours when the Police Federation said actually that won't match the numbers leaving. That's the statistical reality but I want to broaden it beyond that and I want to say this: yes we can get the numbers up to at least, not to and full stop, but to at least those that we left behind. That in itself is not the whole answer and I can't believe that any policeman would say that it was because it isn't only police numbers it's what they do with their time. HUMPHRYS: Can I just stop you for a second Ann Widdecombe because we are going to talk about that. WIDDECOMBE: You didn't stop him. HUMPHRYS: We are going to be talking about what they are going to do with their time in a moment, that's all. WIDDECOMBE: You promised that we're going to talk about what they are going to do with their time. HUMPHRYS: I promise you we're going to talk about that. WIDDECOMBE: Okay. HUMPHRYS: Simon Hughes. SIMON HUGHES MP: Well firstly, the Police Federation is very clear about its views and although you are retired you will be aware that last year when all of us went to address them in Brighton and this year when we are going to see them in Blackpool, they are making the message very clear to us, there is not nearly enough support for the police, not nearly enough money for the police and we expect they're saying to us: you politicians to do much better. Direct answer to your question: when our Manifesto comes out this week, you will see a costed commitment that produces a figure that is two thousand full-time officers more than the Labour Party commitment and an additional two thousand part-time officers because we believe there is a place for part-time police officers. Possibly people who are just coming up to retirement. But, and this is the real important issue, I accept that that's a starting point. We accept it's a starting point and it isn't a coincidence that today's papers are very clear that if you look at London as compared to Paris or New York, if you look at England as compared to comparable countries, we are way behind in comparable numbers and we are way behind in ratio of police to crime. And all the people who ever talk to me about it say we want a significant increase. So the other thing I've been saying and Jack as Home Secretary knows I've been saying it for a year and trying to persuade him for a year is that there ought to be, John, a standing conference on policing with police representatives, all ranks, public representatives and politicians which every year gives advice to the government of the day to say, this is what we think the minimum level should be, nationally and locally and I think we'd then see a significant increase above any of the figures, though we happen to be proposing more than the other two. HUMPHRYS: You mention the Police Federation there. I notice than none of you offered what the Police Federation are this very morning saying that they want, must have if they are going to do their job properly, that is one hundred and forty thousand police. Without making a great long speech about it, can I ask each of you very quickly what will be the number of police that we have by 2003. Jack Straw. STRAW: At least a hundred and twenty-eight thousand.. HUMPHRYS: So not as much as the Police Federation want? STRAW: It can't be as many as the Police Federation want but of course we'd like that number. But the question for Ann Widdecombe is this.. HUMPHRYS: No, let Ann Widdecombe answer her own question, you tell me how many police you want. STRAW: I've got her Manifesto in front of me and all her Manifesto.. HUMPHRYS: ..I'd rather her deal with that, you tell me how many police you want... STRAW: ....commits her to is increasing the numbers to a hundred and twenty-seven thousand. HUMPHRYS: One hundred and twenty-seven thousand is the answer. Ann Widdecombe. WIDDECOMBE: It is at least the numbers we left behind which is one hundred and twenty-seven thousand but if only you'd just let me have a couple more sentences just now, what I was trying to say is this. You can actually get more police hours, which are the equivalent of policemen if on top of the rises in raw numbers, they deploy their time in such a way that they are actually out fighting crime which is what they joined up to do, which is want the public want them to do and what Jack Straw is not allowing them to do. HUMPHRYS: The only reason I stopped you is that that is going to be our very next question. So that's why you can wade in on it then. Simon Hughes, how many police? HUGHES: Straight comparable figures, the Tories have a hundred and twenty-seven thousand as their figure... WIDDECOMBE: Minimal, minimum. HUGHES: Right, minimum. The Labour party have a hundred and twenty-eight and we have a hundred and thirty.. STRAW: A hundred and thirty thousand is where it will reach by 2003, we have got the money for that, so a three thousand difference between us and the Conservatives. HUMPHRYS: Sorry, just be clear. We will have one hundred and thirty thousand police under - if we get a Labour government by 2003. STRAW: 2003/4 financial year. WIDDECOMBE: There is not a three thousand difference. STRAW: Well there is between a hundred and thirty thousand and a hundred and twenty-seven thousand Ann. WIDDECOMBE: There is not a three thousand difference between what we are intending to do for this reason that we have said honestly and honesty is what matters here not just great promises that we know we can get back to the numbers we left behind because we were maintaining those numbers only a short while ago. HUMPHRYS: Alright. WIDDECOMBE: No, let me finish. HUMPHRYS: Go on. WIDDECOMBE: But, but we have never said we will stop there and if it really is true that Labour have put in the money which could result in those numbers of police.. STRAW: ..but we have Ann. WIDDECOMBE: ..then we are not cutting any expenditure from the Home Office budget. So if it really is possible to achieve that, then it can be achieved. But what I am telling you is the honest answer, we know damn well we can do what we have already done and that is what we'll do. HUMPHRYS: I will stop you there. Simon Hughes, I'll come back to you in a moment. But.. HUGHES: Let me make a very short point. HUMPHRYS: If it's a sentence. HUGHES: It's a sentence, a hundred and thirty thousand is the starting point but everybody knows that you can't get more public services unless you are honest enough about saying you have to raise more money for them and that's a big difference between us and the other parties. HUMPHRYS: Okay, thank you. Another question and this will get to the area you wanted to talk about anyway Ann Widdecombe. From Tony Harper, who is a manager in a catering company. TONY HARPER: Yes I would like to ask - my experience of the police is that they are incompetent, inefficient and slow to respond to crime. Which party is going to do the most to improve the way the police operate? HUMPHRYS: Alright, Simon Hughes, and you can end this one Ann Widdecombe. WIDDECOMBE: Oh, right, thank you. HUMPHRYS: Simon Hughes? SIMON HUGHES: The answer is, I think the police vary in their policy and efficiency, and in all the independent audits I don't think there's a difference between us here, show that different forces do better and less well on different targets. The reality is you have to keep on making sure the police have that external assessment. Money doesn't produce more police don't automatically produce necessarily a better performance, but there no evidence that fewer police produce a better performance, and it's clear that if you want the main issue tackled you will have to have more police. And can I just deal very quickly with two issues. The real figure that we should be looking at is what is crime, what is the level of crime, and how much of it is cleared up, and the figures again confirmed - I asked a question of Jack and his colleagues the other day - three quarters of crimes are not cleared up in this country. Three quarters of crimes, about three million crimes a year. Now, you have to have more police it seems to me to be able to deter them, you have to have more police to be able to detect them, and then the job is about being efficient and about being managerially competent, and that's an issue which is in a detailed set of negotiations, and I hope that all of us, all of us who have representatives on police authorities are clear that you then have to work with the police to make sure that they put the hours but deliver the goods as a result....... HUMPHRYS: But you can't actually guarantee under the Liberal Democrats that you would have a better clear up rate can you? HUGHES: Nobody can guarantee it, but the more police you have all the evidence is you deter more crime because...... HUMPHRYS: So more police is the key to it again? HUGHES: It's the beginning of it, it's not the end of it, it's the beginning of it and to be honest the more pressure you take off the individual police officers then the less you have them just having the blue light responding, you're right, and the more you have them out there on the street deterring the crime and nicking the people, because if you don't think you're going to be caught, and three out of four crimes are not dealt with, you're going to go on committing them. HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, that's an outrageous figure that, that clear up rate isn't it, and it's falling. STRAW: Well, it's falling because of changes in the way that the numbers are counted. Before, what the police were doing was sending detectives into prisons to get people to confess to a very large number of crimes. We've stopped that and made... HUMPHRYS: So they were bogus figures then? STRAW: They were bogus figures. We've made them much more reliable. Let me answer Mr Harper's point. I don't accept your generalisation - that the police are either inefficient or incompetent, Mr Harper. I accept you may have had a personal experience and in a very large organisation of course individuals' experiences may change. What has happened over the recent years is that the police have become more efficient and I may say more competent, and that is shown by the fact that although police numbers during our period have dropped a little, now going back up, crime has also fallen. As John was saying it's fallen depending on which sets of figures.. The British Crime Survey is the best study of that because it measures crime overall. Overall crime has fallen by ten per cent, and violent crime overall has fallen by four per cent. HUMPHRYS: But it was of course falling before you came into power.... ANN WIDDECOMBE: By fifteen per cent in the previous..... STRAW: It doubled under the Conservatives John. WIDDECOMBE: By fifteen per cent in the previous... STRAW: Hang on a second. It doubled under the Conservatives between 1979 and 1997. It certainly started to fall by the British Crime Survey in the last two years, but I think it's fair enough for administrations to be measured by what happened overall rather than in just the last two years. Now, where however I agree with one implication of your question, also I agree with Ann, is that we ought to be doing a lot more to make the police more efficient. I think they are efficient, they are dedicated and professional, but there's loads more that you can do, so one of the things we've done for example is cut bureaucracy, we've reduced the number of forms by a third that the police have to fill in, we've reduced the number of targets which were running at about sixty-two under Ann Widdecombe when she was at the Home Office down to thirty, we've put a lot of extra money into civilian back-up for the police, and those numbers are already at record levels. We're putting a lot of money into workable IT systems. HUMPHRYS: How come that clear up rates are falling. STRAW: Well can I just say, well, the crucial thing, because clear up rates can vary hugely according to whether you get individual prisoners to confess to crimes, the crucial thing is getting more people through the courts, and that is where we have been successful, and then properly punished. The Crown Prosecution Service was grievously neglected under the previous administration. We're putting their money up by a quarter this year to ensure there are more prosecutors and therefore a greater possibility of cases.... HUMPHRYS: Now, Ann Widdecombe ... STRAW: One last point - and then we're toughening up the sentences that the courts give, particularly for.... HUMPHRYS: We will get to the sentencing in a moment I promise you that too. Ann Widdecombe. WIDDECOMBE: Well, I think I rarely heard such waffle as we've just heard from Jack Straw, and I come back to your point which I think is spot on, and I think that now there actually is a fall of public confidence in the police through no fault of the police's at all, because when they ask the police to come and do something and to look at something very often it doesn't happen or it doesn't happen for a long time. Now I don't blame the police, and you'll see that the Police Federation themselves today have actually said that they are not performing, are not able to do the job because they're too over-stretched. And when you do have a situation.... STRAW: Crime is now lower than it was under your administration. WIDDECOMBE: I'm going to address that. D'you know I didn't interrupt you, I mean I was tempted to. I didn't. HUMPHRYS: There was the odd mutter to be fair. But... WIDDECOMBE: Yes there was, and that was - the police aren't able to do the job that they and the public want to do. Nobody joined the police and rushed home and said "Dad I've just joined the police, and I'm going to fill in a best value form". Anyway, we've got to get back to having the police out actually doing what they should do. And therefore we've made specific proposals for reducing a highly cumbersome exercise called Best Value for looking at the custody system which can tie one officer down for anything up to five hours processing one prisoner through custody. There are very specific responsible things that we have outlined which will make a real difference to the presence of police on the streets and to the their ability to respond to calls like that, because believe you me, they want to. But can I just tackle the falling crime, because Jack I know would never wish to be dishonest, but he gave a false impression. And the impression he gave was this, was that crime was rising until 1997 and suddenly it's fallen according to the British Crime Survey. The facts are this. Crime did rise until 1992, it rose across the western world. From 1992 until 1997 we produced and eighteen per cent, a one-eight per cent fall in crime largely but not exclusively as a result of much greater use of imprisonment. The British Crime Survey before the one that Jack has just quoted actually showed a much higher fall in crime. This government have presided over the first rises in crime in six years, and those are facts according, not to my figures, or Central Office figures, but his figures. HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, just deal with that. STRAW: Well.... WIDDECOMBE: Now tell the truth. STRAW: Ann I always do as it happens. Over all our record which is of a ten per cent fall in crime is the best record of any incoming government for fifty years, and as I said crime went up under the Conservatives. You measure it by the British Crime Survey until 1995, it then started to fall. We have got a far, far better record from the Conservatives in terms of reducing crime, getting more offenders into court and then ensuring the they are punished.... HUMPHRYS: Right. WIDDECOMBE: ....if you find anybody to believe them.... HUMPHRYS: People will have to make the best of those statistics that they can. Go on, you wanted one sentence. HUGHES: The real concern, and I hope we all share it is that violent crime which went up every year under the Tories is now going up again, as you rightly said in your introduction, and I think that's the level of crime, it's alcohol related, it's drugs related, that's the crime we have to bring down. And that has to be the police's priority HUMPHRYS: Right, well let's now deal with something else that's been raised, and that is sentencing. Linda Storrack, who is an accountant, has a question about that. Linda Storrack? LINDA STURROCK: Which party is going to make sure that criminals get sentences they deserve and put a stop to so many of them being released early? HUMPHRYS: Ann Widdecombe? WIDDECOMBE: We are, it's as simple as that. We promise that we will scrap Labour's special early release scheme under which somebody who is sentenced to six months in prison, for example, can be out in six weeks. I mean, that is even more than the arrangements under normal early release, when they can be out half-way. They can actually be out under six weeks and the result is that more than a thousand crimes have been committed by those people, including horrendously two rapes and people are becoming victims of those who should be in prison, but for this government's special scheme. But I think the question goes a bit beyond that. It was we who legislated for three strikes and you're out, to try and make sentences appropriate for repeat offenders such as burglary and hard drug dealing. It was we who introduced the automatic life sentence for the second serious sexual or violent offence, so that we could try and keep control over people even after their release because a life sentence enables you to do that. But there is one thing that I do very strongly believe, which is that we now have a ridiculous nonsense whereby that the sentence that the judge hands down in court, bears no relation at all to the sentence that is eventually served. By the time you've taken off release, possibly also special release, provided by this government, and you've taken off remand, the actual time that the prisoner ends up serving bears no relation to what has been handed down. Now I want transparency, if a judge means three months rather than six months, he should be able to say three months and we should all know that is where we are. He should decide whether remand is taken off, he should decide whether special early release is appropriate, he should actually hand down the sentence that is going to be served. HUMPHRYS: Right. Jack Straw... HUGHES: May I ask Ann one question. HUMPHRYS: ...well, go on, ask it, if it is literally a question, but make it a short... HUGHES: Ann, a question which I think everybody would be interested know. Does your policy mean that you will have sentences at the same length now, but with no reduction for early release, or will the sentences be much shorter under the Tory proposals, so that they mean what they get now... WIDDECOMBE: ...yeah... HUMPHRYS: ...just a sentence in answer to that please... WIDDECOMBE: ...no, I actually tried to address that Simon when I said, if he gives six months and means three, he should give three. So I actually tried to address that... HUMPHRYS: ...right, so shorter sentences... WIDDECOMBE: ...well, if he decides, if he is taking a shorter account, that's what he would get... HUMPHRYS: ...it might end up being a shorter sentence, but it would be a tran, your point is, it would be transparency, Jack Straw, why not? JACK STRAW: It's a good idea. This goes back to the 1991 Act, for which Ann, Ann's colleagues were responsible and we are proposing to do this anyway in a sentencing review. But it is just very important people should understand why Ann is proposing; she's not proposing any increase in the time any individual serves in prison... WIDDECOMBE: ...nobody's getting out in six weeks under us... STRAW: ...she is not proposing any increase... WIDDECOMBE: ...we are, we are... STRAW: ...she's not proposing any increase in the time anybody served, serves in prison, what she's proposing instead is that the length of time people are actually in prison, should be made clearer at the time the judge issues the sentence and we agree with that... WIDDECOMBE: ...special early release... STRAW: ...and may I also, Ann, please... WIDDECOMBE: ... will be longer... STRAW: ...Ann, you upgraded me for interrupting you... WIDDECOMBE: ...I did... STRAW: ...so I, okay, thank you very much... WIDDECOMBE: ...I just have to get the facts straight... HUMPHRYS: ...right, well we've had a balance of interruption, so finish the point Jack Straw... STRAW: ...I want to come on and finish the point. The big problem about sentencing at the moment, is persistent criminals who are committing lower level crimes, yes, we've introduced the mandatory sentences for burglars, for drug dealers and for rapists and people who commit serious crimes of violence and they are important and good, but it's the chap who apparently is committing alleged petty crimes, a bit of theft here, a bit of alleged minor violence there and if you look at their records, they're in and out of court, they may get a short prison sentence. Then the next time they go back, they get probation or a fine and we think that is ridiculous and what we've got to have is a change in the whole sentencing structure, so that if people carry on being persistent offenders, but pitching their offending just below the current level where they would normally go away for a long time, then the totality of their offending, the degree to which they are really offending the community and victims, should be taken into account and that persistence, no matter how low-level, so called, the offences are, should mean that they go away to prison for a long time. Yes, we'll give them a chance at the beginning, with probation and intervention and all the rest of it, but if they don't get the message, then they need to go away to prison for a long time. HUMPHRYS: Right, now before I come to you on this one Simon Hughes, let me take another question which deals with this area, and then I'll kick off with you, yes, from Matthew Peverell, who is a Strategic Development Executive, and whose father I think worked for the prison service. MATTHEW PEVERELL: That's right. Shouldn't we be concentrating more on rehabilitation of offenders, giving them skills and training, to make sure that they don't re-offend when they come out? HUMPHRYS: Simon Hughes? SIMON HUGHES: Well, may I take both Matthew's question and the question from the lady there. It all seems to me there are three issues to do with how you deal with people who offend. Firstly, you have to catch them. That's the debate we had and you have to have a chance of being caught, otherwise that allows people to go on offending, so we've got to improve that. At the other end, you have to make sure and this is Matthew's point, that when they come out, their chance of re-offending is much less and we have terrible figures for re-offending. We over fifty per cent at the moment re-offend within two years of coming out and the reality is that - and prison governors will tell anybody this - that for many of them, if you go in for six months or less, there's probably no rehabilitative work at all and for many people and this is an unusual area where Ann and I will agree, under the last government the amount of the week that's spent doing productive things in prison, has actually gone down and that's hopeless. People should be having training... WIDDECOMBE: ...under this government, it's gone down... HUGHES: ...yes, that... WIDDECOMBE: ...you said the last... HUGHES: ...no, no, under this government, in the last four years, it has gone down and that's hopeless because it means that the chance of education and training and dealing with the drugs problem, or the sex offenders problem is not dealt with. But the third issue is then the sentence and how you deal with that and our view is you've got to have effective policy and tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime sounds good but it's no good if it's not effective and so just a list of things because we've got to get round the whole agenda quickly. Firstly, with the young people, you have to deal with then quickly, young people, unless they're dealt with quickly... HUMPHRYS: We're going to deal specifically with young people in a minute, so... HUGHES: ...so, you need to deal with then quickly. Secondly, wherever possible, you have to make them understand the consequence of their crime, they have to repay, it seems to me to the community, they have to understand that somebody is hurt and that's why we believe and we're unique among the parties, that the victim, or if the victim can't come, their family, after the conviction, should be able to appear before the judge personally and say what the effect of the crime has been on them. I've been with victims in the gallery of the Old Bailey, who have, the family of somebody who'd been killed, they had no say in the system at all and they felt that the whole criminal justice system bypassed them and lastly, there are some people who you do have to give long sentences to, but the Lord Chief Justice, the Director General of the Prison Service, the Inspector of Prisons, all make the point, that beyond ten years, you actually get very little additional benefit, so apart... HUMPHRYS: ...except that they're locked up... HUGHES: ...except for they're locked up because all but twenty-five prisoners are going to come out again and therefore what you have to do with those people, is you have to make sure that just the few people who could be terrible sex offenders, or could be terrible recidivist homicidal members of the community, in our view, you keep them in until the court says it's safe to release them and they would have an indeterminate sentence so that there could be that safety for the public. HUMPHRYS: Ann Widdecombe, the emphasis of what Simon Hughes is saying there is on rehabilitation, which is not your emphasis, is it? WIDDECOMBE: Well, I don't know why you say that John, because you know, as well as I do, that I spent most of my 1999 conference speech addressing just this issue - rehabilitation in prisons and that I made certain statements about where we would want to be, that couldn't be done in the first five minutes, but that we had to work towards because I think that the great vice of our prison system is idleness. And if you take somebody who's come from a chaotic background and you shut them up in idleness for three years and then you open the prison gates and you say, go and lead a law-abiding life, it's cloud-cuckoo-land. And if you want to protect the public in the long term, as well as just in the short term, which you do by having them locked up, then you've got to have proper and purposeful prisons and that means, work, education and offending behaviour courses. Now it is a fact that since we left office, the number of hours spent on offending behaviour, on work and education, have actually gone down and what I want to see, and I stress it can't be done in five minutes flat, but we can work towards it, is to have a full working day in every prison because at the moment, prison work means a couple of hours in the morning, a couple of hours in the afternoon and lock up in between, which is pretty hopeless and the benefits would be two-fold. One you would get get prisoners used to an orderly working day, which an awful lot of them are not used to. But the second is that if you have self financing prison enterprises and believe me it can be done because other countries do it, if you have self financing prison enterprises, you could pay the prisoner more than the nine pounds pocket money that he pays at the moment and then make deductions for victim reparation for the upkeep of families, which at the moment falls almost entirely on the taxpayer, for savings upon his release so that he can't plead a choice between criminality and the dole and for something towards his own upkeep. Now if you have that, you would have an imaginative purposeful prison system... HUMPHRYS: ...right. Thank you... WIDDECOMBE: ...and that is, no, hang on... HUMPHRYS: ...well make it quick... WIDDECOMBE: ...you said it is not my priority, that jolly well has always been my priority and you've heard me talking about it for a couple of years John Humphrys. HUMPHRYS: ...right, I have to move you along because as you know, we have to balance the time that each of you gets, more or less, very important, Jack Straw? STRAW: Well, on the self-financing prison enterprises, if it's possible I am very happy to introduce it. I have asked Ann for her figures, I asked her for those figures six months ago, all the calculations, because we couldn't see how you could produce self-financing prison enterprises... WIDDECOMBE: ...so why have you got some already? STRAW: ...and I'm still... HUMPHRYS: ...you would quite like to see self-financing prisons, prison enterprises, so in other words... STRAW: ...if you could make. We've got a few but it's trying to expand it. Let me come back to the central issue, that this gentlemen Matthew raised. Yes I agree with both Ann and Simon that prisoners should be kept from idleness and idleness is one of the worst dangers in prison but there are other problems as well. What you have to do is to ensure not only that you deal with the offending behaviour in prison, that you give the prisoners education, you get their education standards up and about ninety per cent of them have very very low levels of education, basically can't properly read and write. You deal with their drugs problems, it's not something we've dealt with up to now, but behind about half of all crime, at all levels, as I see in my own constituency, there lies problems with drug addiction and drug abuse, so you deal with that. You also provide people with routes through to dealing with their anger because that often lies behind it, as well as introducing them to the world of work. Now we are doing all those things and I know people get fed up with swapping statistics, but actually the latest figures show that the proportion of time prisoners are spending on purposeful activity is at the same level as it was under the previous government but we think the quality is better. But what is also absolutely critical is that you provide a through care between prison and the community, just emptying people out at the gates, which is what happens under the 1991 sentencing structure, is no good, and that's why we have reformed the probation service and we will be proposing that for every prisoner, not just those are serving more than twelve months, there is proper probation intervention and an agreement with the prisoner about what they do when they come out, with the punishment, they go back to prison if they break it, unless they go straight. So it'll be stay straight, or go back, we'll give you support, we'll give you assistance, we'll give you education, we'll give you a second chance, but you make sure you take the chance, otherwise you'll be back to prison. HUMPHRYS: Right, let's look at the causes of crime. Christine Allison is a housewife and she has a question. CHRISTINE ALLISON: My question to the panel is: why do so many young people commit crimes get away with just a caution. Don't we need to make sure that young offenders get much tougher punishments. HUMPHRYS: Ann Widdecombe. WIDDECOMBE: Yes, is the simple answer to that. For this reason, that if between the ages of twelve to fifteen, which is when a lot of the menace takes place, they learn that they can get away with it because the courts haven't got sufficient remedies then by the time they are sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, they are heading for Her Majesty's Prisons and no messing and so I think it is crucial that we have a much tougher approach at that lower age group particularly where the courts haven't got the teeth that they have got for the sixteen pluses. And so what we propose is this, we propose to expand the number of secure training places from the hundred and twenty odd that there are at the moment to a thousand across the country. We then propose to take twelve to fifteen year olds into secure training when they offend but then something completely new, we propose to give them flexible sentences of say, and this is just a say, between six and twelve months, and set them targets in both education and behaviour which if they reach they get out at the earliest point, if they don't, they stay until they do or until they reach the final point. So that right from the start, there is what there isn't now, which is a shared incentive for the young people to actually try and comply with the targets. That's a sizeable stick and the message goes back to their peer group you don't come back laughing from the courts you can get taken away, that is a sizeable deterrent. The carrot we will produce is this, that anybody who goes through that and then stays out of trouble for two years, unless the crime has been horrendous and in which case this probably wouldn't be appropriate anyway, stays out of trouble for two years, we will wipe the slate completely clean and they will enter their adult lives with a fresh sheet. HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw. STRAW: Elections are about choices and I know that people sometimes are turned off by saying well what happened before. But the simple fact of the matter is, that what we inherited by way of a Youth Justice System was literally a shambles and what madam, you were talking about, where people got repeat cautions, was going on, we produced plans before the last election for reforming the Youth Justice System and we were told that there weren't needed. Now I am pleased to say that one of the things that we have done and which is really working, are our reforms of the Youth Justice System. It is no longer possible for there to be repeat cautions issued against a Young Offender. You have a reprimand first for relatively minor offences, then a caution, then the Young Offender has to go to court. We have introduced Youth Offending teams across the country, we've given the courts much wider powers to intervene, not only with the Young Offender but also with the parent, we've got Parenting Orders, people are very sceptical about this, no it was big brother, it was telling parents what to do. It's actually made a huge difference to the offending by the youngsters to be able to say to the parent, we are going to require you to have proper training and counselling and that is working. We have also increased the number of secure places available for youngsters, there is going to be five hundred more, we may get up to the thousand that Ann has talked about, it takes a long time to do that. Now, Ann's made some play just now about changes that she intends to make. We've effectively got what she's talked about already.... WIDDECOMBE: ...you haven't.. STRAW: Excuse me Ann. WIDDECOMBE: ...secure training places in your time Jack. STRAW: We've introduced, excuse me Ann, we've introduced a number of secure training places, we've pushed that programme ahead as fast as possible, provided one may say so, more money for that than was there before. We've got the money there for another five hundred places, all these things do take time and the interesting thing about what Ann is talking about is that she is spraying out promises about more spending at the same time as Michael Portillo is saying they are going to cut spending, those two things don't add up. And we have also introduced Detention Training Order which provides that flexibility. I don't disagree with Ann about the need to ensure that they are proper incentives to ensure that people get off crime. But that is what we are doing and the early signs are that it's working. WIDDECOMBE: You're in cloud-cuckoo-land. You ask anybody out there if they think young people are behaving much better. HUMPHRYS: Simon Hughes. HUGHES: Very good question, central question and which every area of the country we live in, I guess people are concerned about a lot of young people hanging around, intimidating older people, being a threat on the streets. I don't know a single area of Britain now, a single town, a single city where people don't say this is a real issue and it's becoming something that doesn't appear to be dealt with properly. So can I thank you for your question. I hope we will all reject the quick simplistic solutions and we've had two, one from each of my colleagues in the last two years, well to be fair not from Jack, from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's answer was for a week or two was march them to the cash point and make them pay. Well that clearly wasn't very well thought through and then Ann had a policy that lasted even less long which was nick all the people using cannabis for recreational use and that went out the window by the same evening. So simplistic solutions are no good. Just a list of things we have to do. It's not just about sentencing, it's about education that works and Jack was right to say, most of the kids who end up inside, end up inside with very poor reading skills, very poor numeracy skills and very poor opportunities for work. Secondly, we have to make sure that youngsters have constructive alternatives. Schools have very little swimming now, there's much less sport available. Kids don't go on often to do energetic jobs at sixteen when they are using all their energy. Unless you have a sixteen year old being energetic and using...they are going to use it for anti-social activity. I am very keen that we do that. I'll give you one little example John if I may. HUMPHRYS: Make it short. HUGHES: I was with a group of kids the other day on the streets in my constituency in Bermondsey. Several of them, before school leaving age weren't at school at all. I asked them what they wanted to do, one wanted to go to work and I'm trying to get him a work placement before he is sixteen and one wanted to be a boxer and I got him a meeting the following week with a British Champion, he'd just won the Championship, to see if he could be good and he's there and he's going and training. Now, you have to be sensible about that. Of course the persistent offenders have to be dealt with firmly, I've spent a weekend in a borstal, unusually amongst politicians, and I have to tell you they don't normally make you less likely to commit crime, they normally make you much better equipped to commit crime and we need to keep them out of there if we possibly can. HUMPHRYS: Right, we will assume it was professionally... HUGHES: It was voluntary... HUMPHRYS: Two weeks voluntary, let's be clear about that. You mention drugs, obviously hard drugs, a serious cause of crime. Robert Ireland has a question about drugs, he's a case worker at a Citizens Advice Bureau. Mr Ireland. ROBERT IRELAND: Why are we spending so much money trying to stop people using soft drugs like cannabis. Shouldn't we decriminalise cannabis and focus the money on fighting drugs like heroin and crack cocaine which cause the real misery? HUMPHRYS: Simon Hughes, you'd agree with decriminalising cannabis, wouldn't you? HUGHES: Bizarrely and as it happens, I don't because people always say to me I do, but we think there's very good argument and so what we've done, we've committed ourselves to arguing that there should be a permanent advisory body, we call it Royal Commission, it could be something else, to look at drugs, alcohol and solvents and recommend what the law should be and whether it should change and the difference between us and the other parties is that we don't say that the law is adequate and doing well, for the reason the questioner gave. Soft drugs, recreational drugs, the evidence is varying but have been the subject of a very important report you've had recently... HUMPHRYS: ...The Runciman Report... HUGHES: ...the Runciman Report by the Police Foundation, which recommended that there should be a change in the law. We issued a knee-jerk reaction, we've asked our party policy and conference to look at it, I'm sorry we haven't come to the conclusion before the election, we will come to the conclusion in the year after the election and it may be that we will change the policy, but we will do so in a considered way because as you rightly say, the current law clearly isn't working and we need to be dealing with the hard drugs and the middle people who sell them and not dealing in my view nearly as much with those who innocently use recreational drugs for their own use, don't sell, don't work on the streets and it may be that the logic, and some of the police say this, including police chiefs, is that we should either legalise or decriminalise. But I'll give you a straight answer when we've had our report back to our party in less than a year's time. HUMPHRYS: Ann Widdecombe, we know you don't want to do either of those things, do you still want a hundred pounds on the spot fine for possession of cannabis. WIDDECOMBE: We said to you, I'm sorry, I'm not rehearse things that we said eight months that we were not necessarily going forward with. But eight months ago, we also did address, the answer is, I don't want to decriminalise it, everybody knows that... HUMPHRYS: ...no, no I know that, but I asked you whether you wanted these hundred pound on the spot fines? WIDDECOMBE: ...what I want, we want to tackle soft drug possession and we have said that we are looking at different ways of doing that in view of the reaction to what we initially proposed, but ninety-eight per cent of that policy that I talked about at conference, in which by the way, I didn't even mention the word cannabis, ninety-eight per cent of that policy was actually about tackling supply and hard drugs and I think you've hit the nail on the head and Simon almost en passant at one point hit the nail on the head, when he talked about low levels of supply, medium levels of supply. The sort of supply we all know about but is very hard to get a grip on, for example, the house where people visit all day long, you know what's going on, a car draws up at a kerbside, people come out from doorways, you know what's going on. But the police can't just say, we know what's going on. They have to mount a surveillance operation, they have to get the sort of evidence that would stand up in a court of law. And what I said at party conference was that we needed to have, as they have successfully done in New York, we needed to have a huge attack on that level of supply. Now I think successive governments have been quite good at tackling large scale importing, not a hundred per cent success of course not, otherwise it wouldn't be getting in, but they've been quite good at tackling that and international co-operation. The failure, hang on, is on that level of supply, and if we don't attack that, and try and really get on top of that, and again, it's not an overnight business, but unless we do that, then we're not going to succeed in combating the drugs culture at all. HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, politicians in power tend to run away from this question of cannabis possession, don't they, because they're slightly scared of it. Even if the public has changed its mind? STRAW: No, I've never run away from it John. My answer to the gentleman's question is that we should be led by the science. There's an advisory council on the misuse of drugs composed of scientists and doctors. It was on the basis of their evidence about the long term effects of cannabis, particularly on those people with a propensity to mental illness, that cannabis was put on the Schedule B list, if the medical evidence changes, then the government is obviously up to change it, but we shouldn't just change it capriciously, we should bear in mind that although there are, there's quite a number of people who do of course take cannabis and other so called soft drugs, it's many many fewer than those who take another drug which is legalised, which is cigarettes, and the effect overall at the moment of the criminalisation of cannabis and these drugs is to keep consumption down. But can I just pick up a point about Ann's conference announcement, I know that it was eccentric and we call all smile about it, but there's quite an important issue here, because what Ann proposed was that those who were taking soft drugs found in possession of small quantities of soft drugs should get a hundred pounds fixed penalty without any discretion at all, first offence, and I think should go to prison for the second offence. WIDDECOMBE: No I said to court actually. STRAW: To court for the second offence. Now that of course was abandoned by her colleagues within the space of a few hours, the problem about that, and I am pleased that it was, because it was eccentric, but the problem that it tells you about... WIDDECOMBE: ...answer the question Jack... STRAW: ...may I just finish, what it tells you about... WIDDECOMBE: ...how are you going to tackle hard drugs, I've told them, you tell them... STRAW: ...Ann may I just finish... WIDDECOMBE: ...tell them... STRAW: ...what it tells you about is the lack of any collective decision making inside the Shadow Cabinet, because.... WIDDECOMBE: ...answer his question about hard drugs... STRAW: ...please Ann. The rug was pulled away from underneath her and she was left without any authority for what she said. Today... HUMPHRYS: ...I think she has a point. You ought to answer, I think she has point, you ought to answer the gentleman's question... WIDDECOMBE; ...cashpoint card...you all abandoned him pretty quickly, didn't you? STRAW: ...just one second. Today, she's giving pledges about the spending in the Home Office area, saying that she's guaranteeing that spending will continue at our levels, even though there's not a single dot or comma in the Conservative Manifesto, nor from what Mr Michael Portillo said, giving that pledge... WIDDECOMBE: ...yes he has... STRAW: ...now let me come back to your question... HUMPHRYS: ...briefly if you will... STRAW: ...let me come back to your question. Of course we should differentiate between those drugs which are so called soft drugs which do less harm, they still do harm, from those which are hard drugs. I see as I am sure both Simon and Ann do in my constituency, the effects of some drug dealers and drug addicts, and often to street level they're the same people, the effect that those people have on the whole of an area, the way they can cause all sorts of crimes of disorder, and we're tackling those, and we're putting a lot of money into drug treatment and rehabilitation... HUMPHRYS: ...okay... STRAW: ...and one last point. One of the great things that we've done, I've done with Alan Milburn, is to set up a joint drug treatment agency with the Department of Health. HUMPHRYS: Right, okay, thank you for telling us all that, Ann Widdecombe, a quick response to that, very quick response to that. WIDDECOMBE: Well the quick response to that is of course he has told you nothing at all about how he is going to tackle hard drugs. He wasted a lot of time making funny party political points, I could have made a lot about the Prime Minister and cashpoints. What actually matters is, what is he going to do to tackle the menace of hard drugs supply... HUMPHRYS: ...we are not going to, we are not going to let him ... WIDDECOMBE: ...what did we do, we introduced three strikes and you're out... HUMPHRYS: ...okay, we're not going to let him deal... WIDDECOMBE: ...we've got a record of tackling it, he has none. HUMPHRYS: ...we're not going to let him answer that because we're going to move on to our next question, from Nick Clark who is an Independent Financial Adviser and takes us into another area, Mr Clark? NICK CLARK: Thank you. Asylum is now a genuine problem so my question is, which party is going to introduce tight enough controls to dramatically reduce the number of people entering the UK and claiming asylum? HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw? STRAW: I don't think any party will introduce tighter controls which can dramatically reduce the numbers. It is a problem, you're absolutely right and the problem is that we have..and it's a problem across Europe as is shown from the figures, because we're in the middle of the European League table by the power of population, and we remain there as numbers have risen elsewhere in Europe. It's a problem because there are people fleeing, genuinely fleeing persecution, there are also people who are moving - want to move away from poverty for reasons we understand but we can't accommodate them. We have to make an assessment about their applications, we have to deal humanely and quickly with those who've got a genuine case for asylum and then take fast action in respect of those who have not. HUMPHRYS: So why haven't you been sending them back? STRAW: That is what we've been doing and we've trebled the number of applications that have been processed to a hundred and thirty thousand, we have doubled the numbers of removals. We want.... HUMPHRYS: Can I just give you one fact there, because it's an area that we really must deal with obviously. Seventy-seven thousand people were refused asylum last year according to the figures. Only nine thousand were removed from this country. STRAW: Well, only nine thousand were removed forcibly from this country. Many more of those went back of their own accord. Of course nobody knows, no-one across Europe can tell you exactly how many and Ann Widdecome never could tell you how many when she was in charge of immigration. The crucial thing here - this is true, because no country in Europe can tell you exactly how many people are there wholly illegally. The crucial thing here is that we deal swiftly with this and also that we increase the number of people who are removed. Now to do that you need more detention space. Ann will tell you airily that's she's planning to lock up every single asylum seeker as they come in and keep them locked up until they are ready to go back, aside from the fact that would cost two billion pounds... WIDDECOMBE:, No it wouldn't. STRAW: ...break international conventions...cost two billion pounds, break international convention and take many years to deal with. WIDDECOMBE: Nothing like that... STRAW: When we have proposed one additional detention centre having made a search of the country for the site, in Orpington in Kent, what has happened? The local Conservatives, the local Conservative Member of Parliament Damian Green have opposed that... WIDDECOMBE: ...what about Oakington? STRAW: ..refused us planning permission, and Anne Widdecombe when asked about this in Parliament repeatedly has sat on the fence. WIDDECOMBE: Tell us about Oakington? HUMPHRYS: Hang on. STRAW: If you want to improve the situation, it is a problem sir, I accept that, we have a moral obligation to ensure that people are protected from persecution and then to deal with it. If you want to deal with it then we have to spend more money which we are, we have to put more staff in which we are, we have to find more detention space. HUMPHRYS: Right. STRAW: And the one last thing I say to you is this, is that because of other pledges the Conservatives are making which is to cut overall government spending, the increase in the number of immigration officers which happened under us, would be cut, and there would probably be four thousand fewer immigration officers. HUMPHRYS: Right. Ann Widdecombe. WIDDECOMBE: Right. First of all just to deal with that last point, because Jack keeps repeating it. We have set out in a clear breakdown how we would find the eight billion savings that we're talking about. None of those savings, absolutely none of them relate to the Home Office, it is absolutely true Jack. We have set them out. I can read them out. HUMPHRYS: Okay, let's not do that. You say that you have, he says you haven't, right let's deal with the other question. WIDDECOMBE: Now let's deal with the crucial thing which is asylum. We did make a dramatic difference. When we introduced the 1996 Act which Jack opposed, indeed which Simon opposed, when we introduced the 1996 Act there was an immediate, not a long term, but an immediate fall of forty per cent in asylum claims. That has been squandered and we now have a hundred per cent increase in asylum claims. So it can be done. Now what do we need to do. Jack has touched on it in a way, when he says, it was forced out of him but he had to admit he can't say how many have been removed. One of the reasons for that is we don't actually know where they are. Now if you were to house all new applicants in secure reception centres and process their claims you would do three things. The first is you would know where people were that you were going to remove and you would remove them. The second is you would sent out a huge deterrent message, which is what we did with our '96 Act, which on this occasion would say: if you come to Britain with a false claim you will be detained, you will be dealt with and you will be returned. But it would enable us to do something very important as well. To those to whom we're going to say yes, to the chap who is actually fleeing persecution in his own country we would be able to devise with him in that purpose-built or purpose set-up centre, we would be able to devise with him a complete package for education, linguistic support, where he should get... HUMPHRYS: Right... WIDDECOMBE: No, I want to finish this one, because at the moment what Jack is doing is something pretty cruel, is disperse at the whim of the Home Office to anywhere that they say. STRAW: You supported the dispersal policy WIDDECOMBE: It is then rely on the uncertainty... HUMPHRYS: He says you supported it... WIDDECOMBE: ... and it is the way, the way it is... we said we would give a fair wind and it's been a disaster, and it's been a disaster..... and so what we would prefer to do is what I have set out to you, which is to get everybody into secure reception centres, process claims, deal properly with those we're going to accept because that system to which we were prepared to give a fair wind to has failed. HUMPHRYS: Alright, Simon Hughes? SIMON HUGHES: It's a very important issue. My view is that it's only a problem and I have to say this because the last two government haven't dealt with those coming adequately. It's not in the same league, but if you remember a few years ago we had queues of people waiting for passports round the block and up and down the road because there weren't enough people to process and the computers weren't working and so on, and it became a crisis when it should never have happened. It's the same department, the Home Office. So... WIDDECOMBE: His Home Office. HUGHES: It was this government's Home Office, but the asylum seeker queue has been under both the Labour and Tory governments, and we're not at all unique in Europe. Just two figures - we're tenth in the League Table in terms of numbers of people coming to our country compared to other European countries, Germany's had five times as many over the past ten years, so let's not get it out of perspective . Two years ago over fifty per cent of those asking to come here were accepted. Last year between a quarter and half were accepted, so there are people with some very good cases and I hope we always remember that. How you deal with the others, the key is speedy processing of the application, the key is a reception centre, not a lock 'em up centre, but a reception centre where apart from those who've committed offences who clearly you ought to make sure are dealt with as criminals and those you suspect, you have all the facilities so you can deal with the language, the health, the legal stuff quickly. But the other issue it seems to me that's crucially important is that we've got to allow people that are the moment are pretending to be asylum seekers some of them because they want to come as economic migrants to put in a case to come here to work, and we have no facility yet to do that. So if we had a route lawfully for asylum seekers to put their case and dealt with them quickly and a route lawfully for people to say we want to come and work in Britain, just as many of our families have gone to work in South Africa, in Canada, Australia and New Zealand and India and places, then I honestly believe it wouldn't be a problem, it might be a challenge, but it's no different a challenge... WIDDECOMBE: There is one ... one other.... HUMPHRYS: Sorry, no, I have to stop you there, we've only a couple of minutes left. WIDDECOMBE: We need to meet the planes to make sure that people who get off have got the documentation with which they entered those planes, otherwise they actually stay outside for hours and say they've come .... HUMPHRYS: Final question, we're just about out of time. Ralph Anwar, who is unemployed, planning to study law next year. Mr Anwar. RALPH ANWAR: Thank you. Does the panel agree that all this competitive talk with politicians using emotive language like bogus about asylum seekers damages race relations in this country? HUMPHRYS: Do you agree with that Simon Hughes? HUGHES: Worse than that and I do agree with that, that particularly the Tory language in the last three years has actually indirectly in my view, increased the number of racial attacks and racial violence and increased the prevalence of racists attitudes. I have seen fourteen year old Bangladeshi kids in my constituency nearly killed in recent months and I have no doubt that it's at least in part due to the language we've had from William Hague and William Hague's Tory Party and I'm afraid that's a scandal and sad for the Tories. HUMPHRYS: Ann Widdecombe? WIDDECOMBE: I'm afraid that's a complete nonsense. The term bogus has even been used by the Prime Minister, the term floods has been used by the Attorney General. The fact is what we are trying to do is to have a debate which distinguishes, as the foregoing debate did, asylum seekers who have a claim, who should get a quick and settled haven, who have not just a legal but a moral entitlement to our hospitality and those who are simply trying to use the system as a means of getting into the country for reasons wholly unconnected with persecution. Now, I do not believe that we should be driven off that debate because it's a serious one. In my home county in the last six months of the last government we processed fifty claims. In the last six months it was ten thousand claims. HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, final question. STRAW: I agree with what the gentleman says and I think we've got a good record on race relations. My argument with the Conservatives on the asylum issue is that while we are trying to deal with what is really a difficult problem, they are simply seeking to exploit it with simplistic solutions which won't work. And I also say you can't have something for nothing and what we've heard today is the Conservative Party committed to allegedly, to increasing numbers of staff whilst also committed to cutting public spending and the reality is that under the Conservatives there would be three-thousand fewer police officers... WIDDECOMBE: ...nonsense... STRAW: ...and four-thousand fewer asylum officers to deal with all those claims. HUMPHRYS: ...there, I'm afraid though I know Ann Widdecombe would like to come back in, we have to end it... WIDDECOMBE: ...I don't need to, their record speaks for themselves... HUMPHRYS: ...don't need to she says, so there we are, just as well because you can't anyway. Jack Straw, Ann Widdecombe and Simon Hughes, thank you all very much indeed.
NB. This transcript was typed from a transcription unit recording and not copied from an original script. Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy.