Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I agree. That is another gaping hole at the heart of the Bill and I will turn to that issue in a second. Some 17,000 prisoners are now doubling up in cells, twice as many as when the Government came to power. Nearly a quarter of the entire prison population is housed in cells designed for one fewer person. We have just seen the obscenity in the 21st century of a wing of a prison in this country closed because of sewage and rat infestation. There has been a huge increase in suicides in our prisons and, contrary to the Minister of State's claim, that increase in prison suicides this year far outstrips the rise in the jail population. The Government's own figures show that suicides are far more likely in overcrowded jails and that an inadequate number of new prison places will not keep pace with the rising custodial population. There needs to be proper accountability for deaths in custody and the fact that the Government resisted their own corporate manslaughter legislation in relation to prisons and police cells—eventually only accepting it with a delay of years—demonstrates that Ministers know there is a serious problem but have been unwilling to take the steps to deal with it. These are the issues that we will address when we come to consider a provision in the Bill that we welcome—the appointment of a commissioner for offender management and prisons. The Government, frankly, have simply stood by and watched as the prisons have filled up. On 24 July, the Minister of State conceded that"““it is clear that a gap remains between the number of new places and the forecasted rise in the prison population.””—[Official Report, 24 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 755.]" They know there is gap but they are refusing to tell us what they are going to do about it and they are producing a Bill that will increase the prison population in spite of that. The Ministry of Justice's median projections of future prison population show that there will be 12,370 new prisoners by 2012, but only 9,500 new prison places by the same date. That is a gap of 3,000. If all of the measures in the Bill were implemented, those measures increasing the prison population would, on the Government's own estimate—it is wildly behind the forecasts of the National Association of Probation Officers—add 49. Those that would reduce the prison population would subtract 1,100. According to the Government's own figures there remains a serious gap in the projected prison population that is not addressed by the Bill, even on its own terms. We need a coherent strategy to address the crisis, but what we get is political grandstanding. Part 11 of the Bill concerns itself with foreigners who commit crimes in Britain. On 25 July, the Prime Minister told The Sun: "““If you commit a crime you will be deported. You play by the rules or you face the consequences…I'm not prepared to tolerate a situation where we have people breaking the rules in our country when we cannot act.””" Then, two weeks ago in Brighton, the Prime Minister said:"““But let me be clear: any newcomer to Britain who is caught selling drugs or using guns will be thrown out. No one who sells drugs to our children or uses guns has the right to stay in our country.””" However, today in his press conference the Prime Minister made it clear that he was talking only about newcomers to this country. First, we were told that all foreign criminals would have to be deported, then we were told that it would be drug dealers or gun criminals, and now the Prime Minister confirms that he is in fact talking only about people who have yet to visit this country. The Prime Minister simply does not understand the damage that that kind of spin has done to politics and his own Government—not only over the past 10 years, but, specifically, in the last two weeks. The Prime Minister knows that he cannot remove thousands of foreign criminals from our country, not least because Labour's own laws prevent it. He could not even deport the murderer of Philip Lawrence because of an EU directive, which the Lord Chancellor negotiated, and the Human Rights Act, which the Lord Chancellor introduced. That is why we say that one of the major flaws in relation to this Bill, which is intended to deal with the issue of foreign prisoners in our country, is the HRA itself. That is why we have said that the HRA should be scrapped, and replaced by a British Bill of rights and responsibilities that would enable us to take the necessary action against, for instance, those who commit acts of terrorism.