Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

It is impossible to underestimate the support that I would like to give to the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. Just before the 1997 election I remember a Division in this House in which I voted against what I thought was a piece of barbarism on the part of Mr Michael Howard. I think that I voted with the Liberals because Labour Members were voting with the Tories on that to get the Bill through quickly. I remember saying to the late and much respected and loved Gareth Williams, ““After the election the Home Secretary will either be called Michael Straw or Jack Howard””, and I have been proved absolutely right. There is nothing new in this panic about children being feral. In my dim and distant youth when the late Lord Whitelaw was Home Secretary he started something called the short, sharp shock and we had a little experiment with detention centres, but what happened was that in went flabby criminals and out came very fit criminals. I seem to remember that throughout my life people have complained about the disgustingness of the young. The Committee has heard my story about going to schools and declaring that the youth of today have no manners and show no respect. The children all look horrified but then I say, ““Don’t worry, that was written on clay tablets in Sumeria 2,500 years ago””. We have always had problems in this regard. But I thought the really interesting comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, was when she referred to the difference between good places and bad places. Surely the money and the effort should be directed at bringing the good schools up to scratch, because they will stop the young getting worse. We must do our level best to achieve that. That is our duty to society. It is our duty as legislators to frame the legislation in such a way that that can be done rather than just say, ““Oh, lock the little brutes up and put them down a waste disposal unit””, which can be a very easy reaction to have. Frankly, some of them are repellent beyond peradventure; they are not all Lord Goldsmiths. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, is taking a civilised and intelligent look at what is undoubtedly a serious, persistent and almost certainly impossible problem to cure.