Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I am sorry but I shall not give way because other people want to speak. Let me conclude by going back to the Labour party. Obviously, I am familiar with our own proposals but I have been listening to what the Labour party has been putting forward, which tells us a lot about whether that party is ready for government. I have been facing the Labour movement for a very long time now—particularly the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, with whom I am familiar. I do not know what he thinks is happening to his party because the Opposition's position on this has been pitched at a section of the tabloid press that I have never heard the Labour party aim at so far as they have been doing. I did not expect that from the shadow Justice Secretary. Let me quote from the BBC's Politics Show on 31 October 2010—a year ago—when he said that he was ““not going to say”” that I am being"““soft on crime…because he is asking the right questions about rehabilitation rates””." More recently, when he gave the Howard League lecture on 17 October 2011, he said:"““Reforming prisons to reduce re-offending ultimately means safer communities up and down the country””." The Justice Secretary has made extraordinary proposals in relation to the Bill, the most preposterous of which were about knife crime. He tabled a new clause advocating mandatory sentences for 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15-year-olds. I never expected to see even the most reactionary of Labour Members—even the right hon. Members for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett)—putting forward such a proposition. We cannot estimate how many schoolchildren would have been caught by such measures, but our best estimate is that about 350 would have had to be sent away. We would have had to build secure children's homes to hold them and all the special provisions under the Children Acts would have been set aside. That was not a serious contribution to the debate, and serious contributions are what we should make. I think the Bill is balanced. As I have said, it has been attacked from the right and the left, and it will be scrutinised carefully in another place. I think we have started to redress some of the problems that the previous Government left behind. It is the inheritance of Tony Blair, a man whom I admire in many ways. By the time he had finished in office he was getting very keen on reforming public services such as health and education. In my modest opinion, he was very good on health and education by the time he finished, but he had no real interest in law and order and the criminal justice system. Tony Blair shadowed me when I was Home Secretary and he produced a good soundbite but no policy. He produced the phrase,"““Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime,””" but he did not know what he meant. He had no real interest in the subject and all he did was encourage the right hon. Members for Blackburn and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough to produce populist stuff that filled the statute book with quite useless criminal justice legislation. This is serious reform to what was caused by that Government, and the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) who shadows me should look at his party's record. He should not make things worse by going on proposing preposterous things, as he has done in this debate. I advise him to go away and reflect on the many hours he has spent here, to reflect on the wisdom of my hon. Friends the two Under-Secretaries and to do better next time.