It is a pleasure to follow the opening Front-Bench speeches, to which I have listened with interest. It feels like groundhog day, if I may say so, on many counts and fronts.
First and foremost, there is much to welcome in the Bill. I bear the scars of having taken a number of criminal justice measures through the House—with great pleasure and through working with colleagues, including some Back-Bench colleagues who served with me in government. I think we can all reflect on how important it is that this criminal justice legislation strikes a fundamental balance between protecting civil liberties; supporting victims wholeheartedly in everything that we do as legislators; preventing crime, which must be absolutely front and centre of what it does; and punishing offenders.
This is a point of reflection. We in this House have discussed all those themes in separate debates, urgent questions and statements over a number of weeks. When it comes to punishing offenders, I know that the Lord Chancellor has, from the Dispatch Box, tried to address the issues to do with prison spaces. At the same time, we have been having conversations about preventing crime and supporting victims. Those are all personal and human aspects on which we must get the balance right.
I cannot emphasise this enough: we need to bring in and operationalise practical measures that deliver the desired effects and outcomes. In the debate thus far, we have not fully reflected on what it means to put into practice the delivery of such measures—what it means for resourcing, policing, prison spaces, the use of stop and search, and, importantly, how we put victims front and centre of everything we do. We must also demonstrate why those desired impacts are needed above and beyond what is already in place. We have good measures in place already, but now we have to reflect on them and go over and beyond, in the light of some of the points that have been made in the debate. I will come to many of those points.
I know that, while the Bill is going through Parliament, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will have to brace himself for the significant amount of lobbying that will come his way from inside and outside the House. I reflect on that because a great deal of experience that will come his way, and those important discussions will be moments for him to reflect on the practicalities not just of what goes in the Bill, but of its delivery. I thank him for the conversations that we have had in the past week. He will build on the many practical suggestions that will come his way.
Before I comment on the measures in the Bill, it is important to reflect on the actions that have been taken in recent years and the difference that they are making. It is too easy to come in and throw the baby out with the bathwater. A lot of good was done in previous Bills. I will pay tribute later to the work to invest in and recruit 20,000 more police officers. That has had an effect not just on the criminal justice system, but on building public confidence in policing—we should never stand still on that. At the end of the day, the public look to us all—certainly to a Conservative Government—to
ensure that we have the manpower to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour, which has been mentioned. Importantly, we must give the public confidence that law and order is on their side and will use every pillar and strain every sinew, including police officers and the criminal justice system, to be on their side. Of course, the beating crime plan contained significant details about measures to target hotspots of criminal activity, including many dreadful aspects that have been touched on today, such as antisocial behaviour, homicide and knife crime. For example, the plan included the introduction of violence reduction units and investment in safer streets through the safer streets funds—important measures that must be built on to deliver safety practically and to build confidence in the criminal justice system.