The Conservative writer and statesman John Buchan said:
“You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass.”
Too often, our constituents are exposed to how fragile that thread is as they deal with the barbarity of crime. It is true that, as the new Home Secretary said, some crimes have fallen—burglary has certainly declined, as well as some other crimes—but too many of our constituents have a diminishing faith in the rule of law. Order delivers and depends on a secure sense of certainty shaped by shared values and, as communities become increasingly fragmented by social breakdown, those values are eroded. There are many reasons for that, but just two of them are the pace and character of change. We cannot admit 1.3 million people into the country in just two years and hope that communities will hang together. In some places, there is nothing to integrate into, even if the people coming would like to do so. We have to deal with the rapid pace of change and its effect on the character of community and the shared values on which we all depend.
There is another problem, which sadly is prevalent in the Chamber; I hear it prosecuted many times. That is to assume that the focus in criminal justice should be on
the criminal, not the crime; the cause, not the event. That implicitly limits—I would say that it reduces—our concern for victims as we perpetually ask why something has happened rather than what has happened. The effect of a crime—the event—is immediately felt, and the consequences of that event are measurable, so let us stop agonising about why, and deal with what and how, and what we will do about it.
What will the Government do about it in the Bill? There is much to be welcomed. The new crackdown on antisocial behaviour is overdue and insufficient but welcome. There is the concentration on knife crime and new offences for carrying knives. That, by the way, needs to be backed up with much more extensive use of stop and search—I hope we will hear that from the Minister when she winds up—because there is no point in having something on the statute book that says, “If you carry a weapon, you will be prosecuted” if we do not know whether people are carrying one or not. We know that stop and search works and we want to see more of it.
There are also sensible changes to the laws on vagrancy. Again, let us be crystal clear about those changes. The Bill says—this is not the hyperbole we have heard from some Opposition Members—that we will ban begging where it is causing a public nuisance such as by a cashpoint, in a shop doorway, on public transport, or approaching people in their cars at traffic lights. It will also introduce a new offence targeted at organised begging, which can be facilitated by criminal gangs to gain money for illicit activity—that is organised, orchestrated begging on a large scale. It will also introduce powers for the police and local authorities to address rough sleeping where it is causing damage, disruption, harassment, distress, or a security or health and safety risk such as the obstruction of fire exits or blocking pavements. That all sounds eminently reasonable.
Of course, those measures are not part of a bigger strategy on homelessness—I acknowledge and accept that—but my constituents tell me that they suffer from exactly the things that I have just detailed and want something done about it. The Government are to be congratulated for responding to those calls. The Government are right, too, to insist that criminals are in court when sentenced. We all saw recently that Lucy Letby was able to avoid meeting the families of her victims by cowering in her cell when she was duly sentenced.
There are things that are not in the Bill. I would have liked it to look at raising minimum and maximum sentences for all kinds of crimes. I would like more custodial sentences, not fewer, and not just for serious crimes. We have heard a lot about shoplifting. Let us imagine if we said to our constituents that the Government are increasing sentences for serious crimes, but a perpetual shoplifter will never go to prison; someone engaged in criminal damage by defacing or attacking a war memorial in our constituencies will not go to prison; someone involved in perpetual antisocial behaviour will not go to prison. That is not good enough, it is not what our constituents expect or want and it is not what the Government should do.