No, I want to speak now if that is all right. Thank you. Burglary is a serious crime and a particularly distressing one. The forced invasion of one’s home adds a further dimension to the effect on its occupiers. I suspect several Members of the House will have shared my experience, at least in part. My home—which, incidentally, was built by the father of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, to whom I apologise for anticipating in this debate, for reasons that I shall give later—has been burgled and my office has also been burgled once. Fortunately, little damage was done; even more fortunately, no one was present at the time. Where the householder or other occupant is present, the impact of the crime transcends distress and, too often, becomes traumatic.
I say at once that we welcome the extension of the present law to non-residential premises, such as those of shopkeepers, to which the Minister has referred. However, in relation to domestic premises, while absolutely affirming the right of residents to defend themselves and their property, we have doubts about the Government’s proposals. The amendments have been spatchcocked into the Bill at virtually the last minute, almost, it would seem, as an initiation rite performed by the new Lord Chancellor. Unlike the proposals on community sentencing, we have not had the opportunity of a general debate under the recommittal procedure. I propose therefore to treat the debate on these amendments as, in effect, a Second Reading debate, which is why I sought to speak now rather than later.
Burglary is an offence against the person as well as against property, because a break-in destroys the victim’s peace of mind by violating the safe haven of their home. The householder is not in a position to exercise calm, cool judgment. The householder is entitled to use reasonable force to get rid of the burglar; and, in measuring whether the force is reasonable or not, you are not doing a paper exercise six months later:
“You have to put yourself in the position of the man or woman who has reacted to the presence of a burglar and has reacted with fury, with anxiety, with fear”.
These are not my words—although I concur with them—but the words of the Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, commenting on the recent case of two men jailed after raiding a remote cottage, when they were blasted with a shotgun. What is significant is that his words reflect the present state of the law. Although the victims in that case were questioned by police, their Member of Parliament, Alan Duncan MP—not, I think, generally known as a bleeding-heart liberal—said:
“The police did a very good job and investigated as thoroughly as they had to when a firearm is involved”.
The first question is what the government proposal adds to the present state of the law, as enshrined by the Labour Government’s Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 and the present Government’s clarification, embodied in Section 148 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, passed only a few months ago. In my submission, it adds only confusion. It purports to allow the use of disproportionate force but not grossly disproportionate force. Can the Minister define, or even better exemplify, the difference between the two, especially bearing in mind the words of the Lord Chief Justice? What difference, if any, in his view would the amendment’s wording have had, for example, on the case of Tony Martin, who shot dead a burglar? What does the Minister make of the statement by Michael Wolkind QC, who represented Tony Martin? He said:
“The law already recognises that people react in a certain way in the heat of the moment”,
and argued that the law does not need changing.
The second element that the proposal might add to the Bill is, paradoxically and obviously unintentionally, a heightened risk to home owners. A study in Texas has demonstrated that the notorious “stand your ground” law, promoted by the US gun lobby and enacted in several US states, has led to more injuries and deaths being inflicted on householders and others by criminals, rather than fewer. Anyone who watched the recent TV programme on “stand your ground” would surely hesitate before opening the door to similar unintended consequences here, even allowing for the radically different gun culture that is such a blemish on American society.
There are other questions to be asked. Have the Government consulted the judiciary or the police on the proposed changes? If so, what responses have they received? If they have not consulted them, why not? Have they conducted an impact analysis? Your Lordships might think that a particularly fitting term in this instance for an assessment of the consequences of legislation. What is the evidence that the present state
of the law, as defined by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, is inadequate? The Minister has circulated what purports to be a fact sheet. Your Lordships might think that that document contains precious few facts and no evidence on which to base the Government’s proposals.
My right honourable friend Sadiq Khan sought information by means of Parliamentary Question on the number of home owners arrested or charged after defending their property against burglars since 1994. The answer was:
“The information on arrests is not collected centrally … It is not possible to match the arrests data to any subsequent outcomes”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/10/12; col. 641W.]
The Guardian recently reported, after a review by the CPS, that there were all of seven cases—I repeat, seven cases—between 1990 and 2005 in which a householder was prosecuted. In other words, there is simply no evidence to suggest that the problem the Government purport to be addressing is significant in terms of numbers, whereas it is clear that neither the police nor the courts are going to fall over themselves to prosecute householders who react in the way described by the Lord Chief Justice.
Is the Minister suggesting that where serious injury or death is inflicted on a burglar—or even someone such as the man featured in a recent BBC radio programme who was thought to be a burglar but was apparently just a confused man trying unsuccessfully to enter what he thought was his own home—the police should not investigate the situation in a proper manner, not least in the interests of those whom they interview? I wait to see not only what answers to these and other questions emerge from this debate but what transpires when this Bill goes to the House of Commons.
I have no doubt that the Lord Chancellor will seek to portray himself as the champion of the victims. It is a pretty hollow claim on the part of a Government who are both alienating and cutting the police force; undermining community policing; presiding over the reduction of community support officers, who provide invaluable back-up to front-line policing; and savagely slashing or altogether removing compensation for the victims of crime by their changes to the criminal injuries compensation scheme. Those changes, I might add, were forced through the House of Commons by the process of mugging several Conservative members of the relevant committee, including John Redwood MP, a senior former Minister, and substituting placemen in the form of Parliamentary Private Secretaries—not much consideration for victims of crime in that context.
I repeat that we are at one with the intention to protect the householder and punish the burglar. We remain to be convinced that the Government’s proposals are sound in law and safe, from the perspective of the very people they are supposed to protect.