Defending Public Services — House of Commons, 2016-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Keith Anthony Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). He speaks with huge passion about these matters, and of course he has always been consistent in his opposition to being a member of the European Union. He also speaks eloquently about why he feels the way that he does The European debate—I say this as a former Minister for Europe—has dominated the Government’s agenda to such an extent that this Queen’s Speech is a shadow of what it should be. There is no great ideological commitment in it, so it is difficult to attack too much of it. It is important that, when we get past 23 June, we can then settle down to an intelligent legislative programme that is not dominated by people banging on about Europe —I include myself in that. Although crime has gone down in England and Wales, blue-on-blue crime has increased as far as the EU debate is concerned As I mentioned earlier, last Thursday the Minister for Employment was in my constituency with a very big red bus parked outside the biggest temple telling everyone that if we remained in the European Union, there would be a curry crisis and people would not be able to eat curry any more. It is important that we get the European debate into perspective As a fellow east midlands MP, you would expect me to say this, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I was surprised that there was no mention in the Gracious Speech of Leicester City winning the Premier league, but perhaps that will come next year I agree with the Government’s proposals regarding the revolution in the Ministry of Justice and our prisons. I and members of the Select Committee on Home Affairs have been very concerned about, for example, the number of people who go into prison with no interest in drugs and come out addicted to drugs. We are concerned that our prison system is not doing what it was intended to do: to punish, but also to rehabilitate. Although we expected the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), when he was Lord Chancellor, to talk about changing the way we look at prisons, we did not expect this from the current Lord Chancellor, and we are delighted that he has embraced the reform agenda. Ensuring that when people go to prison they are first punished, then rehabilitated and they do not pick up bad habits, so that when they come out of prison they do not reoffend and go back again, is one of the big issues that has confronted this Parliament for all the 29 years that I and the right hon. Member for Wokingham have been Members of it. How do we break the cycle I remember on a visit to a prison in the south of England speaking to a young man who was there because he had committed murder. He told me that his father had had a life sentence and he had a life sentence; he just hoped that his young son, who was then a year old, would not end up in prison. How do we break the cycle? I think we should work with the Government to make sure that our prison system does what it is intended to do The second issue I am interested in and concerned about is extremism. Although the Government are proposing legislation on extremism, I do not think they have gone far enough on the counter-narrative. The Select Committee is about to conclude its year-long inquiry into counter-terrorism. I am concerned, as is the rest of the House, about the number of young British citizens who decide to give up their life in this country and go and fight abroad. The current figure for those who have done so is 800, and 400 have returned so far. I cannot understand why we are not doing enough while they are still here to prevent them from going in the first place. Also, although there are programmes to detoxify those who return to this country, there is always the risk that having gone abroad to fight, whether in Syria or elsewhere, on their return they will retain the poison that was drilled into them abroad. It is important that we treat the counter-narrative seriously. We need to support our police and intelligence services in working out who is going, and work with families so that we can try to persuade people not to go.