Later today, I will return to Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It is an opportunity to thank some of the leading architects of peace for their courage and the pivotal role they played to set the groundwork for a better future for the people of Northern Ireland. We will also commemorate those who are no longer with us.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
We are in the middle of a housing crisis, with mortgages soaring, rents rising and house building set to reach a new low. Just last week, in an interview with ConservativeHome, the Prime Minister admitted his disastrous decision to drop housing targets to appease Tory party members. Will the Prime Minister please explain to the House why the views of 1,000 party members are more important than those of families aspiring to be homeowners across the country?
On the Government side of the House we believe in empowering local communities to make the decisions that are right for them and to protect their green spaces. The place where there is most acute need, where house building is not keeping up with need, is in Labour-controlled London.
Q3. It has been reported that the Welsh Labour Government are going to incentivise people smugglers by offering £1,600 of taxpayers’ money every month to asylum seekers. May I ask my right hon. Friend for an assurance that he will never contemplate such a daft idea in our small boats Bill?
I know my noble Friend Lord Bellamy and the Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), wrote to the Welsh Government yesterday confirming that we would not be undertaking their request. I note that the Labour leader has said that the Welsh Labour Government are his “blueprint”. Unbelievably, as my hon. Friend said, Labour in Wales is trying to pay illegal migrants £1,600. We are stopping the boats; Labour is paying for them.
Because of the record investment that we are putting into public services like the NHS, we are now getting waiting lists down. Because of the reforms that we have made to our education system, more children are studying in good and outstanding schools. Because that is what you get with a Conservative Government—more funding, more reform and better outcomes for Britain.
He is living in another world to the rest of us. People waiting more than two days for an ambulance because they broke the NHS. Only one in 100 rapists going to court because they broke the criminal justice system. A record number of small boats crossing the channel because they broke the asylum system. People can’t afford their bills, can’t get the police to investigate crimes, can’t get a doctor’s appointment. Does that really sound like pretty good shape to him?
What is the record since 2010? Since 2010, crime is down by 50% under the Conservative Government. There are 20,000 more police officers, we have given them more powers, and we have toughened up sentencing—all opposed by Sir Softie over there.[Official Report, 24 April 2023, Vol. 731, c. 4MC.]
Order. Our constituents want to hear the questions and the answers. You will progress questions beyond—[Interruption.] The Prime Minister wants to leave early, along with the Leader of the Opposition. Help me to help them!
Either the Prime Minister does not use the same public services as the rest of us or he simply cannot see the damage that the Government have done to our country. In 2019, Arie Ali, a convicted people smuggler, threw boiling water over a prison officer, leaving him with first degree burns. The prison officer said that it felt like acid and his face was on fire. His attacker was found guilty and received a prison sentence, quite rightly in my view. Does the Prime Minister agree?
Our record is clear on sentencing. It was this party and this Government who passed the sentencing Act last year. It toughened up sentences, and the average custodial sentence since 2010 has now increased by almost two thirds. For child sex abusers, it is up by 15 months; for rapists, it is up by two years. When our sentencing Act ended the automatic early release of offenders who pose a danger to the public, it was the Labour party that voted against it.
The problem is, Prime Minister, that Arie Ali’s sentence ended up being suspended. Anyone watching this would wonder why someone who violently attacks a key worker is not behind bars. Well, the Court judgment spelled it out: it is because it took 16 months for the attacker to be charged. That is ridiculous. It took another two years before he was sentenced—completely unacceptable. Cannot the Prime Minister see that because the Government have lost control of the courts service, because they have created the largest court backlog on record, he is letting violent criminals go free?
Here is the record: we are cracking down on grooming gangs, and the Leader of the Opposition is uncomfortable addressing them. We toughened the law on sex offenders so they spend longer in prison; he voted against it. We have increased rape convictions by over 60%; meanwhile, he attended 21 Sentencing Council meetings that watered down punishments. That is why they call him Sir Softie: soft on crime, soft on criminals.
I have prosecuted thousands upon thousands of sex offenders. The Prime Minister has just shown that he does not understand how the criminal justice system works. No wonder he cannot fix it. He thinks that cracking down on crime is suspending a sentence where someone should be in prison. That shows the problem.
Another reason cited by the Court for suspending the sentence in Arie Ali’s case was a letter from the Justice Secretary in February about prison overcrowding. As a result of that letter, courts have been told to have awareness of the impact of current prison population levels when passing sentences. In simple terms, the wrecking ball that the Tories have taken to criminal justice means that thousands of people who should be in prison are not.