Good Afternoon
Conference
I am very pleased to be here to speak to you today. We are meeting at a time of unprecedented cuts. Bigger cuts even than Thatcher dared to make. And huge falls in living standards. Even the Gov. Of the B/E says the falls are bigger than any seen since the 1920’s.
And yet despite this last weekend we learned that chief executives of FTSE 100 companies earn an average of £3.7million – 145 times the average wage. Salaries for top executives are rocketing out of control.
Conference we are not all in it together. And the cuts are not just hitting public sector workers – they are an attack on the most vulnerable – children, the disabled and homeless people.
And women are hit especially hard. 67% of workers in the public sector are women. And its women who are the big losers from cuts in child benefit and tax credits.
The trade unions have led the campaign against public spending cuts, against public sector job losses and against public service reductions.
And I want to congratulate everyone involved in organising the fantastic march on 26th March when 350,000 people came to show their support for the Public Services Alliance.
Meanwhile, on Saturday – how many people did the Taxpayers Alliance rally in favour of the cuts? – 350.
Conference, before the General Election I was a Minister at DWP. When the recession hit – we knew we had to take action to avoid a repeat of the 1980’s and another lost generation. So we put an extra £2 billion resource into the department and took on extra staff.
Now unemployment is expected to rise again – but this government is cutting staff, contact centres and benefit centres!
As an MP, I received a letter on Friday about the so-called “JCP transformation”. It said “These closures will not affect the service we offer”. Who do they think they are kidding? Try telling that to Hartlepool, Huyton and Mansfield.
And it’s not just so called back office staff who are affected, all this is going on at the same time as I.D.S is making the most complex reforms to social security and cutting benefits by £11 billion. So frontline staff have been issued with guidance on how to deal with people on the verge of suicide.
Is this a sign that The Big Society is flourishing and we’re all in it together?
Let me turn to the Criminal Justice System.
Being out of office for a year has given me time to reflect on Labour’s years in power. I am proud of our record in Government, but I know that in Government, Labour did not get everything right. We didn’t achieve everything that we wanted to, and I am sure not everyone agreed with all that we did. (Including me!)
But I want to remind you, of some of the things that we did get right:
•We got reduced crime by 43% from 1997 levels
•We reduced reoffending by 15%
•We improved the lives of those with drug and alcohol addictions, and those with mental health conditions.
•We rose to the challenges outlined by the Corston report, and adapted the Criminal Justice system to improve the treatment of female offenders.
•We got more offenders working and learning.
When I say ‘we achieved’ that is what I mean. Political will is not enough to ensure that these things are followed through. Our criminal justice system depends on those who work in it, we could not have done these things without you.
I want to thank you for the work you did and continue to do.
But here too the government is making massive and counter-productive reductions. Everyone knows that efficiency matters, that technology makes better services and lower costs to the taxpayer and your members have been at the forefront of change over the past decade. But this year, the Home Secretary Theresa May said, “We have been absolutely clear about the need for [police] forces looking at these cuts to ensure that the cuts come from back office functions”. Well that’s alright then, as long as the cuts are only coming from back office functions.
Doesn’t she realise that it is ‘back office staff’ who:
•Answer our 999 calls
•Support front line staff
•Attend scenes of crime
•Keep records up to date to keep tabs on offenders
•Ensure the smooth running of our courts
The whole CJS is dependent on you: Just because you don’t wear a uniform, doesn’t mean that you don’t fight crime. You help to rehabilitate offenders and you don’t have any less of a role in keeping our communities safe from those who wish to do us harm. When a civilian assists the police in their investigation, it frees up a police officer to be visible on the streets, when a civilian assists in record keeping in a prison, it frees up a prison officer to go onto the landings, when a civilian assists in the running of a probation office, a probation officer can spend more time with an offender to break their cycle of crime.
Every job loss matters and we should not allow this Government or any other to speak about cuts to services or the redundancies of those who work so hard to ensure our valuable services are run effectively in a positive way.
The criminal justice system in this country is only as good as those who provide it for us. In order to have a world class criminal justice system, we must ensure that we have a motivated professional workforce to deliver these services. I have a message for David Cameron: you don’t get a motivated workforce through unfair competitions with the private sector.
You don’t build confidence in the justice system by a courts closure programme that makes victims and witnesses travel over an hour and you don’t guarantee the integrity of home ownership by privatising the Land Registry
Last year the Secretary of State for Justice Ken Clarke produced a green paper on sentencing called “breaking the cycle”. Everyone must be concerned that 49% of adults are reconvicted within one year of release. We have to stop the same offenders returning to crime, court and prison again and again.
First, I want to say that I do not think it is right to have a target to reduce the size of the prison population. Justice must be a process. Everyone would like there to be fewer crimes, fewer criminals in our communities, and fewer people residing at Her Majesty’s pleasure and at taxpayers’ expense, but it would be wrong to set an arbitrary ceiling on prison numbers, or to identify an optimal size for the prison population. It is not right that violent or dangerous offenders should be let out on to the streets simply because of targets or what is fashionable.
Second, Labour does not agree with the Secretary of State’s proposal to cut sentences in half should the offender plead guilty. Of course we should encourage offenders to plead guilty when the evidence against them is conclusive. Encouraging offenders to plead guilty saves money and makes the system of justice quicker and easier for the victim and their family. Pleading guilty also encourages offenders to accept responsibility and begin to understand the magnitude of what they have done, and puts them on the first step towards rehabilitation. But as Sadiq Khan told Ken Clarke, this move is a bluff, that’s the problem with Ken, he’s “bluff on crime, bluff on the causes of crime”. Doesn’t he realise that the crime that the offender committed remains, whether they plead guilty or not? Telling the truth after the event does not reduce the pain of the victim, nor does it erase the hurt or the anger that they have caused.
Ken Clarke does not have a realistic plan or a credible strategy. A plan to provide more community sentences could work. But this green paper comes against a backdrop of some of the harshest spending cuts this country has ever seen. This plan might have made sense if we had the money to make it happen, it might have also made sense if the Prison Service and the Ministry of Justice were immune from the financial difficulties in the public finances. But Ken Clarke agreed cuts of 25%. I have written to all the Probation Trusts and some are facing massive reductions.
In this financial year that has just started:-
Devon and Cornwall has 7.9%
Humberside (a whopping) 9.6%
West Yorkshire 9.8%
How can you have a rehabilitation revolution and more community sentences if you cut resources in the community? The proposal to market test and contract out unpaid work comes on top of this. If these go to the private sector there will be further cuts. And the competitions are not taking place on a level playing field when private contractors are allowed to employ people on lower wages and worse pensions. In fact the government’s attack on public sector pensions is one of its most pernicious. It’s not the retired public servant with a £5,000 pension who caused the banking collapse, so why should they suffer? Is this a sign that we’re all in it together?
Ken Clarke’s plan only works if the prison population falls. Let me tell you now, it won’t. The cuts that this Conservative- led coalition is making will lead to more people out of work, poorer educational attainment and a reduction in programmes for those who are most at risk of committing crime. This will lead to an increase in crime, and an increase in the prison population. Even Ken Clarke himself said, “I slightly expect that some crimes will go up because of the recession.” There will also be cuts in the prison service, but at present the Ministry of Justice won’t even say how big they are going to be.
The green paper makes a great deal about the potential of Payment by Results. Payment by Results could work well in the Criminal Justice System, but it might not work. The point is: we don’t know. This is why the last Labour Government set up a pilot at HMP Peterborough in association with the St Giles Trust. Ken Clarke should wait for the results before introducing the model across the CJS.
Payment by Results appears to be a useful tool in rehabilitating offenders. If a charity or another organisation can succeed in reforming people where the state has failed, that is a good thing. We will all benefit if there is a reduction in reoffending, and the public would expect us to do everything to prevent reoffenders. But Payment by Results is not a magic pill. Reoffending will not simply disappear because a company or a charity becomes involved in the process.
And there are risks in the PBR approach: We must not allow private companies to cream off the most motivated offenders, who were more likely to be rehabilitated anyway. Nobody wants to see financial rewards going to the private sector for taking those who are likely to change; whilst the rest will be labelled as “beyond help” and left as the burden of the state run prisons.
Second the way contracts are constructed matters. If they are complex, only large providers with strong cash flows will be able to compete. We must not allow charities who provide excellent services for offenders to be allowed fold. I have met with several potential providers who have all shared the same concern as me. If Payment by Results is to be truly successful, we have to ensure the widest number of participants in providing projects, rather than allowing a race to the bottom financially.
And will the banks suddenly discover a social conscience and start investing enough flexible funds to make a real impact on reoffending? Are we all in it together?
Ken Clarke likes to give the impression that he is not like the other Tories. That he is an old softie. But he has agreed these swinging cuts to the CJS which will hit those who work in it; those who want to change their offending behaviour; those who are victims of crime: in fact the safety of whole communities.
Conference there is a better alternative and to win the argument we have to highlight the effect of this government on families, the economy and life chances. We have to campaign to protect public sector jobs, terms and conditions.
There is a majority of people in this country who value their public services and want a fairer society.
And we have to show them that we are on their side.
Conference, history shows that when our movement unites we win.
That is what we should do.
Thank you.
