This Bill works to ensure that the criminal justice system continues to reflect the views of society, delivering on our manifesto commitments, and I welcome it.
I welcome the requirement for serious offenders sentenced to four years and more to serve two thirds of their sentences before release on licence, rather than just 50%. Automatically releasing serious criminals on licence well before their sentence is due to expire brings the criminal justice system into disrepute with ordinary people and, more importantly, with the reasonable expectations of the victims of crime. While I recognise that early release and sentence are an important management tool for the prison population, the message needs to be clear that their sentence is what they serve.
Labour is wrong to argue that police powers to search a person who has already been convicted of knife crime without additional suspicion is somehow an unjustifiable attack on their freedoms. My view is that if they do not want to be considered a risk of carrying a knife, then they should not be convicted of carrying one in the first place. These court orders will help ordinary, law-abiding people to be protected. This is where our focus should be, and it is.
Labour is also against powers to help the police to manage the new wave of protest direct action, where the aim is not so much to protest as to cause chaos and inconvenience to as many people as possible. We all have a right to protest and to make sure that our voices are heard, but it is a right to protest, not to prevent. Why should one section of the public have an unfettered right to impose massive disruption on the rest of society? What about their right to get on with life? Where competing rights clash, the law must maintain a balance. Modern protest movements, such as XR, game the system, and disruption, not peaceful protest, is their objective. The law needs to adjust to maintain the balance of competing rights, and I think this Bill helps to achieve that.
Is this new power open to abuse? Yes it is, like every power that the police have, but there is no difference between this power and every other power that we loan to the police. It is open to challenge and review through the press and the courts. As a democracy, we are well used to holding those in power to account. Every single member of the public has the power to become a citizen journalist immediately through their phone. As a result, the police are subject to review and oversight like never before.
This Bill has ordinary people at its heart, sticking up for their priorities. It delivers on manifesto promises. As such, it is democracy in action, and I will be supporting it.
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