National Policy Forum - Your Southeast CLP representatives

The Queen’s Speech in November announced a total of 29 bills to be debated over the next Parliamentary year. If is also, of course, Tony Blair’s last legislative programme, and in the debate the Prime Minister endorsed Gordon Brown as the next leader of the party, describing him as the “big clunking fist” that will knock out David Cameron.

The bills focussed on terrorism, crime, climate change and pensions, but range widely.

Here are details of the elements relating to this Commission.

Terrorism, crime and justice

No specific terrorism bill was announced at this stage, so only possible measures were listed. These include a consolidation of the 4 anti-terrorism acts currently on the statute book into a single, consistent act. In addition, possible measures mentioned include:
- An extension of detention without trial to 90 days

- The use of phone and other intercept evidence in trials

- Reform of MI5 and MI6

- Reform of the terms of control orders, after the High Court ruled that 18 hour-a-day curfews are a breach of human rights

- A ban on the burning of flags, effigies and the masking of faces at protests

- A change to allow terrorism suspects to be questioned after charging if new evidence emerges (currently, suspects can only be questioned until they are charged)

The Criminal Justice Bill main points:

- Follows concern over the high rate of reoffending by released prisoners

- Longer and mandatory sentences for serious offences

- An end to the acquittal of “clearly guilty” prisoners on technicalities

- A new offence for possessing violent and extreme pornography

- New police powers to shut down anti-social premises such as brothels and to tackle other anti-social behaviour

- New “violent offender orders” to impose restrictions on violent criminals after release (such as where they can live and who they can meet)

The Organised Crime bill main points:

- New “serious crime prevention orders” to disrupt the activities of significant criminals in the run-up to their trials, and to be able to freeze the assets of suspects before trial

The Fraud Bill aims to scrap juries in long and complex fraud trails, but only if approved by the Lord Chief Justice. There have been 26 trials lasting more than 6 months since 2002, and this is regarded as unfair on potential jurors.

The Offender Management Bill seeks to abolish local parole boards and allow the invitation of voluntary and private sector groups to offer probation contracts. It will also give parole officers greater powers, to increase the length and severity of community punishments.

Other notable bills

Immigration

The Immigration Bill will tackle the issues raised by the failure to deport over 1,000 foreign prisoners after release. It will mean that foreign prisoners will be automatically deported after the completion of their sentence – they will be held in prison during the appeal and then deported immediately. There will also be new powers to seize cash and assets earned illegally by illegal immigrants.