Murnaghan 14.10.12 Interview with Chris Grayling, Justice Secretary
ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS
DERMOT MURNAGHAN: One of the winners in last month’s cabinet reshuffle was Chris Grayling who was given Ken Clarke’s old job as Justice Secretary. He is seen as a bit of a Tory right winger and his promotion was greeted as good news by many of the party faithful and in a moment I’ll ask him what he plans to do in that role. Let’s say a very good morning to the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling and I mentioned there, inheriting the role from Ken Clarke. Now many in your party cheered your appointment because they thought that Ken Clarke was too soft, did you share that assessment?
CHRIS GRAYLING: Actually many of the things that I’m going to be doing over the next few months I’ve inherited from the work that Ken did with the Ministry of Justice over the last few months so I think it’s a bit of a caricature to position us as being quite as far apart as some are suggesting. Some of the work that Ken has been doing on the Rehabilitation Revolution for example, something I believe very strongly in, is work I’m going to be taking forward. I think we both agree that it’s a terrible situation where you have so many people going to prison, leaving prison and then simply reoffending again, we have to break that cycle. Every Minister has a difference in their approach and I’m sure that will be the same for the two of us.
DM: But you do disagree fundamentally don’t you about that announcement that you made to the party conference about giving householders more powers to deal with intruders.
CG: I see there is a leaked letter in the papers this morning, I would never really have a detailed discussion about the leaks of private correspondence but look, I’m very clear that on this particular issue I believe I’m doing the right thing, I believe this is what the public want. It’s all about ensuring that if somebody is confronted by a burglar in their home and they feel that they are in danger, then if they react with a level of force in the heat of the moment that might seem over the top in the cold light of day, but this is not the heat of the moment, they are under intense pressure at that moment in time, the law should be on their side unless they act in a way that is way, way over the top and grossly disproportionate. I am absolutely clear that the public agree with me, I think the conference welcomed the announcement, I think it’s the right thing to do.
DM: But you can’t just gloss over that letter, I think you might agree that the public have a right to see it, it’s a matter of great public concern as you’ve identified there and Ken Clarke saying, your predecessor, and no doubt you’ve read the letter and accepted his view that it has a great potential to go wrong, we need to avoid overseeing a policy that could easily backfire and he makes the point that the law already has provision for this kind of activity.
CG: Well the problem with the law at the moment is that it leaves an element of uncertainty and yes it is the case that if a case reaches the courts then very often the householder finds themselves acquitted but to me the issue is that we should be treating a householder in that position as a victim and not as a perpetrator of crime and I don’t really want the situation where unless the situation is extreme, where they have used a level of force that is grossly disproportionate, they face the potential of having to wait months and months and months for a case to come to trial, even a relatively shorter space of time for the prosecuting authorities to decide whether to prosecute or not. I think they should be interviewed as victims and witnesses of crime, not as somebody who has committed a crime.
DM: Indeed, but I just want you to respond though to what Ken Clarke has said, a man with a legal background of course unlike you, he says the risk is that we simply are setting ourselves up for a damaging and unnecessary battle with sensible commentators and heavyweight legal experts.
CG: Well Dermot, you are not going to tempt me into commenting on private correspondence between government departments, part of a big write round on a new policy area. What I would say is I may not be a lawyer but I’m not short of lawyers in the Ministry of Justice and this is a matter that my legal teams in the Ministry of Justice are very comfortable with and indeed they specifically recommended the wording to me. I gave them the policy objectives, they came back to me with the legal framework to do it so there’s no question about the lawyers not being there to advise me properly.
DM: How big an issue is it? How many people get prosecuted for this kind of thing?
CG: Well the answer is it is a relatively small number but that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do. Every time we get one of these incidents emerging, it causes a big furore, there is a long period of waiting while we establish whether the householder is going to be charged or not, in the most recent case the couple involved were in a police cell for something like 36 hours. It goes back to what I want, and I think what the public wants, that if somebody defends their home against a burglar they should be treated as a victim of crime and not as a perpetrator of crime unless they act in a way that is disproportionate.
DM: But in the case you refer to there were no charges laid, it was investigated by the police. Are you saying that in your change to the law that the police just shouldn’t investigate at all?
CG: Well the police will always investigate but it’s how you investigate and it’s what the assumption is and at the moment the test in law is, was the use of force reasonable or not? What I’m trying to do is raise the bar because always in a case like this there’s a period of doubt, there’s a period of investigation, there’s the question mark about prosecution. Very often the person involved ends up in a police cell for a prolonged period of time. We don’t treat them as they should be treated which is as a victim of crime, to be interviewed as witnesses, not to make the assumption automatically that there’s a very real danger they’ll be prosecuted. I think the law, the bar is too low, I think the assumption in law should be that unless the circumstances are exceptional, unless the level of force used is grossly disproportionate, the law and the prosecuting authorities should automatically assume that they’re on the side of the householder.
DM: Okay and on prisons policy, you touched upon it there coming from Ken Clarke, we know that he thought that there were too many people in prison and it was better to try to deal with them elsewhere, do you feel that the prisons are already overcrowded and that we have to relieve the pressure?
CG: Well clearly I’d like to see fewer people in our prisons but I’d like to see fewer people in our prisons because fewer of them are reoffending and this is the great challenge for us. I think more of the right people should be going to prison in the first place but I think we should have far, far fewer of them coming back. The big failing so often is that somebody spends a few weeks in prison, they then come back out onto the streets, £46 in their pocket and they go back to the same places and the same people they reoffended with before and so we have this cycle of reoffending, round and round and round people coming back again and again. This is something that Ken Clarke and I and indeed the whole of the coalition agrees we’ve really got to try and tackle and so the way to reduce the number of people in prison is to have fewer people coming back to prison.
DM: Okay but the right people you say, more of the right people going to prison, who are the wrong people in prison at the moment?
CG: Well the right people, by that I mean people who have committed serious offences. The wrong people, in the sense of where our strategy needs to change things, is to have people coming back to prison for the third, fourth, fifth time. We must do a must better job of ensuring that we take those people when they come through prison the first time, we deal with some of the issues they’ve got whether addiction, whether it’s a lack of education and qualifications, so they don’t come back again. Even though lots of us, and I do, take a tough view about the need for people who commit crimes to go to prison, every one of us benefits if we can actually sort those people out while they are under the control of the Criminal Justice System so they don’t then come back again and again and again. That’s the big failing we’ve really got to tackle.
DM: Another issue that you are no doubt watching very closely given your brief must be the on-going spat between the police and your Chief Whip there, Andrew Mitchell. We know the government doesn’t think he should resign, the Police Federation are saying he should go. Isn’t this damaging both your party and relations with the police?
CG: Well it is clearly very unfortunate and what happened in the first place with Andrew in Downing Street was very unfortunate, his conduct was unacceptable, he has accepted that, he’s apologised and I think really the matter should be left there. He has issued a full public apology, he has apologised in person to the police officers concerned. I think it is a mistake for the Police Federation to be trying to use this in the way that they are. I think frankly we need to get on with sorting out issues and challenges in relation to policing, having constructive dialogue with the Police Federation in relation to policing. Our police do a wonderful job for us around the country and we need to make sure that we give them every support we can to carry on doing that job.
DM: And finally can I just ask you your view on the investigations that the BBC are carrying out into all the ramifications of the Jimmy Savile affair, do you think that’s adequate, these investigations that have been launched by the BBC and of course around the country, what police forces are doing?
CG: Well I certainly hope so. I think we have all been shocked by the revelations that have come out, the stories involving NHS hospitals, involving homes for very vulnerable children. I think all of us who once saw Jimmy Savile as just a great national figure now are utterly horrified by the truth that’s emerged about him. Nobody could possibly defend anything that’s happened and of course it’s right and proper that we identify how on earth this was able to happen, why senior people did not act earlier, whether there are lessons to learn now. I think particularly whether there are people who were also involved at the time, Jimmy Savile is no longer with us but who were involved and are still with us and it’s right and proper that the police investigate all allegations. The BBC in particular has to learn lessons from this, I think they have come forward with the right approach saying they will investigate, we’ll do it properly. I think the comments from Lord Patten, the BBC Trust Chairman, have been absolutely right. This was a shocking story, these revelations are appalling, they must never, ever happen again.
DM: Justice Secretary, thank you very much indeed. Chris Grayling there.
