Legislate in haste - repent at leisure!

Written by David Heath MP and published in Western Gazette on Fri 18th Jul 2008

A few years back we went through a stage when you couldn't open a national newspaper without being confronted with a grizzly picture of some poor soul, normally a very sweet looking child, who had been savagely mauled by their family pet. It seemed as though there was an inexorable rise in the incidence of dangerous dogs, as though the canine world was finally taking its revenge for years of rolling over for doggy biscuits. A national furore ensued, something had to be done, and eventually ministers capitulated and passed a new law, the Dangerous Dogs Act. The bill passed through parliament with all-party support. It was, by common consent, one of the most poorly drafted, most useless pieces of legislation to have been passed. Curiously, the newspapers got bored with reporting stories about feral dogs, and so we moved on.

In a similar way, at the moment one cannot avoid the current controversy about knife crime. Again, the newspapers and the media are full of horrific incidents involving, usually, young teenagers carrying knives. Again the clamour is raised for something urgent to be done. And the Home Secretary tries to convince us all that she has the answer, while others declare they would do more.

Undoubtedly there is a problem with violent crime in some areas, and the prevalence of the use of knives means that fights can have tragic consequences. The number of such incidents in central London and some other parts of the country has been rising, and we should be concerned.

But let's not get it into our heads that every teenager is a vicious thug harbouring a flick knife, because it simply isn't true. Indeed, if you look at the figures for Avon & Somerset, you find that, far from there being an increase in the number of knife attacks, there were actually substantially fewer last year than in the previous year, with 117 knife crimes in a quarter in 2007 compared with 70 in the period January to March 2008, almost all if which were in inner-city Bristol.

Now seventy knife attacks is still seventy too many, and we shouldn't be in any way complacent. Nor should we ignore the real problems associated with juvenile gang wars in some areas. But we shouldn't be panicked into making the wrong response, simply because the tabloid press have made this the story of the week. Far too many young people are, it seems, carrying knives. Look behind that fact, and you find those who are most likely to do so are those who have been victims of violence themselves. They carry weapons in the mistaken belief that they will be safer as a result. They won't be, and somehow we must help them understand that.

And when people do use lethal weapons, whether they are knives are guns, in pursuit of criminal activity then they should pay the price for doing so. But simply entering into a political auction as to who can sound tougher on sentencing is pointless and facile.

Some of the solutions offered are simplistic and counter-productive, and they miss the point. The government has come up with this wheeze about bringing young offenders into hospital to see the results of knife attacks. At the basis of this is an idea with substance, that confronting offenders with the consequences of their actions has a deterrent effect. But if the idea is to scare them away from re-offending, then it is probably mistaken. A similar tactic was used recently in America, a programme called "Scared Straight". Young offenders were confronted by older convicts and given a shocking account of what they could expect in prison. A lot of money was spent on the programme, which was developed originally in New Jersey and spread to thirty states. It sounded good. There was only one problem. It didn't work. In fact, the level of re-offending went up compared with those who hadn't entered the programme. Sometimes, it's wise to look at the evidence before deciding a policy.

Meanwhile, we had a short debate on Monday on the Employment Bill, which is a brief measure which tidies up a few grey areas in the current legislation. One issue that it will examine, however, is tipping. I don't know about you, but I have never felt entirely comfortable with the practice of tipping. I do, of course, at least 10%, and more if I think it merited, partly because I don't want to let down the waiter or waitress, or even the cabby, and partly because I doubt I would be served quite as graciously next time if I didn't. But it does seem a bit of a relic from another age, and it is curious that it persists in some areas of business and not others. No-one thinks of tipping the check-out girl at the supermarket, for instance.

It's even more suspect, though, when you discover the way in which some restaurant proprietors behave. Many of our most well-known chains, for instance, pay their staff less than the minimum wage and expect customers' tips to make up the difference. One pizza chain takes an 8% cut of any tips put on a credit card. A chain of Asian restaurants takes 100% of tips, and there is one place in London where the staff get no basic wage at all. And it is common to charge a fee for "processing" tips, or make reductions in staff pay for breakages or if customers leave without paying.

If we can do something to correct this through the minimum wage legislation, then I think it's worth doing. I certainly don't mind rewarding good service, but I want the money I give to go to the waitress or waiter who served me, not into the greedy maw of the corporation which owns the restaurant.