Robert Jenrick

The guidelines we are talking about came into force—or would have done—under this Labour Government. I will not return to everything I said earlier, but those of us who were in this Chamber on the day that I revealed this issue all know that neither the Justice Secretary nor any of her Ministers had the faintest idea that any of this was happening. I watched the Justice Secretary look to her Ministers; she was greeted by blank faces. They had no grip on what was happening in their Department. The hon. Member for Hartlepool makes the good point that the issues that we are discussing predate this Labour Government. This is a broader issue facing our country. We all have to be defenders of equality under the law. I do not seek equality of outcome in our criminal justice system; I seek equality of treatment. That is the heart of a fair criminal justice system. That may be a point of difference between some of us in this House. All I seek is for every person in this country—man or woman, regardless of their religion or the colour of their skin—to be treated exactly the same by the law. Everywhere we look in the Ministry of Justice, we see this ideology. The most worrying part is that I think the Justice Secretary knows this. She stood here and said that the appearance of differential treatment before the law is particularly corrosive, and I agree wholeheartedly with her.