The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of Public Disorder.
Mr Speaker
I remind the House that in view of the enormous interest in the debate I have imposed a limit of five minutes on Back-Bench speeches. There is no limit on Front-Bench speeches and I leave it to the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary to tailor contributions in the light of the level of interest.
Mrs May
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
The last five days have been a dark time for everybody who cares about their community and their country. Violence, arson and looting in several of our towns and cities, often openly in front of television cameras, have destroyed homes, ruined livelihoods and taken lives. As long as we wish to call ourselves a civilised society, such disorder has no place in Britain.
I know that the House will want to join me in paying tribute to the bravery of the policemen and women who have worked to restore order on our streets. In particular, I know that hon. Members will want to lend their support to the police officers who have suffered injuries in the course of their duties, and the whole House will want to send condolences to the families of the three men so senselessly killed in Birmingham on Tuesday night.
The violence of the last five days raises many searching questions, and the answers may be painful to hear and difficult to put right. Why is it that so many people are prepared to behave in this way? Why does a violent gang culture exist in so many of our towns and cities? Why did the police find it so hard to prevent or contain the violence? It will take time to answer those questions fully and adequately, but I will take each of them in turn.
First are the reasons behind that behaviour. We must never forget that the only cause of a crime is a criminal. Everybody, no matter what their background or circumstances, has the freedom to choose between right and wrong. Those who make the wrong decision, who engage in criminality, must be identified, arrested and punished, and we will make sure that happens.
Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the right hon. Lady not recognise what the Prime Minister said earlier? Every crime has a context. Is it not important, therefore, to have a full and proper inquiry, led by somebody of the level and competence of Lord Scarman, to look at the wider context of all these events? Of course, as the Home Secretary says, stating the blindingly obvious, the acts are the responsibility of those who committed them.
Mrs May
The right hon. Gentleman asked the Prime Minister exactly the same question, and he gave a very clear answer. The Home Affairs Committee will consider the policing of the violence that has taken place over the past five days, and I will bring a report on gang culture and the number of gangs in our society—I will make further reference to it—to the House in October.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
I commend the points that my right hon. Friend has made in opening the debate. Does she share the concern relayed by a number of hon. Members about the soft sentences for such disorder passed in the cases that have already gone through the courts? Does she share my concern that, although we talk about riots, the number of people charged with riot is very small? As these were riots, whoever is charged with an offence during the nights of disorder should punished accordingly.
Mrs May
We have been clear in encouraging those who are making decisions about charging and, indeed, those who will make sentencing decisions in the courts to consider these crimes in the context of the circumstances. My hon. Friend refers to the fact that no one has been charged with the very specific offence of riot. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service are making the right charging decisions, in the context of ensuring that they recognise the impact that people being on the streets can have.
No one doubts that the violence that we have seen over the past five days is a symptom of something very deeply wrong with our society. Children celebrated as they smashed their way into shops. Men in sports cars arrived at stores to steal goods. Women tried on trainers before they stole them. A teaching assistant was caught looting. Thugs pretended to help a injured young man but robbed him. They are shocking images, but they are in fact symbols of a deeper malaise in our society.
Almost 2 million children are brought up in households in which no one works. One in three children leaves primary school unable to read, write and add up properly. We have the highest level of drug abuse in Europe. Almost 100 knife crimes are committed every day and nearly 1 million violent crimes every year. Half of all prisoners reoffend within a year of their release from prison. Those are serious social problems, and we cannot go on ignoring them. No one is pretending that there are easy answers to such deep-rooted problems, but they are the reasons why the reform of welfare, schools and the criminal justice system cannot wait.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady lays out the context of the difficult role that faces our police. In that context, is it not bizarre that the Government should choose to make such swingeing cuts to the Home Office budget and particularly to the police budget, in comparison with other budgets that have survived relatively intact? Why does she not fight her corner and ensure that we have enough police on the streets to do the job?
Mrs May
I am clear that there will be enough police on the streets to do the job that we and the public want them to do, and that police officers want to do. I say to any other Opposition Member who wants to make a similar point that I listened to the previous statement and it is now absolutely clear that the Labour party has abandoned any pretence of having a credible policy to deal with the deficit.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Prime Minister said this morning that, all of sudden, the Met could turn out 16,000 people in a day, rather than the previous 6,000 or whatever the figure was. That does not take into account all the other policemen and women from all the other forces. How many Met police were in fact turned out, and how many came from other forces?
Mrs May
A significant number did indeed come from other forces. I do not want to give the right hon. Gentleman figures that are incorrect, so I will get the precise figures for him. It is right that the 16,000 figure that the Prime Minister spoke about included mutual aid from other forces. I pay tribute to all the forces around the United Kingdom that have been willing to provide support and trained police support units.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Is it also the right hon. Lady’s understanding that if a police authority has had to dip into its contingency fund to pay any of the additional costs of high police visibility, which we all understand have to be met, it will be recompensed—that there is no question of police authorities having to expend the money themselves?
Mrs May
The right hon. Gentleman has been involved in home affairs long enough to know that a scheme is available under which police forces can make special requests to the Home Office in relation to specific expenses that they have had to incur. There are some rules on how the scheme operates but, as the Prime Minister made clear, we are committed to providing support to police authorities, and therefore police forces, in relation to the financial implications of the Riot (Damages) Act 1886. As the House will be aware, those costs could be significant, given the events on our streets.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Will the Home Secretary give way?
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Barbara Keeley
Apropos police budgets, will the right hon. Lady comment on what it has been reported she was told by Greater Manchester police about what happened on Tuesday:
“We really didn’t have the staff, protection or resources to deal with it. I find it really, really frustrating and really worrying that people could have got killed.”
So overstretched were our officers in Greater Manchester, particularly in Salford, that apparently they reported to the Home Secretary that they could have been killed. It is not only Labour Members who are saying this; it is police officers, as well.
Mrs May
I was pleased to visit Greater Manchester police yesterday and to sit down with some of the officers—the most highly trained riot officers—who had been on the front line in Salford on Tuesday night. One of the most striking comments made by an officer was that he had looked up into the sky and it was dark because it was raining bricks. They were under extreme pressure that night, facing violence of a ferocity that they had not seen before. There were times in Salford when the police did not have sufficient numbers to deal with what was happening on the street, and they had to retreat and regroup both for their personal protection and to make sure that they could do their proper job of protection on the streets.
I can inform the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who asked how many of the 16,000 officers in London were Metropolitan Police Service officers, that more than 90% were.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mrs May
I said I wanted to make some progress, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. I am conscious that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), whose constituency was affected, rose earlier. If he still wishes to intervene, I will take his intervention next.
Andrew Miller
Following the right hon. Lady’s reply to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who speaks for the Welsh nationalists, can she give similar figures for Manchester and Liverpool, which also drew on resources from surrounding forces? We heard earlier about injuries sustained by Cheshire officers, for example. I think the figures ought to published and made available to everyone.
Mrs May
I could provide a map of where officers went around the country, but it was not a matter of simple exchanges between one force and another. Officers from one force will have gone to support another, with subsequent backfilling by officers from a further force. The whole point of the ACPO PNICC—police national information co-ordination centre—arrangement is that such movements around the country can be worked so that when a force asks for numbers to be increased, officers are available. The key element is that the officers in question are mainly in police support units—officers who are specially trained in public order—thereby ensuring that the officers on the streets have the right level of training.
Frank Dobson
In response to the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), the Home Secretary said that no one had been charged with riot because the particular circumstances of riot had not arisen, or the charge was inappropriate. Will she confirm that that fact will not be used by the Metropolitan police to weasel out of providing the compensation that should be provided under the Riot (Damages) Act?
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
My constituency was badly affected on Monday. I wanted to ask about the police cuts. The Prime Minister told us earlier that the budget cuts could be managed with no reductions in visible policing. As the Home Secretary knows, in London a large number of police sergeants are being taken out the leadership of safer neighbourhoods teams in a very visible way. Are we to take it that the Government think there is a different way of managing cuts in London from the one that is being implemented?
Mrs May
No. We are leaving police forces, as is appropriate, together with their police authorities, to decide in relation to budget what will happen. We are leaving chief constables to make operational decisions about how they do that. What is absolutely clear in relation to the Metropolitan police is that under the leadership of the previous Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan police increased the availability of police in terms of the number of hours that would be spent and the amount of ground that could be covered by moving to the single patrols. They said, “There is a different way of doing this.” That is a good example of how such an innovative approach can improve the presence on the ground.
I shall now move on to the question of gang culture in many of our towns and cities. Six per cent. of young people are thought to belong to a gang of one kind or another. Gangs are inherently criminal. On average, entrenched gang members have 11 criminal convictions, and the average age for the first conviction of a gang member is just 15. They are also inherently violent. Gangs across the country are involved in the use and supply of drugs, firearms and knives. From talking to chief constables who have dealt with the violence of the past few days, it is clear that many of the perpetrators, but by no means all of them, are known gang members. So we have to do more to tackle gang culture.
We have already announced plans to provide £4 million in funding to London, Greater Manchester and the west midlands over the course of this year and next to tackle their gang, guns and knives problem. We are providing a further £4 million over two years to community organisations working to stop young people becoming involved in gangs, help young people get out of gangs and support parents to help their children, and we are working with the Prince’s Trust to support young people who want to prevent gang violence, through the new Ben Kinsella fund.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
It is clear that many of the perpetrators of these appalling crimes have been very young children indeed, and we know the limitations of the criminal law in relation to detention for young offenders who are under 14. Does my right hon. Friend agree that efforts to use restorative justice principles with young offenders, making them face up to the victims of their crimes and making them play their part in restoring the damage that they have done would be a good way to divert those young children from further involvement in the gang culture and in the crimes that we have seen?
Mrs May
I have long been a supporter of restorative justice where it is going to work. That is one of the key issues that we need to look at when we consider what is an appropriate way of dealing with individuals. Restorative justice has a record of dealing particularly well with those who are young and first offenders. However, sadly, it may be the case that even at a very young age, some of the people we are looking at who have been involved in the violence are not simply first offenders. It is a sad comment on our society that there may be those who have been involved as gang members in criminal activity previously. But we need to do more.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I am grateful. Does the Home Secretary accept that the evidence from the police and the community in urban communities such as mine is that there are 40 or 50 serial serious criminals who are regularly the causes of most of the trouble and most of the crime, and who were involved in the past week’s activities? Will chief police officers and local police commanders assure us that such criminals are a central target for activity, so that they cannot sweep in the youngsters referred to in the previous question and others, who become the followers, but are following only because there is someone seriously criminal who leads?
Mrs May
I assure my right hon. Friend that the police are very clear that they want to identify and arrest all those who have been involved over the past few days, and they are conscious that that means not just those who find themselves caught up in it but the core criminals, who are well known to them. As a number of chief constables have been saying to me, they know a number of the gang members who have been involved because they have had interaction with them before.
Mrs May
I hope that hon. Members will bear with me and allow me to make a little more progress because I am conscious of the time available for the debate.
We need to help communities more in sharing ideas and expertise on how we can tackle their gang problems, so working with ACPO we will establish an ending gang violence team of experts drawn from across the country, from the police service, local authorities and the voluntary sector, to provide an up-to-date map of the scale of the problem and practical, on-the-ground expert advice to areas wanting to get on top of their gang problems.
In January we launched gang injunctions, which give the police the power to impose tough sanctions on adult gang members, such as barring them from entering certain parts of town, appearing in public with dogs or wearing their gang colours or emblems. As the Prime Minister said in his statement earlier today, we will now go further and introduce gang injunctions for young people under the age of 18, not just in pilot form but throughout the country. As the Prime Minister also said in his statement, and as I said in answer to a question, I will present a report to Parliament in October on a cross-Government programme to combat gangs.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
I have listened carefully to what the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have had to say so far, and I have heard already that we want the police to be able to surge in numbers in immediate crisis situations. The Home Secretary has now given a reassurance that the police will focus on the most prolific and serious offenders in our communities and she is now going into detail about how the police will work with a range of community partners to end gangs. There has to be a limit to what the police can achieve, and in Greater Manchester we will have 1,500 fewer of them at the end of this period. Cuts do need to be made, but at the moment a 20% cut genuinely needs to be re-evaluated in the light of the incidents and the severity of the events we have seen.
Mrs May
I pay tribute to the way in which the right hon. Lady has entered into the debate generally. Her constituency was particularly badly affected and is a particular example of criminal gangs operating on the streets in order to test and press the police. I will give the same answer to her in relation to police budgets as I gave earlier and as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave to a number of Members who raised the issue. At the end of the spending review period, the police will have the numbers to enable them to deploy in the way they have during the last few days. It is possible to make cuts in police budgets by taking money out of matters such as better procurement to ensure that we can achieve the cuts that we need to make while still leaving police able to do the job that we want them to do and that they want to do.
In January 2011, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, Peter Fahy, told the Home Affairs Committee:
“we have large numbers of officers still in roles that do not require the skills, the powers and expertise of a police officer. It is through that route over the next four years where we will achieve quite a bit of savings.”
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the emphasis that she is putting on the gang culture, which the Prime Minister himself referred to when he said that it was a culture that glorifies violence and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities. Does she agree that the legal restraints that are placed upon, for example, the police, social services, teachers and parents, in imposing discipline in the home, in school or elsewhere, directly derive from a number of legal constraints that come from, for example, the Human Rights Act 1998, which needs to be repealed? We cannot deal with the culture and with the question of rights and responsibilities unless we deal with one of the root causes, which is this idea that people can do anything and get away with it.
Mrs May
We are taking steps to deal with the culture, and one example is that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is taking steps to ensure that we restore discipline in our schools. My hon. Friend refers to the Human Rights Act, which was referred to during questions to the Prime Minister, and my hon. Friend is well aware that we are looking at the issue both through the Bill of Rights commission that has been set up by the Ministry of Justice and my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary and work that we are doing with the ECHR.
Mrs May
I ask hon. Members to bear with me, because I am very conscious of the fact that many will wish to speak in the debate.
I want to move on to the questions about the police reaction to the violence, because I know that hon. Members, like members of the public, are concerned about the speed and quality of the police response. That response has changed over the past five days and has differed across the country. We need to appraise it honestly and bluntly and learn lessons where things have gone wrong. As we know, the first disturbances in London began in Tottenham on Saturday night. The police operation began with the originally peaceful protest about the death of Mark Duggan. Officers were understandably cautious about how they policed the protest, but as the violence began they lost control and a fully fledged riot followed.
On Sunday night, with Tottenham calm, the police managed to nip in the bud trouble at Oxford Circus, but the violence spread to Enfield and Brixton. On Monday night, the number of officers deployed in London increased to 6,000, two or three times more than there are on a normal evening, but still that was not enough and, with the violence reaching Hackney, Peckham, Croydon, Ealing, Lewisham and Clapham, officers were overwhelmed. In Clapham, the mob ran amok for more than two hours before the police regained control. That is simply not acceptable.
On Tuesday, the Prime Minister and I held a meeting with the acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner, in which he set out his intention at least to double the deployment of officers. During the day, a number of offenders were identified, arrested and taken out of circulation. Officers took a tougher approach and intervened earlier to disperse groups before trouble began. Leave was cancelled, special constables were mobilised and mutual aid was stepped up, so up to 16,000 officers were deployed in total. As I said, officers took a more robust approach to tackling disorder and making arrests. There are tricky days and nights ahead, but thanks to the efforts of those thousands of officers order has in large part been restored.
Ms Abbott
The whole House admires the bravery and courage of the police officers, who were often up for three or four days without any time off, and we understand the need to police the disturbances in Tottenham carefully, but young people were seen looting Wood Green shopping centre and Tottenham Hale retail park for hours early on Sunday morning, which I think gave the green light to every little hooligan in London to come out on following days to loot and steal.
Mrs May
It is unacceptable that people were able to do that on our streets. There were not enough police on the streets on Saturday night. The number of police was increased further on Sunday and Monday, and it was then clear that that needed to go further. We had a conversation with the acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who presented plans to more than double the number of police on the streets. I have been clear over the past few days that we need not only the police presence, but a tough policy on arrests to give a very clear message that these actions have consequences so that people do not think that they can get away with it in the way the hon. Lady suggests.
Mr Umunna
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. The surge in officers that came after the decision taken at 9 am on Tuesday made a huge difference in my constituency and meant that we had a peaceful night. Did the commissioner explain why he did not increase the number of police to 16,000 sooner? The police in my constituency dealt with a really impossible situation and we are incredibly grateful to them, but why was that decision, which was announced by the Prime Minister at 9 am on Tuesday, not made sooner—for example, on Monday evening, because it was very clear in our area, given what had happened on Sunday night, that this would get far bigger?
Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman raises a valid point. That is one of the issues that we need to look at in more detail. However, the answer that I would give him is that when the police were looking at their numbers and bringing in some mutual aid, which they did on Monday night, they were of the view that they would have the capacity to deal with what they believed was going to happen.
The police were dealing with a different situation from that which they had seen before. One comment that a number of chief constables and officers have made to me is that they were surprised by the speed with which gangs were able to mobilise through the use of social media, and I shall come on to the issue of social media. Very real questions have to be answered about how we take forward those policing matters, and that is why we need to make sure that we learn the lessons from that situation.
The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) is right that the number of officers then put on the streets on Tuesday night was effective. That robust policing, coupled with a robust arrest policy, was effective; it has been continued, and other forces have followed it through.
Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)
It is very easy for us as politicians to be armchair police officers, and it would have been wrong to comment on the night, but we need a cold analysis in order to know whether, for example, the lessons of the surge in London were taken on board in other parts of the country. That is not a matter that should divide the House; that is a matter of concern to my constituents, obviously, to those of other Greater Manchester Members and to those in other cities and conurbations throughout the country.
Mrs May
I am going to make a little more progress, because, although the number of officers on the streets on Tuesday night made a difference in London, we saw more disorder in other parts of the country. We saw it in towns and cities including Manchester, Salford, Nottingham, Wolverhampton and, for a second night, Birmingham, where there was further violence. In Greater Manchester and the west midlands, despite the best efforts of officers, we saw for a while that thugs, not the police, were in control of the streets.
In Winson Green in Birmingham, as we know, three young men were killed when they were hit, apparently deliberately, by a car, and I, like the whole House, want to pay tribute to Tariq Jahan, the father of one of the victims, for an extremely dignified call for calm, which undoubtedly did much to calm community relations.
As I have just said in answer to an intervention, yesterday I convened and chaired a conference call with chief officers from every force in the country. We agreed the mobilisation of all special constables, the cancellation of police leave throughout the country and the adoption of the tactics deployed by the Metropolitan police in London. Again, there are difficult days and nights ahead, and we are not complacent, but at this stage order has been resorted.
We said that we would do everything necessary to bring the disorder to an end, and we meant it. We made it clear to the police that there was nothing to stop them using baton rounds if they judged it necessary, and we put the water cannon stationed in Northern Ireland on standby, to be deployed within 24 hours. The police made it clear to me that they did not want to use them, and, as things stand, what is working to restore order is officers on the streets and robust policing with the help and support of local communities. We would jeopardise that if we rushed to use things such as rubber bullets.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
During the Prime Minister’s statement, we heard a lot about the stand-and-observe order that was apparently given to the police in particular circumstances. We all agree that that was terrible, but was not the policy determined mostly by police concern about over-reaction, given that they have been so criticised for how they dealt with the G20 riots, on which there is a case pending in the European Court of Human Rights? Does the Home Secretary agree that, whatever police powers we end up agreeing with, in such circumstances we must provide consistent support when things go wrong?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend makes an important point that I will come to in my remarks.
The police are concerned to ensure that when we talk about robust policing, we definitely give them backing for what they want to do. Policing by consent is the British way, but the police retain the confidence of the wider community only if they are seen to take clear and robust action in the face of open criminality. On Monday night it was clear that there simply were not enough officers on duty. The largest policing event in London is the Notting Hill carnival. There were about 6,000 officers on duty on Monday night, which is the number that the police usually deploy for the Notting Hill carnival. It was clear that in the circumstances that developed that was not enough officers on duty.
It is clear to me that the original police tactics were insufficient—exactly the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) raised. After the criticism of previous public order operations for excessive force, some officers appeared reluctant to be sufficiently robust in breaking up groups. Many arrests were made, but in some situations officers contained suspects in a specified area where they were free to commit criminal damage and steal, instead of intervening and making arrests. I want to make it clear to the House that in making these points, I am not criticising the police. Too often, the police are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Nowhere is that truer than in public order policing. I want to be clear that as long as officers act within reason and the law, this Home Secretary will never damn the police if they do.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Earlier, I raised with the Prime Minister the nervousness of the police in acting since the G20 disturbances and the sad death. Will the Home Secretary reassure the House that officers who take robust action will not find themselves on the wrong end of the law?
Mrs May
As I have just said and as I have made clear to the police from when I first took on this role, I will always back officers who do the right thing and operate within the law. Appropriate action must be taken against officers who do the wrong thing, but we will back officers who do the right thing and I will back them as Home Secretary.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mrs May
I ask my hon. Friend to bear with me for a few minutes because I want to talk about another way in which the police response could have been better, which is in the harnessing, sharing and analysis of intelligence.
Even in the best of economic times, we would not have the resources to keep up this level of deployment continuously, so public order planning and intelligence will need to be considerably better. This is not the first time that criminals with plans to disrupt life in our towns and cities have used technology to plot their crimes. Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook and messaging services such as BlackBerry Messenger have been used to co-ordinate criminality and stay one step ahead of the police. I will therefore convene a meeting with ACPO, the police and representatives from the social media industry to work out how we can improve the technological and related legal capabilities of the police.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
Social networking has obviously been heavily involved in the organisation of the disruption. However, open social networks such as Twitter have also provided the police, including Kent police, with an opportunity to dispel rumours and myths about where future disturbances will happen. There is more of a problem with closed networks such as BlackBerry Messenger. Will the Home Secretary congratulate forces that have used social networking to their advantage and concentrate on the closed networking opportunities that have been used by others?
Mrs May
I certainly congratulate forces that have used social networking to their advantage. Kent police are one example and the Metropolitan police have also used social networking. That is why what should be done in relation to social networking is not an easy open-and-shut case. There are positive uses of social networking sites as well as negative uses. That is why it is important that I convene the various parties involved to sit down and talk this matter through in a sensible way. Among the issues we will discuss is whether and how we should stop people communicating via such websites and services when we know that they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.
Mrs May
There is a limit on Back-Bench speeches and I have already spoken for more than half an hour, so if hon. Members will bear with me, I think that I should finish my speech and give Back Benchers the opportunity to speak.
A further difficulty, not just in the past week’s disorder, but in other recent operations, has been face covering by criminals. The police already have a power to require people to remove face coverings in certain limited circumstances. Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 allows officers to force their removal only in a specific geographical location for a limited time, linked to a threat of violence. That does not leave discretion to individual constables or allow officers to nip trouble in the bud early. We will change the law to allow police officers to remove face coverings if they have a reasonable belief that they are related to criminal activity, under any circumstances. As the Prime Minister has said, we will also consider the use of existing dispersal powers and whether any wider power of curfew is necessary.
We often say in the House that there can be no liberty without order and the events of the past five days have shown that more clearly than ever. The tide is turning, and order is returning to our streets. Since Saturday, more than 1,200 people have been arrested and more than 400 have been charged. Courts in London, the west midlands and Manchester have worked through the night and offenders are already starting to be prosecuted. I am clear that the perpetrators of the violence must pay for their actions, and the courts should hand down custodial sentences for any violent crimes.
The tide is turning because communities throughout the country have said that enough is enough. It is turning because the thugs are being arrested and locked up. It is turning because of the bravery and dedication of the men and women of our police forces. We ask police officers to put themselves in harm’s way on a routine basis. We ask them to go into dangerous situations that most of us hope we will never experience. We have the best police officers in the world and we owe them all a debt of gratitude.
Yvette Cooper
I think it was right to increase the number of police officers and to introduce police community support officers. PCSOs have done an excellent job across the country, working with police officers and communities, and have been an important part of addressing some of the tensions, concerns and difficulties that we have faced in the past few days.
Today, the Prime Minister again ruled out reopening the police budget. I implore him to think again. The newspapers report that Ministers now have doubts, and I urge him to listen to them.
Mrs May
The right hon. Lady is making much of a point about police cuts that was made by a number of her right hon. and hon. Friends during questions to the Prime Minister. Will she clarify for us the Opposition’s policy on police cuts? Do the Opposition still support police cuts of 12%, or do they want a review of or a moratorium on that? Will she guarantee police numbers, or will she not?
Yvette Cooper
The Home Secretary will know, because we have had this debate in the House many times, that we believe it is important to give the police enough resources to sustain the number of police officers. We maintain that position now.
The HMIC gave its view that the police could sustain a reduction of about 12% in their budget over the course of the Parliament. The former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), also said that his assessment when he was in office was that 12% could be sustained over the course of the Parliament and that that would allow the police to sustain the police numbers that we believe are so important. Instead, the Government are cutting by 20% and the steepest cuts are in the first two years. They are cutting more in the first few years than we would have done over the course of a Parliament. That is why the police, despite making immense efficiencies and taking immense actions to deliver savings, are finding that the number of police officers is being cut. That includes some of the most experienced police officers in the country, who are being forced to take early retirement against their wishes—officers whom we need and whose experience and contributions we need now.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point about why some areas fell victim to looting and criminality on such a scale, and others did not. A series of important questions needs to be properly addressed. The Home Secretary raised some of them—for example, the speed and nature of the police response, and the role of social media. That is why we Labour Members believe that there is a case for a special commission of inquiry that can ask the questions that a Select Committee might not be able to ask because of its departmental remit. That needs to be properly done to give those communities that have been most affected a stronger voice in this debate about what has happened and what needs to happen now.
I welcome what the Home Secretary has announced about action on gang culture. London Members have been warning for some time about the problems that it is creating and the fact that it has been increasing. Most recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) did so in her Adjournment debate, and the Home Secretary will know that other Members have done so, too. The Home Secretary needs to move fast on this. In June 2010—14 months ago—an independent report by the independent inspectors commissioned by the Youth Justice Board on the rise of gang culture was published. It said that a national strategy to deal with gang culture among under-18s was urgently needed. It set out specific measures for the police, the prisons and others. That was 14 months ago.
In March, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) asked for the Government’s response, but the record in Hansard shows that the Government were still considering how to respond. Clearly, it is a concern that there have been delays in responding to the report, but we have the recommendations available now. I urge the Home Secretary to implement them urgently and to use them as the basis for further work that I hope we can support. I hope that action on gang culture is something that we can agree on across the House. Indeed, I believe that there is much that we can agree on, including action in the criminal justice system and support for the police.
There are still four areas in which we ask the Government to think again. The first is setting up a proper commission of inquiry to look at the wider problems and why the riots happened. Secondly, they must look at the immediate resource pressures faced by the Met and other forces as a result of policing the rioting and criminal activity. Thirdly, there is the wider issue of resources and the serious need to reopen the policing spending review. Fourthly, they should make it easier, not harder, for the police and councils to use CCTV, which has been so important.
I began by saying that these are sober circumstances. We have seen awful events. But we cannot just despair that nothing is to be done, and we must not. When street crime became a serious problem 10 years ago, we seemed to face an epidemic. Action was taken by the Government and police. Prevention work was done and work was undertaken through the courts. It made a difference, and street crime came down. It is possible to tackle criminality, to work together to bring crime down. That is what must happen. We have seen crime fall; we must do so again.
People I spoke to after the rioting and the violence told me not that they are ashamed of their country but that they are still proud of our communities, our towns and our cities. The shop owners to whom I spoke had posters in their windows saying “I love Sandwell”. People want to stand together to support their communities and to stand against this awful violence and crime. We now in this House must stand together with them to do so.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In view of the level of interest in our debate, and after discussion through the usual channels, it is my intention at 6 o’clock not to move the Business of the House motion in the name of the Prime Minister, which would have terminated our proceedings at 7. It is my intention to move an alternative motion to enable us to continue until 8 o’clock to enable another 12 Members to take part in this debate.