The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, I shall now repeat a Statement that was made by the Prime Minister a few minutes ago in another place. The Statement is as follows:
“First, let me thank all Members of the House for returning. When there are important events in our country, it is right that Parliament is recalled and that we show a united front. I am grateful to the leader of the Opposition for the constructive approach that he has taken over the past few days. I have spoken with many of the Members whose constituencies have been affected, and I would like to pay tribute to the Member for Tottenham for his powerful words and unstinting work over recent days.
What we have seen on the streets of London and in other cities across our country is completely unacceptable, and I am sure the whole House will join me in condemning it. Keeping people safe is the first duty of government. The whole country has been shocked by the most appalling scenes of people looting and of violence, vandalising and thieving. It is criminality pure and simple, and there is absolutely no excuse for it. We have seen houses, offices and shops raided and torched, police officers assaulted and fire crews attacked as they try to put out fires, people robbing others while they lie injured and bleeding in the street, and even three innocent people being deliberately run over and killed in Birmingham. We will not put up with this in our country; we will not allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets; and we will do whatever it takes to restore law and order and to rebuild our communities.
First, let us be clear about the sequence of events. A week ago today, a 29 year-old man named Mark Duggan was shot dead by the police in Tottenham. Clearly, there are questions that must be answered, and I can assure the House that this is being investigated thoroughly and independently by the IPCC. We must get to the bottom of exactly what happened—and we will.
Initially there were some peaceful demonstrations following Mark Duggan’s death. Understandably and appropriately, the police were cautious about how they dealt with them. However, this was then used as an excuse by opportunist thugs in gangs, first in Tottenham itself, then across London and then in other cities. It is completely wrong to say there is any justifiable causal link. It is simply preposterous for anyone to suggest that people looting in Tottenham at the weekend, still less three days later in Salford, were in any way doing so because of the death of Mark Duggan. Young people stealing flat-screen televisions and burning shops was not about politics or protest; it was about theft.
In recent days, individual police officers have shown incredible bravery and have worked in some cases around the clock without a break. They deserve our gratitude and our thanks: but what became increasingly clear earlier this week was that there were simply far too few police deployed on to the streets, and that the tactics they were using were not working. Police chiefs have been frank with me about why this happened. Initially, the police treated the situation too much as a public order issue rather than essentially one of crime. The truth is that the police have been facing a new and unique challenge, with different people doing the same thing—basically looting—in different places, but all at the same time. To respond to this situation, we are acting decisively to restore order on our streets, to support the victims of this terrible violence and to look at the deeper problems that have led such a hard core of young people to decide to carry out such appalling criminality. Let me take each in turn.
I will start with restoring order. Following the meetings of COBRA which I chaired on Tuesday, Wednesday and again this morning, we have taken decisive action to help ensure more robust and more effective policing. Because of decisions taken by Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin and other chief officers, there are now more police on the streets, more people arrested and more criminals being prosecuted. The Met Police increased the number of police deployed on the streets of London from 6,000 to almost 16,000 officers, and this number will remain through the weekend. We have also seen large increases in deployments of officers in other affected areas; leave in affected forces has been cancelled; police officers have been bussed in from forces across the country to areas of greatest need; and many businesses have released special constables to help. They, too, have performed magnificently.
More than 1,200 people have now been arrested across the country. We are making technology work for us by capturing the images of the perpetrators on CCTV, so even if they have not yet been arrested, their faces are known and they will not escape the law. As I said yesterday, no phoney human rights concerns about publishing photographs will get in the way of bringing these criminals to justice. Anyone charged with violent disorder and other serious offences should expect to be remanded in custody, not let back on the streets: and anyone convicted should expect to go to jail. Courts in London, Manchester and the West Midlands have been sitting through the night, and will do so for as long as necessary. Magistrates’ courts have proved effective in ensuring swift justice. The Crown Courts are now starting to deal with the most serious cases. We are keeping under constant review whether the courts have the sentencing powers they need and we will act if necessary.
As a result of the robust and uncompromising measures that have been taken, good progress is being made in restoring order to the streets of London and other cities around our country. As I have made clear, nothing is off the table. Every contingency should be looked at. The police are already authorised to use baton rounds. As I said yesterday, while they would not be appropriate now, we do have in place contingency plans for water cannon to be available at 24 hours’ notice.
Some people have raised the issue of the Army. The Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said to me that he would rather be the last man left in Scotland Yard, with all his management team out on the streets, before he asked for the Army. That is the right attitude and one I share. But it is the Government’s responsibility to make sure that every contingency is looked at, including whether there are tasks that the Army could undertake that might free up more police for the front line.
Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good, but it can also be used for ill. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.
I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers. Specifically, currently they can only remove face masks in a specific geographical location and for a limited time. So I can announce today that we are going to give the police the discretion to require the removal of face coverings under any circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion that they are related to criminal activity. On dealing with crowds, we are also looking at the use of existing dispersal powers and whether any wider power of curfew is necessary.
Whenever the police face a new threat, they must have the freedom and the confidence to change tactics as necessary. This Government will always make sure they have the backing and political support to do so. The fight-back has well and truly begun. But there will be no complacency, and we will not stop until this mindless violence and thuggery is defeated and law and order is fully restored on all our streets.
Let me turn to the innocent victims. No one will forget the images of the woman jumping from a burning building or the furniture shop that had survived the Blitz now tragically burnt to the ground. Everyone will have been impressed by the incredibly brave words of Tariq Jahan, a father in Birmingham whose son was so brutally and tragically run over and killed. I give the people affected this promise: we will help you repair the damage, get your businesses back up and running, and support your communities.
Let me take each of these in turn. On repairing the damages, I can confirm that any individual, homeowner or business that has suffered damage to or loss of their buildings or property as a result of rioting can seek compensation under the Riot (Damages) Act, even if uninsured. The Government will ensure that the police have the funds they need to meet the cost of any legitimate claims, and whereas normally claims must be received within 14 days we will extend the period to 42 days. The Association of British Insurers has said it expects the industry to be paying out in excess of £200 million, and it has assured us that claims will continue to be dealt with as quickly and as constructively as possible.
On supporting businesses, we are today setting up a new £20 million high street support scheme to help affected businesses get back up and running quickly. To minimise the costs facing businesses, the Government will enable local authorities to grant business rate relief by funding at least three-quarters of their costs. We will defer tax payments for businesses in greatest need, through Time to Pay and other practical support. For houses and businesses that have been the most badly damaged, we have instructed the Valuation Office to immediately stop liability for council tax and business rates.
A specific point was raised with me in Wolverhampton yesterday: that planning regulations made it difficult for shops to put up protective shutters. We will weed out unnecessary planning regulations to ensure that businesses can get back on their feet and feel secure as quickly as possible.
On supporting local communities, I can confirm that the Bellwin scheme to support local authorities will be operational. However, to ensure that urgent funding is immediately available, we are today establishing a new £10 million recovery scheme to provide additional support to councils in making areas safe, clean and clear again.
The Government will also meet the immediate costs of emergency accommodation for families made homeless by these disturbances. The Secretaries of State for Communities and Local Government and Business have made details of these schemes available to the House today. Of course the situation continues to evolve, and we will keep the need for additional support under close review.
Finally, let me turn to the deeper problems. Responsibility for crime always lies with the criminal, but crime has a context and we must not shy away from it. I have said before that there is a major problem in our society with children growing up not knowing the difference between right and wrong. This is not about poverty, it is about culture—a culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities. In too many cases the parents of these children, if they are still around, do not care where their children are or who they are with, let alone what they are doing. The potential consequences of neglect and immorality on this scale have been clear for too long, without proper action being taken.
As I said yesterday, there is no one step that can be taken, but we need a benefits system that rewards work and is on the side of families. We need more discipline in our schools. We need action to deal with the most disruptive families. We need a criminal justice system that scores a clear, heavy line between right and wrong—in short, all the action necessary to help mend our broken society.
At the heart of all the violence sits the issue of the street gangs. Territorial, hierarchical and incredibly violent, they are mostly composed of young boys, mainly from dysfunctional homes. They earn money through crime, particularly drugs, and are bound together by an imposed loyalty to an authoritarian gang leader. They have blighted life on their estates with gang-on-gang murders and unprovoked attacks on innocent bystanders. In the past few days, there is some evidence that they have been behind the co-ordination of the attacks on the police and the looting that has followed.
I want us to use the record of success against gangs of cities like Boston in the USA and Strathclyde in Scotland, which have done this by engaging the police, the voluntary sector and local government. I want this to be a national priority. We have already introduced gang injunctions and I can announce today that we are going to use them across the whole country for children and for adults.
There are also further sanctions available beyond the criminal justice system. Local authorities and landlords already have tough powers to evict the perpetrators from social housing. Some local authorities are already doing this. I want to see others follow their lead, and we will consider whether these powers need to be strengthened further.
I have asked the Home Secretary to work with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and other Cabinet colleagues on a cross-government programme of action to deal with this gang culture, with a report to Parliament in October. I also believe that we should be looking beyond our shores to learn the lessons from others who have faced similar problems. That is why I will be discussing how we can go further in getting to grips with gangs with people like Bill Bratton, former commissioner of police in New York and Los Angeles.
Of course, the problem is not just gangs. There are people who saw shop windows smashed and thought that they could just steal and it would be okay. It is not okay and these people will face the full consequences of their actions.
In the past few days we have seen a range of emotions sweep this country: anger, fear, frustration, despair, sadness and, finally, a determined resolve that we will not let a violent few beat us. We saw this resolve in the people who gathered in Clapham, Wolverhampton and Manchester with brooms to clean up the streets. We saw it in those who patrolled the roads in Enfield through the night to deter rioters. We saw it in the hundreds of people who stood guard outside Southall Temple, protecting it from vandalism.
This is a time for our country to pull together. To the law-abiding people who play by the rules, and who are the overwhelming majority in this country, I say: the fight-back has begun; we will protect you; and if you have had your livelihood and property damaged, we will compensate you. We are on your side. To the lawless minority—the criminals who have taken what they can get—I say this: we will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you and we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done.
We need to show the world, which has looked on appalled, that the perpetrators of the violence we have seen on our streets are not in any way representative of our country, nor of our young people. We need to show it that we will address our broken society and restore a sense of stronger morality and responsibility in every town, every street and every estate. A year away from the Olympics, we need to show it the Britain that does not destroy, but that builds; that does not give up but stands up; that does not look back, but always forwards. I commend the Statement to the House”.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will welcome those contributions, from both the Leader of the Opposition and, most particularly, from the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. Perhaps I may say how good it is to hear the authoritative voice of the church being represented in this House.
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for what she said and for the way in which she said it, on the whole. I will not say that I agree with every single word, but I very much share her horror at what we all saw on our televisions screens. It is right that we should not judge everything that happened by what we did see, but one cannot possibly be immune to some of the images that we saw on our screens in the past few days. The noble Baroness was entirely right to raise the fact that what we saw on our screens was affecting tens of thousands of people in this country—maybe even more. Some of them will be blighted for the rest of their lives by what has happened. She was right to call on the Government to make sure that we could deal with the criminality by cases being brought before the courts as swiftly as possible. I can confirm that that is happening. The courts are sitting all through the night when required to deal with cases. The Crown Court is now dealing with some of the more difficult ones.
The noble Baroness was also right to raise the question about CCTV and how we should deal with that. We believe that CCTV plays an incredibly important role in dealing with the criminality that has happened and we very much support the use of CCTV. We need to see it better regulated and we will perhaps need to see how regulation and/or legislation can change when we have had a chance to reflect and discuss with the police and the private sector how it can be used.
Of course there are many issues that we will need to debate and discuss in future about what has happened and why. The noble Baroness herself said that there were many and various solutions; indeed, the Prime Minister said as much in his Statement and raised some of them in it, as has the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and some right reverend Prelates who have already spoken and will no doubt do so again shortly.
As for an inquiry, we have taken the view that, in the first instance, this should be a matter for Parliament and that a parliamentary inquiry should do the work first. Therefore, the Home Affairs Select Committee has already announced an inquiry into the riots. I do not suppose for one moment that that will be a matter of taking evidence simply from academics in Whitehall; I am convinced that the committee will need to reach out to the community, to talk to people who have been directly affected, to try to find out what were the causes and to make an authoritative report to Parliament.
On money, many people who have been affected—shopkeepers, individuals, home owners and tenants—will be most concerned about how they can get their lives back on the rails and what they can do about the shortage of money. I can confirm that as many fast-track provisions as possible will be made to try to provide that money. The new high street fund, which is a proposal by two government departments, is designed to shortcut as much as possible the need for funding. Tax authorities, working with local authorities, have been put onto the fastest track possible.
The noble Baroness also asked about the Olympics. The whole House will share the sense of shame of anyone who was abroad, read newspapers or saw some of the television reports emanating from London of what impact this would have on the Olympics. It is the focus of this Government and our predecessors and everyone involved to deliver a safe and secure Olympic and Paralympic Games here in London which Londoners, the rest of the country and the rest of the world can enjoy. The Games should be a peaceful celebration of sporting achievement and a cultural celebration; they are not a security event. We have highly experienced police and emergency services which have successfully policed major events in the past, and they will be able to bring to bear their experience of dealing with protests, both peaceful and law-abiding and violent, during the Games.
Of course, we will need to look carefully at all that has happened. I welcome what the noble Baroness said about looking at these things in a non-partisan way, but both she and I are aware how warily we need to tread the line of partisanship. The riots did not happen because there will be public spending cuts, nor will the reduced spending on the police affect the police's ability to get policemen on the streets.
Lord Strathclyde
In a few moments, my noble friend Lady Browning will no doubt wish to take up that point with her statistics on funding.
The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury made a most powerful contribution. The whole House will join him when he talked about our deep sympathy for those who have been affected and thoughts for those who have lost hope. It became obvious, again from reading the newspapers and watching the television, that so many have lost hope in our society and for the future. Although none of us wants to justify or condone what happened, it is true that this criminality has a context.
The most reverend Primate called for ethos in our education system. I think he is entirely right, and I do not think he would find anyone in this House who would wish to disagree with that or with the overall view that something has gone badly wrong. However, we are forward thinking and we owe it to the next generation to solve this problem and to find the necessary solution to take us forward. The most reverend Primate rightly referred to the new friendships, the new networks and the basis for new trust that will take us forward.
We now have a few minutes—perhaps a bit more—to discuss some of these issues in detail. What this House does best is reflect after some time on what has happened and look carefully at the solutions that we need, and I am sure that in the months ahead we will have many opportunities to discuss these issues more fully.
Lord Dear
I will come to my question in a moment. If noble Lords look at the Order Paper, it refers to comments and questions, and I am coming to my question.
Policing has had to change remarkably in the face of social networks and the speed at which these disorders have taken place. My question is about baton rounds and whether the command officers in place were acting timorously or reluctantly. Baton rounds have been available to the police in this country for 30 years. The lack of deployment of that means of dealing with riot is in stark contrast to the bravery, which has already been alluded to by various Members of the House, of the police in dealing with it. If I am right in saying that senior officers were timorous or irresolute, was it because of the confusion in the mind of society about what it and the Government want? We now have calls for robust policing that are in stark contrast to recent comments about the so-called provocative uniforms worn by riot police, kettling, what happened at the G20 and so on. There are examples of robust policing. One has only to look to France to see what the CRS does. There are no shrinking violets there. But I do not advocate that we move that far along that road. Can the Minister assure me that there will be a speedy debate about exactly what robust policing means, what society wants from its police in these circumstances, what it will tolerate, what it looks for and what it does not want? The lack of application by some senior officers in deploying what they had within their lockers indicates to me that the confusion has gone too far and needs to be addressed.
Lord McNally
My Lords, there is a great deal of collective wisdom around this House, but we are not going to hear all of it if we do not keep to what was agreed at the beginning: short inventions and short questions. That is no disrespect to the noble Lord, Lord Dear, who brings particular expertise, but I appeal for future interventions to be brief. I think it is time for the Conservative Benches.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, is there not a case for considering in the long term some form of compulsory national community service? Is there not also a case for considering whether young people at the age of 16 or 18 should go through the same sort of citizenship ceremony which those getting British nationality go through? Finally, is there not an overwhelming case for the inquiry to be conducted not merely by the Home Affairs Committee of another place but by a Joint Committee of both Houses, bearing in mind the experience that resides in this House, an example of which we heard a few moments ago?
Lord McNally
I wonder whether we could hear from the noble Lord, Lord Pearson.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, could I take the welcome question from the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury one stage deeper? He referred to the curriculum, mentioning that it had become instrumentalist and not virtuous enough. Yet again, I remind your Lordships and the Government that the soil in which our education system feeds is teacher training. It has been polluted for far too long by the gender, race and class agenda. Will the Government look into that area again? I have one very simple question for my erstwhile friend the noble Baroness, Lady Browning: will she please study how many of the people who have been arrested cannot even read?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, the most reverend Primate raised the important issue of what happens in society. I suggest trying to get young people themselves to monitor what is happening in communities. My deep concern is that, nowadays, in most families, both parents work. Churches, community groups and activist groups are struggling like mad to keep going because people do not have the time. There is an urgent need for youth and community workers to be employed to help local groups—be it a church group, a youth group or a sports group—through those patches when it is hard to continue.
If the Government say that they are determined to press ahead, I must warn them that from my observation, listening to the general public, they are saying, “Why weren’t there more police officers?”. The Government are spending £130 million on their pet project—I disagree with it very strongly, but that is irrelevant. The public out there want more trained police officers. Members of your Lordships' House say, “Police officers stood there, looked at a situation and did not move in”. Often it was one police officer facing a group of 20 or 30. We need the right number of officers with the right approach.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Browning)
My Lords, I am very grateful for the contributions that we have heard today, many of them based on first-hand experience across a whole range of disciplines which are, necessarily, going to be part of the solution to the challenge that clearly faces us all in dealing with the crisis—I use that word deliberately—that we saw on our streets in the past few days. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, began this part of our deliberations by saying, first, that we needed to restore social order and that we must not rush to conclusions. Let me deal with those two things, because they have been picked up by many noble Lords around the Chamber today.
It is quite right that we must in the very short term—and I hope this is already evident—restore social order. We saw, particularly on the streets of London after Monday night but also in other cities around the country, a significant increase not just in the numbers of police but in what has been referred to as robust policing in order to bring law and peace to our city centres. It would be wrong to pretend that we feel that this is over. We still have to be vigilant and to maintain that presence to make sure that we have dealt with the immediate crisis, and I hope noble Lords will feel from today’s Statement that additional measures are being put in place to help to resolve this.
Noble Lords have raised many issues. The pressure of time means that I cannot go into all of them, but there are some things about the way in which certain parts of our communities live that affect particularly young people and their upbringing. The question of education was raised, as was the moral basis both in schools and in homes, which was raised by the most reverend Primate in his initial speech and by others speaking with great experience on these matters.
I would just say to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that just before the House rose for the summer I wrote to my colleague at the Department for Education to ask specifically about the policy on excluded children. They have been a problem for a very long time—to themselves as well as to the wider community—and we must have sustainable policies on children whom we have identified as being likely to cause problems and become criminals. However, what we have seen in the past few days has involved children not just from deprived backgrounds or children who have suffered brutality in childhood that has affected them later but people, as we have seen from the court cases, who are holding down jobs, many of them responsible jobs. One cannot but conclude that the moral compass has been abandoned, and restoring that moral compass across those communities is part of the challenge that we must all—the church, Parliament, society and the law—work together on.
I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I do not respond fully to them, but as they will know there is a meeting at 3 pm in Room G. I am very happy to go into further details on that. The most reverend Primate asked us to look at what the next generation will inherit. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, also picked up on this, as have others. While we deal with the current generation—and it is important that we do—we have to get right not just the policies but the whole change in culture for the next generation. I am reminded of the generation that went before me. My father spent five years of his youth in a prisoner of war camp. He and those of his generation who survived came home to make sure that this country had a set of values and a moral compass, and that children were brought up to respect the law and received a good education. There is too much detail to go into today, but we all understand the diversity and the range of issues that we are going to have to grasp, and grasp them we must.
I was reminded of this on Monday night when I did not sleep, not because I live in London—I live miles away—but because one of my children does and had been forced to barricade himself into his house because of what was going on in the road outside. He had to do so again the next day, just in case. That fear runs among people well beyond those who have been directly affected, and the public out there expect us collectively—across this Chamber, the next Chamber and in all our statutory services—to work together to bring law and order so that we can live in peace and security. All that needs to be harnessed and to come together, because it is broken.
Questions have been asked about policing. I am very happy to answer those questions, but I suggest to the House that what happened in London on Monday night happened not because there are insufficient police on the payroll but because decisions were taken that we will have to examine in some detail. It was quite obvious that once the policing numbers were increased the next night, and once the strategy changed, the whole scenario changed in London—so, yes, there will need to be inquiries.
In the very short term, we will need to look at gangland culture, particularly in our inner cities. These problems involve people from across the range—children as well as adults. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and others of their experiences and we should look to the Strathclyde experience to try to learn from it. We have to deal with this. Yesterday, the police identified members of known gangs who had orchestrated much of what had gone on during the nights before and I am pleased to say that they were able to make arrests on the basis of that information.
We see a challenge before this country. Not only do we have to come together but we have to get it right. We have in the short term to restore confidence among the wider public—not just those who were affected but people across the country as a whole. Even those people in safe areas who were watching this on their televisions now feel that their security is undermined. People never expected to see this on the streets of this country in their lifetime. It is not just shocking and it is not just something about which we must have a few discussions; we must tackle it, drawing on and harnessing the experience across the community. I take the point that was made about going into local communities. I am already booked—this was done before what has happened—to go next month to Manchester to see what a community has done on a very troublesome housing estate. We can learn a lot from the people who have tackled this problem at the grass-roots level. They have taken that responsibility, with help, and have got results. We must all learn from that. I hope that many Members of your Lordships’ House will feel that they can attend the perhaps more detailed debate on each of these points at 3 pm this afternoon.
I conclude by paying tribute, as many in this House have done—and I hope that the message will go out from this House—to the police, including those police officers who were injured during the nights when this was happening, and to the emergency services, including the ambulance service and the fire brigade, who we saw showing great heroism on our television screens. I also pay tribute to the voluntary services and community leaders, who have clearly, as we have heard in our discussions today, played a big part not just in assisting practically but in holding communities together. That has been extremely important, as has been mentioned several times. We should remember in particular the humbling words of Mr Tariq Jahan, who stood out as a beacon in his hour of grief as somebody who, even then, put his wider community first. We all need to put the wider community first. I thank noble Lords for their contributions today.