Queen’s Speech

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Fullbrook on her wonderful maiden speech today, and my Front-Bench colleagues on the way they have introduced this debate.

I will focus on—and make a plea to my Front Bench that in bringing these Bills forward they look at—knife crime. I had a failed attempt to bring a Private Member’s Bill to look at knife crime monitoring; it did not get into the ballot. I hope that I can use these Bills to ask the Government to consider making sure that those who have gone to prison and have been released and those who have been cautioned for carrying a knife are monitored for at least six months after they have been released or cautioned—I think we will get cross-party support. I say this on behalf of all those families whose children have been murdered because of knife crime.

I bring this to the House after speaking to a mother who lost her 16 year-old son because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A person who had been released from prison and was carrying a knife—he had been in prison for knife crime—decided to stab this 16 year-old in the heart, and he died. That mother and her bravery in trying to find support for not just herself but other families has moved me to plead with my Front Bench to have a look at this.

I do not know how it would work; I am sure that the clever people that work with Ministers will be able to find a route. I hope it will not be a huge cost on resource. However, we owe it to the victims and their families to be able to assure them that people who have committed a crime are at least watched to ensure that they get the support that they sometimes need, or that the public are protected from another incident like the one that this lady in Leicester experienced. I am from Leicester, and Leicester has a high rate of knife crime. So I plead on behalf of all the families undergoing this kind of experience. This lady herself has reached out to other parents to see how she could support them. We should not, however, let people undertake this support among themselves without providing support ourselves. That is my plea.

I was not going to touch on this, but having listened to a few other speeches I will finish with a few comments on migrants. Most migrants do not make the dangerous journey because they want to. Nobody would want to leave their families behind and come across dangerous waters. The Home Secretary is absolutely right to say that we need to deal with this issue. However, I firmly believe that we keep looking at this the wrong way round. Let us help the countries build their own infrastructures so that people feel safe to live in their homes in their own countries. That applies to economic migrants. Where there is war and risk to life, the argument is very different. I hope, however, that in the 21st century we look at the levelling-up agenda not just in the context of the UK. Covid has taught all of us that we are only as safe as everyone else is, so we have to help level up not just in our own country but globally.