Public Health Model to Reduce Youth Violence

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Over the past 18 months I have sat in the living rooms of grieving parents who have lost a precious child to knife crime, and in community centres with angry and bewildered local residents who are terrified by the violence they have witnessed. I have faced questions on too many occasions, in school assemblies and youth clubs, from frightened children who ask what is being done to stop knife and gun crime in our area.

Today I am speaking for the bereaved families of Jude Gayle, Kyall Parnell, and John Ogunjobi. Jude Gayle was killed last year as he popped out to the local shop to buy ingredients for a family meal. Kyall Parnell was stabbed at a bus stop in West Norwood on new year’s eve, and John Ogunjobi was stabbed just a few weeks ago on the Tulse Hill estate, in front of his mother who had come to pick him up to try to keep him safe.

Lambeth and Southwark, the boroughs that each serve part of my constituency, have among the highest rates of knife crime in London, and among the highest volume of serious violence against young people. That level of challenge has resulted in some truly exceptional work on this issue, and I pay tribute to the organisations that work hard every day to keep young people safe, to save the lives of those who are injured, and to intervene to turn lives around.

The work of the trauma team in King’s College hospital under Duncan Bew, Malcolm Tunnicliff and Emer Sutherland is second to none. They have developed life saving techniques for gun and knife-related injuries, and they also work with the charity Redthread, under the leadership of John Poyton, on an intervention approach for young people who come to the emergency department.

There are many inspirational community organisations, such as the Dwaynamics boxing gym, which was established by Lorraine Jones who lost her son, Dwayne Simpson, to knife crime in 2014. There is the work of Lee Dema and the St Matthew’s project, which provides football coaching for young people in Brockwell Park, and the Marcus Lipton youth centre led by Ira Campbell. Brixton Wings is based on the Angell Town Estate, and the Advocacy Academy empowers young people to speak truth to power on the issues that matter to them, and to work for change in their area.

The DIVERT team led by Inspector Jack Rowlands at Brixton police station—now also in Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Croydon and Lewisham—provides intensive support and intervention for young adults in police custody. It is hugely innovative and successful, and I am glad the Government recently recognised that by agreeing to extend funding for the existing programme for a further two years. Nevertheless, more commitment is needed. DIVERT should be the norm in every police station and every community where youth violence is a serious issue, and it should be funded as a part of mainstream policing. Both Lambeth and Southwark have sought to protect funding for youth services at a time when they have lost more than half their funding from central Government. Why, when there is so much good work to celebrate, is violence that affects young people continuing to increase?

The number of school exclusions has been rising in recent years, with particularly alarming increases among children eligible for free school meals and those with special educational needs, who account for almost half of exclusions. Currently, when a school excludes a child, the school’s responsibility for that child comes to an end. Since the number of academies is increasing under this Government, and academies have their own admissions authorities, in many areas it is becoming increasingly difficult for local authorities to find places for excluded children. A child who has been excluded needs more intervention, not less, and children who end up out of school for extended periods following exclusion are surely at greater risk of becoming involved in violence, both as victims and perpetrators. More must be done to fund our schools to provide intervention and support for students whose behaviour is challenging, and to hold them to account for the outcomes for every child who has been on their roll.

There is a huge and growing gap in the funding of children’s social services, estimated by the Local Government Association—I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA—at around £3 billion. As a consequence, children’s social services departments are stretched to breaking point. They struggle to provide their statutory safeguarding services, and find it increasingly hard to recruit and retain social workers in an environment that is often high risk. Any department under such pressure will find it hard to do the proactive, preventive, early-intervention work that can prevent adverse childhood experiences and reduce the risk of violence later in childhood.

Our youth justice system is woefully under resourced. Government rhetoric on tough sentencing may play well in communities where young people do not regularly lose their lives to guns and knives, but the reality is a court system on its knees, which allows—this happened in my constituency recently—a young person bailed in north London to travel to south London to rob school children at knife point the next day. Our penal system delivers the scandalously high youth reoffending rate of 41.7%. Such a system must reform as well as punish, which is even more urgently the case for young offenders than for the rest of the prison population. Youth justice must be funded and resourced to do the intensive, transformative work that is needed to stop young offenders returning to a life of violence. That is the right thing for victims as well as perpetrators and our communities more widely, and the current situation is shameful.

Access to mental health support, particularly for children and young people, remains far too difficult within early intervention and crisis services. The extent to which young people who are both the victims and perpetrators of violent crime are clinically traumatised is documented and evidenced, but still not reflected in mainstream practice in mental health services.

My final observation on this issue is the extent of the issues at local level which never register with any public services. I reflect on the conversations I have had recently with parents in my constituency. One mother told me about the number of young people with minor knife injuries who she has patched up in her kitchen because they are too scared to go to hospital, and how some of them have then become too scared to leave their own homes. She came to see me because she was struggling to support another mother whose child had been traumatised by the violence he had experienced and spent his days smashing up his mother’s home. Another mother told me how she will not let her 16-year-old pop out to the shop on her estate because:

“I don’t know which gang is going to be there and whether he will come back.”

The public health approach to youth violence has to mean more than words. The measure of the Government’s commitment to the public health approach in my constituency will be whether it relieves the anxiety of those mothers who are fearful every time their teenagers leave the house and whether it stops the killing. Next week, when I see the family of John Ogunjobi who was recently stabbed to death, I want to be able to look them in the eye and say that that this is going to stop and that other families will not have to suffer their agony. Under this Government, I do not believe I can do so.

Asylum Accommodation Contracts

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main, and a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who spoke so powerfully about her direct experience. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on securing this important debate. I rise to speak because my constituency is home to Barry House, a hostel for people seeking asylum or refugee status in the UK, provided by Clearsprings under the existing contract.

Barry House is categorised as initial accommodation, and it provides a temporary home for more than 100 people. I see many residents of Barry House in my surgeries, and I have visited it with an NHS team who provide outreach services there. When I visited I was told that there were 19 pregnant women and 40 children living there at that time. The information I have gathered from residents of Barry House speaks to a much wider set of problems with the current asylum contract.

Barry House is for short-term use, but the reality is that many people are there for long periods. Barry House is not fit for purpose. Conditions are cramped, there is no variation in or quality to the food, and there are no meaningful activities for residents. The corridors are obstructed by many buggies and there are a high number of wheelchair users, leading to concerns about fire safety and basic standards of accessibility. It is very poorly managed. There are infestations of vermin, and it is dirty. Everything about the quality of accommodation is poor, yet there is no accountability. When complaints are raised there is no response, and it is left to the council’s environmental health team to undertake inspections when things get really bad.

Barry House is not suitable for children, despite there being so many children and pregnant women staying there. It is difficult to place children in local schools as there is no guarantee on how long they will be there. There is no support with language tuition and no support for the many people living at Barry House who are deeply traumatised by the experiences and situations from which they have fled. There is no structured access to health facilities. A dedicated team from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust provides what support it can, but support for access to maternity services and any other type of specialist service is difficult to secure and very patchy.

Many residents of Barry House have been through levels of trauma and hardship that is hard to comprehend. There are high levels of physical disability and mental ill health. The instability, hardship and sheer monotony of having to spend long periods at Barry House or in accommodation like it is no way to treat people who are fleeing conflict or persecution. The new contract must address the current problems. There must be a service standard for the timescale on which people are forced to stay in initial accommodation such as Barry House—a time after which they must be moved to suitable accommodation. There must be proper accountability for the quality of accommodation. When overcrowding, infestations, damp, dirt or poor quality food are raised, the providers must be held to account, with financial penalties if necessary. Councils must be empowered and funded to step in if the issues are not addressed. There must be funding for emergency short-term psychological support for people suffering trauma. It is simply not acceptable for people with high levels of mental health need as a consequence of their experiences to be left to cope on their own. There must be provision in situ for language teaching, early years activity for children and education, where school places cannot be provided.

There is a relationship between the situation at Barry House and the wider dysfunctionality of the Home Office. People are at Barry House for long periods partly because their applications are not being determined, or because applications are refused and they must appeal. The constituent I saw a few weeks ago who, as a Red Cross employee, was shot four times by Hezbollah in Lebanon, should not be appealing a refusal by the Home Office. The way that the Government treat those who seek asylum in the UK is part of the wider hostile environment. There is no support, comfort or dignity, and the UK can and must do better than this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

I will continue to give way; I give way to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes).

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Since she is talking about problems with the process, I will put on the record the very serious concerns raised by Freedom from Torture and others about the lack of medical expertise in the asylum assessment process, which, in large part, is a cause of the inaccurate decisions that her Department is making.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Lady for putting that on the record. I have a comment on the medical processes somewhere in my notes; I may not find it in the course of the next few minutes, but I will try to. Of course we can—at all times and in all ways—improve on our systems, and I am absolutely determined that we will find better ways to ensure that information can be brought forward earlier.

Windrush

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The Government are very appreciative of the work that has been going on with Commonwealth high commissioners, among others, to make sure that those who have been affected have been correctly identified. When people have subsequently passed away, our sympathies and condolences, of course, are with their families. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has written not only to those affected but to the families of those who have passed away.

The hon. Lady is right that a wrong was done, and the Government are determined to right that wrong, but I point out to her that a good number of these people were removed prior to 2010.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The appalling treatment of the Windrush generation and their descendants extends far beyond those who have come forward to contact the Home Office team to date. Many of my constituents are living in fear and deep mistrust of the Home Office—not least because of the continual conflation with illegal immigration in discussions of Windrush, which we have heard again from the Minister today.

There is an urgent need for access to independent confidential advice for Windrush citizens and their descendants, who are concerned about their status but do not trust the Home Office. So far, that work has been left to the voluntary sector, but the lack of funding over the summer has meant that Black Cultural Archives in my constituency has had to stop running advice surgeries. Will the Minister now acknowledge the far-reaching breach of trust that the Windrush scandal has caused and commit to funding genuinely independent advice for those who are too fearful of the Home Office to come forward?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady raises a really important point about people who might be afraid to come forward. We have given a clear assurance that no information provided to the Windrush taskforce will be passed to immigration enforcement and we will work extremely hard to assist all those with partial information to demonstrate their time in the UK.

Martin Forde QC, the independent consultant for the compensation scheme, has been working hard with outreach programmes, which are an important part of the process. The Windrush taskforce has held a number of surgeries up and down the country, reaching out to members of the Caribbean communities to engender confidence.

Some of the best advocates for the Windrush taskforce are those who have been through it successfully. There have been a number of reports from those who have found the process easy, and thousands have been granted not only documentation but citizenship.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong in the final part of his question. It is important that UK Visas and Immigration continues to work to establish people’s right to be here on a fair and humane basis. The Home Office is absolutely committed to making sure that we consider each case on its own merits.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

16. What steps he is taking to provide compensation to Windrush migrants.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)]

I am committed to establishing a compensation scheme as quickly and as carefully as possible to help address what has gone wrong. The design of the scheme is naturally complex. I am therefore determined that we get it right and that we properly listen to those affected before taking final decisions on the design.

[Helen Hayes]

The Windrush scandal and the Government’s wider hostile environment policy have created an urgent need for independent advice for Windrush citizens seeking to confirm their status and access compensation. As there is no trust in the Home Office, the Black Cultural Archives in my constituency has for several months been running legal advice clinics for Windrush citizens, staffed by volunteer lawyers. They have seen hundreds of people and there remains unmet need. This essential work should not fall to volunteers. Does the Home Secretary recognise the need for independent advice from trusted organisations such as the Black Cultural Archives, and will he provide funding to enable independent advice to be available to everyone who needs it?

[Sajid Javid]

When I became Home Secretary, I said it was my first priority to help those affected by the Windrush situation. That is why one of the first things we did was properly staff the taskforce, and over 100 officials now work on it, ensuring that people are listened to and that applications are processed quickly. More than 2,000 applications have already been processed, most of them in a single day. Last week, we announced that some 584 applications for citizenship have been granted. I think we are dealing with this appropriately. I am always happy to listen to fresh ideas, but I think this is being taken very seriously by the Government.

Windrush

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The Windrush generation are remarkable for their resilience and their grace. Before the Windrush sailed from the Caribbean, many of its passengers had volunteered to serve in the UK armed forces during the second world war, making that extraordinary sacrifice despite the racism they experienced, and choosing to rise above it and to serve the cause of fighting fascism in Europe. The Windrush passengers were also answering a call for help from the British Government to come and rebuild Britain after the devastation of the second world war. They came, above all else, to contribute.

I am proud to represent Coldharbour Lane in Brixton, the location of the labour exchange where, in 1948, many of the passengers of the Empire Windrush came to look for work. They found it in our NHS, at London Transport and in other public services. They found it in factories, the construction industry and offices. Many made their home in Brixton, establishing the first large Caribbean community in London. Nothing about that journey was easy, from the separation from family and friends and the long sea crossing to the arrival in a cold and unfamiliar climate and the daily experience of racism epitomised in the signs on doors reading, “no blacks, no dogs, no Irish”. But the Windrush generation found a way.

The Brixton we know today was made by Windrush citizens, from the shops and the markets to the music, the community centres and the churches. Windrush citizens made Brixton not only a place with a strong Caribbean community, but a place of tolerance where diversity is celebrated and where everyone is welcome whatever their background. I moved to Brixton in 1996, and for a young person from a small town in the north of England it felt like the centre of the world. Brixton embraced me and allowed me to call it home. I am proud now to have the privilege of representing our fabulous Windrush community.

That same community, however, has encountered an immigration system under this Government that has no grace and is devoid of all compassion. It is a system that is programmed to assume the worst of everyone—to ascribe bad motives to even the most innocent of errors and to look for every possible reason why anyone who has come to the UK from overseas should not be allowed to stay. It is a system that is loaded to saying no until it is forced to do otherwise, delivering injustice in many forms.

First, there is the injustice of incompetence: the hundreds and hundreds of people I see whose applications are delayed, whose papers have been lost, or whose decisions are founded on a mistake made by the Home Office itself. Secondly, there is the enormous injustice of a system that has proactively and deliberately used the lack of formal papers held by many British citizens who have been here for decades as an excuse to try to remove them from their home or deny them access to public funds.

The third injustice affects families seeking to travel to visit one another for a range of different reasons. I have lost count of the number of heartbreaking cases in which family members seeking to travel to a wedding, a funeral, to help out around the birth of a new baby or to support a loved one who is sick have been prevented from doing so, because the Home Office makes an assumption that anyone wanting to enter the UK must be trying to do so with the motive of staying here permanently. The most outrageous case concerned my constituent, Isaac, whose leukaemia stem cell transplant from his brother in Nigeria was delayed because the Home Office said that he might want to outstay his visa.

The final injustice I want to mention is that of having no recourse to public funds, which, right here, right now in this city, is causing a family with children and a heavily pregnant mother to sleep on our streets while two councils argue over who has a duty to look after them and put a roof over their heads.

A Department that is dealing with so many people in such appalling ways cannot command any confidence in its ability to deal fairly with the hundreds of thousands of EU nationals who will call the UK home post Brexit. We cannot allow this injustice to continue, and we cannot allow it to happen again. Nothing short of a root-and-branch review of the Home Office, a full compensation scheme for Windrush citizens and a radical change of approach will be adequate as a response to this scandal.

Windrush

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

There is a lot of misinformation about what documents are required and when. As a consequence of the assessments we have done since 2014 and 2016, the documents required are now easier for people to access than passports, which not everyone has, as the hon. Gentleman says. It is not unusual, however, for a country to have legislation that tries to combat illegal migration by saying that if someone wants to rent a flat, have a job or go to hospital, they need to show who they are. It is the right thing to do to protect people from too much illegal migration.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I have been contacted by lawyers representing constituents of mine who are members of the Windrush generation who have been phoning the new helpline the Home Secretary has established, and they report that the helpline is outsourced to a private contractor. They also represent constituents who are so fearful of the Home Office that they do not want to disclose all their details in that first contact but want to seek advice anonymously before proceeding. They are told by the helpline, however, that they cannot do that. When a lawyer queried this, he was told:

“should the department find they did not have a right to Citizenship…then…they could look at other possibilities”.

Does she understand the depth of the lack of trust in her Department among members of the Windrush generation, will she assure the House that no enforcement action will be taken on the basis of phone calls to the helpline, and will she say what she is doing to rebuild the trust and confidence of people who are so fearful that they do not even want to give their names to her Department?

[Amber Rudd]

I am sorry to hear that example. I can say, having today met the caseworkers operating the taskforce, that their intent when they say “Look at other possibilities” is to look at other possibilities to help. I ask her to convey that to her constituents, because it is their genuine endeavour. I made that point in my statement as well: there is no question of removing people. I know it is a fear, but it is not happening, and I urge her to communicate that back to her constituents and the lawyers. I should add that when I initially called—immediately—to have the taskforce and phone line set up, it was a phone line at a call centre for about 24 hours, possibly longer; it is now properly run and staffed by the Home Office and by professionals, as one would expect.

Windrush Children (Immigration Status)

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I think that what the hon. Lady’s constituents really want to know is whether they have a legal right to be here. The purpose of my standing here today is to confirm to them and to all Members here that they do have the legal right. We want them to take it up, if that is what they want. My unit in the Home Office will be leaning in to ensure that we make the process as simple and effective as possible.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

As the proud Member of Parliament for Coldharbour Lane in Brixton, where many Windrush passengers came to look for work and make their homes, I can tell the Home Secretary that it is entirely wrong for her to present this as a new problem that has suddenly arisen. It has been going on for years, and it is a consequence of Government policy which lacks any grace or compassion and which, in its intolerance, looks for any possible reason why people who have come here from overseas should not be allowed to stay. Will she now commit to looking at the systemic problems with UKVI and reform the immigration system so that people who have made their lives in this country and contributed so much can live with security and dignity in their old age?

[Amber Rudd]

That is exactly what I want this country to look like—the sort of country where the hon. Lady’s constituents can have confidence here. I point out to her that it was of course Labour who, in 2008, introduced the labour market test so that people had to evidence their status, so this has not started entirely with us. But if we want to live in a country where there is a difference between legal and illegal residence, then it is absolutely right to have a system that addresses that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I can generously deny that I am living in any cloud cuckoo land—to wipe that immediately from the hon. Gentleman’s views. I just think he is being too lenient on these enormous reserves that have been accumulated. They have grown by 150%; they are now 40% of annual revenue. I know that the Labour party is not familiar with careful public finance guarding, but I urge him to take a little more scrutiny to this matter, rather than treating it like some Venezuelan dictatorship.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

2. What the change in the number of frontline police officers is estimated to be between 2018 and 2020.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

5. What the change in the number of frontline police officers is estimated to be between 2018 and 2020.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

Before Christmas, the Government proposed a new police funding settlement for 2018-19 which will increase funding by up to £450 million across the police system. It is for police and crime commissioners and chief constables to determine the number of officers required for their force areas.

[Helen Hayes]

On new year’s eve in West Norwood, 17-year-old Kyall Parnell became the 39th victim of a fatal knife attack in England and Wales in 2017. To solve the growing tragedy of knife crime, the police need to be able to work creatively in partnership with communities, the NHS, and other public sector agencies, but the loss of 20,000 officers since 2010 means that forces across the country are stretched to breaking point. Will the Minister guarantee that there will be no further drop in police numbers?

[Mr Hurd]

The short answer is that that is down to the Mayor and the leader of the Met. The hon. Lady is entirely right to talk about these tragic losses of life in tragic terms; lives have been cut very short. However, she is wrong to focus entirely on the question on police officers, because the last time London saw a spike in deaths from knife crime was in 2008, when there were roughly the same number of police officers as there are now.

Police Funding: London

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) on securing this important debate. I want to start by recognising the excellent work that the police do on behalf of local residents in my constituency, which is policed by the Lambeth and Southwark commands, and by mentioning particular examples of excellent practice.

The Lambeth borough commander has worked with a local mum, Lorraine Jones, who lost her son to knife crime, to establish a boxing gym in a railway arch in Loughborough Junction, where police officers volunteer their time each week to train local young people on a programme called the Lambeth Boxing Awards. A local special constable, Steve Whitmore, has established a fantastic project called Books in the Nick, which provides books to people being held in police custody, who are sometimes distressed and vulnerable. Books help to calm people down and offer a gesture of empathy at a time that can seem very bleak.

Officers tell me that they are responding to an ever-increasing number of calls concerning people with a mental illness. They are often the first point of contact for people in a crisis—people who should really be able to access health services to meet their needs and keep them safe. Alongside that work, officers are engaged in some of the most dangerous frontline work in the capital. Lambeth officers were first on scene at the Westminster terror attack, and Southwark and Lambeth officers responded to both the London Bridge attack and the Grenfell Tower fire.

However, the job of our excellent and dedicated officers is getting harder under the policies of this Government. We have heard that the Met has already had to absorb £600 million of cost savings, with a further £400 million to come by 2021. That pressure, direct from the Home Office, is taking its toll on our police in a number of ways. First, neighbourhood policing has declined. The neighbourhood policing model, which established—under the previous Labour Mayor of London—a dedicated team of officers for each ward in the capital, was absolutely critical to building strong relationships between the police and the community. It increased the visibility of the police and built public confidence. It was also absolutely critical in addressing some of the most serious crimes: gang-related violence, knife crime, forced marriage and terror, as well as distressing crimes such as burglary and fraud.

Neighbourhood policing allows a relationship of trust to build up over time, as the police get to know the community they are policing, and the community get to know their local officers. I have watched since 2010, when I was elected to Southwark Council, the neighbourhood policing teams in my ward, and then across the wider constituency, being decimated. Dedicated ward sergeants have been removed and are constantly changing, and the number of dedicated officers has been reduced to just one, who is frequently abstracted to other duties.

Secondly, the number of police front counters that are open to the public has also declined. In the face of further savings that it is required to make as a consequence of the Government’s Budget decisions, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime is currently consulting on further police station closures. Given the spending restraints imposed on the Met by central Government, I completely understand its decision to focus on maintaining police officer numbers rather than buildings. Nevertheless, I am concerned about the impact that further closures will have.

My constituency comprises five wards in Lambeth and three in Southwark. As a result of the latest round of cost savings, it is proposed that every police station counter in Lambeth except Brixton and every police station counter in Southwark except Walworth will close. The closure of further police front-counter services in Lambeth and Southwark will have damaging consequences for the relationship between the police and our communities, the accessibility of the police, and the ability of the police to work efficiently and effectively.

Brixton police station will become the only police station in Lambeth. I have visited Brixton police station on many occasions since I was elected in 2015; it is currently full to capacity. There is no additional space to accommodate further officers in a comfortable and efficient working environment. The custody suite is one of the busiest in London, and the waiting facilities are already small and often overcrowded.

I am concerned about the impact that will have on the motivation and morale of police officers, and the relationship they have with our communities. I am also concerned about the practicalities. With limited and already overcrowded space, how are the police to accommodate victims of crime and those wishing to report crime, alongside people discharging bail conditions? How are the police to improve their practice concerning the reporting of sexual offences, modern day slavery or abuse that has occurred in the past, if every inch of the police station is full to capacity?

My constituency has been disproportionately affected by previous rounds of police station closures under the previous Mayor of London, which have resulted in the loss of East Dulwich police station within the constituency, and Forest Hill, Penge and Camberwell police stations, which are outside the constituency but also served my constituents. Gipsy Hill police station has reduced from a fully functioning front-counter police station to an operational base that is not open to the public. We have also seen the police network of safer neighbourhood team offices being closed and mothballed. That has had a further direct impact on neighbourhood policing in my constituency, with the limited number of officers in neighbourhood policing teams now beginning and ending their shifts at police stations that are, in some cases, as much as an hour’s travel time away from the ward that they serve—decisions made under the previous Mayor of London.

Residents on the Southwark side of my constituency now have to travel to Peckham or Walworth to access a front-counter police service. Although Brixton police station is in my constituency, it is increasingly so busy that it is difficult for residents to access services at the front desk. The contact point services, which were initiated by the previous Mayor, have entirely failed to provide meaningful access to the police for members of the public. In some parts of my constituency, residents already feel that the police are completely inaccessible. The successive closures of police stations, combined with the decimation of neighbourhood policing under the previous Mayor and the very serious problems with the 101 service, mean that in the face of rising robbery, burglary and aggressive antisocial behaviour, many of my constituents increasingly feel that the police are unable to provide the response they need. Further police station closures can only exacerbate the situation.

The Government are forcing through further savings at a time when the pressures on the Met—arising from an increased terror threat, the rise in violent crime, including knife and gun crime, and the growth of online crime and disclosures of historical child abuse as a consequence of the national inquiry—have never been greater. I have no doubt that, in persisting with those cuts, the Government are putting the safety of communities in London at risk.

Even before the terror attacks and major incidents of the past year, a further £400 million of cost savings for the Metropolitan police looked very challenging, but to persist with those cuts in the current context is simply to be reckless with the safety and security of Londoners. Our police need to be properly equipped not only to respond to emergencies, but to build the basis of a relationship with our diverse communities that allows them to police by consent and opens up access to intelligence and information sharing to combat crime. It is that relationship that risks being ripped apart by the approach that the Government are taking to police budget cuts in London. I am calling on the Minister today to reverse the cuts to the Metropolitan police.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)]

14. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of police funding.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

17. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of police funding.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

23. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the 2015 funding settlement for police authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. I am sure she is aware that we have a special grant pot, from which police forces can bid to cover significant, unexpected costs. A number of forces, including Lancashire, have put in bids to cover the costs of fracking protests. That is under review.

[Helen Hayes]

Last month, my constituent Jude Gayle, a young father, was stabbed to death as he returned home—yet another tragic and senseless loss in a growing number of knife attacks, which are up 20% in London over the past year. Will the Home Secretary finally accept that cutting hundreds of millions of pounds from the Metropolitan police budget since 2010 is a reckless approach to the safety and security of Londoners?

[Mr Hurd]

We have not, and I do not necessarily think there is any link between a reduction in police numbers and the outcome in terms of the complex drivers of the crime that the hon. Lady mentioned. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) is totally on top of this in terms of new legislation to ban the sale of zombie knives, for example. What I say, as a London MP, is that the budget for the Met is under review, as is that of every other force in the country, ahead of the 2018-19 funding settlement.