The Riots

Debate between Lord Barwell and Mark Field

Thursday 13th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. For a few weeks after the riots, the public understood the need to concentrate all resources on the operation but, clearly, carrying that on for a whole year would impact on other areas of police work.

The next issue I want to refer to is the crucial one of intelligence. Crimestoppers has made a great contribution. The police will say that they were receiving intelligence from people who would not normally provide it. In the two weeks before the Conservative party conference, however, I visited every school and sixth-form college in my constituency, to talk to young people about their attitudes. On the vast suite of issues, their views were similar to those of my middle-aged and more elderly constituents, but on one issue there is a difference: their attitude towards the police. Young people of all backgrounds, but in particular young black men, do not have confidence that the police are there and on their side. I am in my late 30s, and it seems to me that the police have moved on a long way from the situation when I was growing up, but it is clear that a significant problem remains. The police must ensure that they win the respect and trust of the people they are policing. Policing in this country is based on the principle of policing by consent. At the moment, that consent is not there from crucial sections of the community that they need to police.

In Croydon, as in many other areas of the country, there was a huge public response, which was seen in the clean-up afterwards and in donations of money to help rebuild the House of Reeves store and some of the other damaged properties. Since the riots, I have seen more than 60 people in my surgery who have had ideas for projects to work with young people and to stop such events happening again. Government and local government must ask how we co-ordinate that upsurge of good will and ensure that some of those projects come to fruition.

I also wish to touch on the issue of bringing those responsible to justice. First, I want to praise the courts for the speed of their response. Court staff, some of whom may well be made redundant over the coming months as a result of the savings being made, went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that the courts processed cases quickly. There must be a question for the Ministry of Justice about whether that swifter process of justice can be maintained so that those who have committed violent crimes are taken to court sooner, rather than after often long delays.

The Ministry of Justice research tells us that those who committed offences during the riots were more likely to receive an immediate custodial sentence and a longer sentence than if they had committed the same offence a month earlier. I spent much of the summer defending that sentencing approach against various eminent lawyers on TV and radio, because it has done much to restore faith in our criminal justice system. I quote what his honour Judge Andrew Gilbert, QC, said when sentencing defendants at Manchester Crown court:

“The people of Manchester and Salford are all entitled to look to the law for protection and to the courts to punish those who behaved so outrageously. It would be wholly unreal therefore for me to have regard only to the specific acts which you committed as if they had been committed in isolation...Those acts were not committed in isolation and, as I have already indicated, it is a fact which substantially aggravates the gravity of this offence. The court has to pay regard to the level and nature of the criminal conduct that night, to its scale, the extent to which it was premeditated, the number of persons engaged…and finally…the specific acts of the individual defendant…For the purposes of these sentences, I have no doubt at all that the principal purpose is that the Courts should show that outbursts of criminal behaviour like this will be and must be met with sentences longer than they would be if the offences had been committed in isolation.”

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I entirely agree with those sentiments, but does my hon. Friend accept my view that sentencing should and must remain an issue for an independent judiciary, whether courts or magistrates? The bigger concern was that some of the exemplary sentences in the immediate aftermath were being egged on by the political class or the press, and it would be a retrograde step for justice to be meted out in that way and not left firmly in the hands of those who are experienced in sentencing matters.

[Gavin Barwell]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Decisions on individual sentences must be for judges and magistrates. It is reasonable for us as Members of Parliament to reflect in generality the views of our constituents, but the individual decisions must remain with judges and magistrates.

I wish to comment on some figures from my borough commander about the impact on crime resulting from that sentencing approach. If we compare Croydon in the period of 17 July to 14 August—including the day when the riots took place—with the period of 15 August to 11 September, property crime is well down, as we would expect because a huge number of property offences were committed on 8 August, but violent crime is down by more than 20%. That seems to show clearly that we are offered a false choice on crime and punishment, between those who argue for a tough punishment and that prison works and those who say that it and rehabilitation do not work and that people come out and reoffend. It seems to me that both those things are true: removing dangerous, violent people from the streets gives a break to the law-abiding and leads to a reduction in crime, but we must also reform our prisons so that they do a more effective job of rehabilitating people and changing their pattern of behaviour.

Finally, I want to turn to some of the underlying issues and come back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). It is important that Government and Opposition politicians reflect on some of their long-held views. When I listened to the statement and the debate on 11 August, some argued that the disorder was purely a matter of criminality and moral failing, while others argued that it was all about inequality and unfairness in society. It seems to me, again, that both arguments have some merit.

Clearly, there are issues about parenting and a lack of fathers. As a man, I certainly feel that there is a real role for making the case for the responsibility that men have, if they were present when the child was conceived, for the rest of that child’s life.