Violent Crime

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, this summer our older daughter, a teenager, said to me that she was scared to come home from the tube station in the evenings and told me stories about attacks on her friends and people she knew. What is our country coming to? It was reported in the Times just now that the police ignore a third of all crimes after a single call. According to the Times:

“The Met, which used to send a police officer to every crime if requested by the victim, assesses 37 per cent of reports over the telephone … The force has cited budget cuts and a need to focus on surging violence and sexual offences … In addition, 1.26 million calls to the Met’s non-emergency 101 number were abandoned last year, with callers having to wait 15 minutes”.


It added that, around the country, police are dropping investigations into so-called “volume crime”—

“the lower-level offences which affect the majority of victims—because of budget cuts”.

This is the main issue. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, a former commissioner, Met numbers in London have fallen below 30,000 for the first time in 15 years. Cressida Dick, our hugely capable and impressive Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has said that a lack of resources was a factor in homicides reaching a 10-year high.

What are we doing? How are we going to deal with this? The police are defending the new initiative of moped ramming. “Tactical contact” has been used 63 times, which has resulted in a significant reduction in levels of crime involving mopeds. Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, has said:

“Risk-assessed tactical contact is exactly what we need. Criminals are not above the law”.


There are many examples of its use. In Camden, there were 742 moped crimes in October 2017. That has gone down to 72, a reduction of 90%, so it is working. Will the Minister confirm that these police will be backed up, or will they be left to the mercy of the courts? The reason I ask is that, under the law at the moment, officers run the risk of being charged for dangerous or careless driving, because the common standard of “careful and competent driver” applies equally. During its peak, some criminals stole up to 30 phones in an hour, with victims often targeted outside tube stations.

There are more and more accusations that the Government are losing control in the fight against crime. Figures show that offences rose by 14%, while the number of police officers has plummeted to record lows. We have heard about the surge in knife crime. There have been increases in all other crimes, including burglary, sexual offences, car theft and robbery.

The big issue is that the number of police officers has fallen to 121,929, the lowest figure since comparable records began 22 years ago. On top of that, there has been a fall in neighbourhood policing. It has been referred to in this debate as a shadow of itself. I do not see neighbourhood policing officers in the area where we live at all; we used to see them riding or walking around regularly. Overall funding has fallen by 18%, taking inflation into account, compared with an increase in funding of 31% between 2000-01 and 2010-11. Direct government funding has fallen by 25% over the same period. Of course, everyone relies on government funding as well as local funding. This is really serious. The number of homicides has increased hugely. The data is all very frightening. There were 40,000 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument—a 16% increase. What is going on? These figures are corroborated by records of National Health Service hospital admissions resulting from these crimes.

We need to build resilience. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for this debate. How do we build resilience in our youngsters, who risk being drawn into crime? The Home Secretary says he is behind this strategy. We have heard that a public health attitude needs to be adopted to cope with this. The Mayor of London is under huge pressure to give the right support. Again, he says the cuts are to blame. The St Giles Trust, a charity that works with young people involved in gangs and serious violence, also welcomes this strategy. It particularly noted the support for prevention through the early intervention youth fund.

The mayor says he wants to break up the wider culture. The Home Secretary says that he is behind this and wants to take a fresh look. Could the Minister tell us what the Government are doing about this? We hear about good intentions, but we are not seeing the action; we are just seeing the crime figures going up.

On top of that, we now hear that the police are being forced to deal with mental health issues because of a lack of resources in the NHS. Inspector Zoe Billingham said that police are answering mental health calls at the expense of “ordinary crimes”. Does the Minister accept that this is the case? With 1.1 million violent crimes recorded—an increase of 21%—the rising trend has simply continued. Recorded crime has gone up by 9% in England and Wales. These are record figures throughout. The police are under so much pressure that there are reports that here in London, police officers are having to give up holidays and work extra time, and are experiencing stress. On top of that, Rory Stewart, the Justice Minister, says:

“Knife crime is horrifying—it causes catastrophic damage to families with tragic consequences. We need sentences that punish anyone who commits knife crime and deters anyone from doing it”.


Is our criminal justice system good enough to cope with this? There was the following headline in one of the papers: “‘A lost generation’: How austerity has created a vacuum being filled by drug gangs exploiting children”.

Before I conclude, I turn to Brexit. There is now a huge threat that we will lack access to the European arrest warrant and Europol, and that public safety will be put at risk because we will not have the immediate access to the data that we do now. Exchanges take place between European police forces and our police forces that we do not even know about and take for granted. Will that be available, particularly in a no-deal Brexit situation?

This is a very worrying situation. Scotland Yard is a global brand and has historically been respected as the finest police force in the world. We are letting down Scotland Yard and we are letting down our citizens, and the number one priority of any Government should be the security of its citizens.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking all noble Lords who took part in this debate. In all my time as a Minister it has been one of the best debates I have heard, because the contributions were both constructive and far-ranging. They have given me food for thought as we address what has become a growing problem affecting communities across the country. We heard this from the outset as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, gave the stark example of the event along the road from him. It must have had a terrible impact on his community, and the issue faces all local authorities and police forces across England and Wales.

It is a horrible statistic that since the beginning of the year there have been 128 reported homicides in London alone, and the majority have been stabbings. In this month alone three teenage boys were fatally stabbed in separate incidents in Bellingham, Clapham and Tulse Hill at the beginning of the month, and just last week another teenager was stabbed in Romford. It is horrific for families, friends and communities, and it cannot continue. There is no sugar-coating what is going on at the moment.

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, brought domestic homicides into the mix. I was interested to find out whether the incidence of such homicides had increased. In fact, the figure is static at about 95 a year. Well, the deaths of 95 women through domestic abuse is still far too many, despite all our efforts.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, talked about a cross-government approach to this. Almost all noble Lords who spoke talked about this approach, and they were absolutely right to do so. The noble Lord challenged me at the end of his speech to say how the Government intend to go forward with a cross-Whitehall approach to something that is at the heart of the priorities of most Members of both this House and the other place. Having made the commitment to a cross-government approach, I can say from my local authority point of view of the old days that that is something I was very keen on. I looked at it in the context of troubled families and it is absolutely the right challenge for government in the fight against serious crime.

I will talk about our overall approach to the strategy. It is a priority for this Government and it is why we published our Serious Violence Strategy in April of this year. I was pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, talk about the strategy from the point of view of a 19 year-old girl. She challenged the Government by saying that we could not let this girl down. I agree that we cannot let her down. We cannot let down any 19 year-old girl—or any other young person—in what we do to tackle this, because it is one of the most serious problems of our age and of young people’s lives, particularly in London.

The strategy sets out the Government’s response, which involves 61 commitments and actions. It represents a step change in the way we think about and respond to serious violence. We completely agree with the point made by all noble Lords about a cross-government approach and the fact that our approach needs to be multiagency across a number of sectors, including education, health, social services, housing, youth services and of course victims’ services—all the things that most noble Lords, and the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, in particular, talked about. Law enforcement is very important, but we also need the active engagement of partners and different sectors so that we can address the causes of violent crime, especially among young people. That is why we placed our multiagency, early intervention approach at the heart of the Serious Violence Strategy.

The noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Kennedy, pointed out, quite rightly, that the drivers of knife crime are complex. They are.

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, talked about the impact of police cuts, but I think all noble Lords who spoke recognised that there is not a simple solution. I think it might have been the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who said that if there were a simple solution, we would have cracked this years ago. I am not decrying any factors. I think we can agree that there are multiple factors involved in the rise in serious violence, particularly the notable changes in the drugs market over the past couple of years.

As the Chancellor recognised in his Budget speech, the police are under pressure from the changing nature of crime, and I think the past five years have probably seen the biggest change in the type of crime that we are looking at now and in the future. In addition to the extra money that the Chancellor announced for counterterrorism, the Home Office is looking at how it can ensure that the police have the resources they need ahead of the 2019-20 police funding settlement. To answer the question asked by noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, the Home Secretary has been clear that his priority is to ensure that the police have the right resources in place as well as, as the noble Lord also pointed out, looking at the effectiveness of police forces at the same time. The noble Lord posed a challenge about the number of police forces we have. I think that is probably a debate for another day because we could make a full two-hour debate of it today.

The noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie of Framwellgate, referred to Sara Thornton’s point about less hate crime policing. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, talked about more neighbourhood policing. I am going to irritate him when I say that it is up to PCCs to decide the priorities of their forces. I read an article by Lynne Owens in the paper the other day. She posed the question: are we looking at 19th-century solutions to 21st-century problems? We possibly are. I will leave that question hanging. The reason I raise it is that noble Lords have talked about cybercrime, the harms of online crime and the whole different way in which perpetrators of crime operate, such as county lines, and the advent of technology which makes that pattern of behaviour easier.

[Lord Bilimoria]

I accept what the Minister says about the changing world of technology, but surely, given that a recent survey shows that 50% of the public have not seen a police officer in a year and that neighbourhood policing plays a role in dealing with terrorism and in communicating with the community, there is no substitute for it.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I do not dispute the role that local policing plays. I am trying to set out the broader context and the changing way in which criminals operate. I am not decrying local policing. I am saying that if it is a priority of local police forces, then that is what they should do. I appreciate that local policing gives reassurance to communities, which it definitely does, but I was trying to point out the broader context of the changing face of crime.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, talked about police pensions not being adequately funded. I can tell him that Her Majesty’s Treasury has provided additional funding of above £165 million to cover some of the impact of the increase in employer contributions in 2019-20. Decisions on police funding will be announced at the settlement on 6 December. Funding for 2020-21 will be considered as part of the spending review, so I ask the noble Lord to watch this space.