Violent Crime

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I genuinely thank the right hon. Gentleman for all that he does on this issue. It is a particular issue in his constituency, and I respect his work. I welcome that announcement about youth workers. The way in which youth services have been funded is, of course, a point of tension between the Government and the Opposition, but if the London Borough of Newham has been able to find the resources to invest in that, and if it thinks that that is the best way of spending that money, that is the sort of local approach that we fully support. I wish those youth workers the very best in their work in his constituency.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The recent murders in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) have sent shockwaves through our borough. Knife crime in Tower Hamlets has increased by 34% over the past eight years. We are having to come to the House week in, week out to ask the Government to intervene, to provide more policing, more youth facilities and more services, to protect people, to prevent crime, and to prevent the needless loss of lives. Does the Minister agree that this crisis is a national emergency? Although she has been put up to defend the Government and to explain the situation, this is not good enough. The Government must take serious action and invest serious amounts of money to tackle this problem, or we will sadly be back here again next week and the week after to raise these issues. Things cannot go on like this.

[Victoria Atkins]

I respectfully remind the hon. Lady that if she reads the serious violence strategy, she will see the key drivers of serious violence that have been identified by my excellent Home Office officials. Looking at the evidence, she will also be reminded of the fact that those drivers include drugs, and she will know of our international work to draw together colleagues from across the world to share intelligence and operational best practice as to how to tackle serious violence. For example, at the Prime Minister’s knife crime summit we heard from an eminent professor from Chicago about how violence in the home is a high indicator that someone will be either a victim or a perpetrator of violence on the streets. That is why, for example, the domestic abuse Bill, the introduction of which I hope the whole House supports, is a key piece of work. Although I absolutely hear and understand representations about resources, we cannot just look at this as a resources issue. We must look at the wider key drivers of crime, which include drugs and violence in the home.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The settlement scheme is working incredibly well. To update the House, 800,000 applications have already been made since its launch, with almost 700,000 concluded. The hon. Gentleman mentions Windrush, and if he wants another Windrush, he should continue with the proposal that he just suggested.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

14. What steps he is taking to tackle the rising level of knife crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Just some of the actions we are taking to tackle knife crime include: strengthening the law through the Offensive Weapons Act 2019; establishing the national county lines co-ordination centre; consulting on a new duty to support a multi-agency public health approach; launching the £100 million serious violence fund in the spring statement; and providing new lesson plans to schools as part of our #knifefree campaign. We take careful note of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s recent comments about knife crime levelling off, and I am sure we all support the police’s efforts to tackle this.

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank the Minister for her answer, but there were 18,000 assaults and 17,000 robberies involving a knife or a sharp object in the year ending 2018. The Government have cut police officer numbers by 21,000, and two weeks ago there was a murder in Tower Hamlets due to a knife attack. Does she agree that the Home Secretary is not fit to be the next Prime Minister, considering that he has lost control of law and order in his Department?

[Victoria Atkins]

I have to say that I think this is such a serious subject—I understand the hon. Lady’s comments about her constituency—but I do not think this is the appropriate forum to make those sorts of comments. What I do know is that the Government, working with the police, local authorities, the medical profession and educationalists, are doing everything we can not just to tackle the causes of knife crime through law enforcement efforts but to intervene early to stop young people carrying knives before they take that terrible step, which can affect not only their lives but other families and communities.

Serious Violence

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I do not think that this is a small pot of funding. I have referred to the £200 million that is targeted at early intervention, and I think that will make a difference. For example, I am supporting Redthread, whose work in trauma units in hospitals will be extended to London, Birmingham and other places.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

We have lost 3,600 youth workers, along with the places mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty). We have also lost nearly 7,000 of the community support officers who play such an important role in preventing crime. Is the Home Secretary aware that the National Citizen Service, a flagship Government-funded programme initiated by the former Prime Minister, sucks up most of the youth service budget? I am not denigrating its work—it does good work—but some of its spending is deeply concerning, such as the £10 million spent on a rebranding exercise, which could have been spent on tackling youth crime.

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[Sajid Javid]

I agree with the hon. Lady that I want more of those types of youth facilities in more communities. The action we are taking by working with our partners will certainly allow that to happen.

[Rushanara Ali]

Will the Home Secretary give way one more time?

[Sajid Javid]

I must make some progress.

We also continue to refresh our national media campaign, which I referred to earlier. The #knifefree campaign warns young people about the dangers of carrying a knife.

I want to highlight a third action, which is the multi-agency public health approach, and how it can help to tackle violent crime. It involves all parts of the public sector working together to stop serious violence. To make that happen, we are consulting on a new legal duty to ensure that every agency plays its part. Our teachers, nurses and social workers already work tirelessly to protect our children. It is not about asking them to do any more, because they already do so much; it is about giving them the support and the confidence they need to report their concerns, safe in the knowledge that everyone will close ranks to protect that child. It is also about ensuring that all agencies share information to ensure that no one slips through the cracks. To support the multi-agency approach, we are investing £35 million in new violence reduction units to bring local partners together in hotspots. Work is under way to finalise those plans; I hope to provide an update on the proposals in the coming weeks.

Finally, we are investigating the root causes of violence so we can tackle the problem at source. We know that social media plays a part, with gangs trading weapons and taunting each other online. Our new “Online Harms White Paper” sets out our expectations for internet companies to do more. Later this month, the Met will launch a new social media hub to enhance our response.

The changing drugs market and the growth of county lines gangs is another key factor. The National Crime Agency estimates that there are about 2,000 active county lines fuelling serious violence. Last September, we set up the national county lines co-ordination centre. It is already showing results, with more than 1,100 people arrested and more than 1,300 people safeguarded following national intensification weeks.

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[Douglas Ross]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s point. The focus on reoffending is most important. When the Minister gave evidence last week, I think she had recently been speaking to the Premier League about how we use sport as a tool to work with young people. So much sport goes on every day of the week all across the country. There is untapped potential to use sport as a key to improve our relationship with young people.

[Rushanara Ali]

I know the hon. Gentleman is a recent addition to the House of Commons, but in the 2010 Parliament the Government cut school sports funding, a provision that benefited all children up and down the country. It feels like we are back to square one. Conservative Members talk about the merits of school sport and sport generally, but we have actually gone backwards because of those cuts.

[Douglas Ross]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but we have to be very careful that we do not just rely on the Government to pay for everything. For example, we have extremely rich football clubs in this country. Surely they can put their resources, which they gain from fans week in, week out, back into the communities they serve. One of the most disappointing things we heard from the young people who spoke to us was that they could see the major football stadiums from the communities they lived in and were victims of crime in, but could not find a way into those football stadiums to get any benefit from them. I sometimes think we rely too much on Government intervention, when the private sector—clubs and so on—could do far more to work within communities.

I know that many Members wish to speak in the debate, so I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. I agree with the Home Secretary that this is a national emergency. It is right that the Government have highlighted it as such and are working across Departments to deal with it. It is right that we are debating it on the Floor of the House of Commons today. I hope that communities affected by serious violence—individuals, families or communities at large—take some comfort from the fact that this issue is being debated in the House of Commons and is of such serious importance for Members on both sides of the House that something is being done. Unless we work on this issue within Government, across Government and across Parliament, we will not make an impact.

We have seen that just one life lost is one too many. We are seeing too many lives lost as a result of serious violence. I believe the Government’s strategy and their emphasis on getting it right will save lives in the future. That is surely to be welcomed.

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[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

It is clear from this debate, and from the experience of our constituents, that the Government are losing the war on violent crime. A generation of young people in urban and rural areas is growing up in fear of violence, in fear of knife crime and gun crime, and in fear of losing their lives on the very streets on which they live.

Knife-related homicide is at its highest level since recording began in 1946. Some 285 people were killed with knives and sharp instruments in 2017-18, and there were 18,000 assaults and 17,000 robberies involving a knife or a sharp object in the year to September 2018, as well as 3,000 threats to kill. It is not just knives, but guns too. Last year, gun crime increased by 11%, to 6,604 recorded offences, compared with 2016. It has not always been like this. In the past eight years, knife crime in Tower Hamlets has increased by 34%, from 794 offences in 2010-11 to 1,065 offences in 2017-18.

Each and every incident is horrific, as has been highlighted by many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), who has campaigned tirelessly on this issue. Each murder creates a shattering lifetime of grief for the friends and family of the victim. Each wounding can change lives forever, causing physical disability and mental trauma and reducing life expectancy. However, these incidents also have a deeper impact on our society, as others have mentioned. The increase in violent crime creates a climate of fear and suspicion. It adds to anxiety and has an impact on mental health. It creates a divide between the generations and between communities. It drives a wedge into our society, and makes us distrustful of our fellow citizens and apprehensive about entering public spaces.

Why is this happening? There are those who claim that it is all down to an increase in reporting, as the shadow Home Secretary pointed out. Of course, that would be entirely welcome, but it does not explain the spike in numbers. A number of my hon. Friends have pointed out some of the underlying causes, and we do not need a degree in criminology to understand what is going on here. In particular, there are major factors in play that, whether the Government recognise it or not, relate in part to the erosion of the resources and support available for young people, which can be seen from Sure Start to youth services, school sports, education, further education, those with special needs, children in care, and children at risk of being excluded from school. In those and a number of other areas, young people’s support networks and the resources available to back them up, help them achieve and help them realise their potential have been shattered. Instead, young people are victims of crime and, at worst, face death as a consequence of knife crime and other violent crime. That is a waste of talent and potential in our society, and it creates fear and has an impact in the wider community as well.

Funding for local authority children’s services has fallen by £3 billion since 2010. Since 2010, hundreds of millions of pounds have also been axed from youth services; as has been mentioned, there has been a reduction of 138,000 in the number of youth service places and an overall cut of £760 million. Some 3,600 youth workers have been lost from our communities; those people help to support our young people, but they are no longer in those roles. Central Government funding for youth offending schemes has also halved, from £145 million in 2010 to £72 million in 2017-18. So it is not by accident that we have ended up here. These catastrophic cuts have contributed to undermining support, and they are underlying factors in what has happened and in the rise in violent crime.

That is not to mention the significant cuts in policing. In London, numbers have fallen below 30,000 officers. There has also been a cut of 6,800 in police community support officers, who have been the backbone of community policing. They spot problems early and work with young people and other services in a multi-agency approach to support young people before they get into further trouble and face the threat of violence, or end up being groomed by organised criminal gangs and drugs gangs and facing the same plight as so many young people who have lost their lives. In London, we have lost a third of police staff posts as well.

In my constituency and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, we had 125 police community support officers in 2010, and the number went down drastically to just 27 in 2017. That is a 78% cut, and such cuts have consequences. Combined, the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Hackney—they have had to merge into a borough command unit, partly because of the cuts—have lost 500 officers in the past nine years. That has a consequence. The idea is that by adding a plaster to the wound with some additional funding here and there the Government can reverse the damage that those massive cuts have had over the past few years, but frankly that is tinkering around the edges. It is just not going to address the major problem of violent crime that we face in our society.

We need to look into where legal changes might be necessary, but it is really important that the Government do not respond in a kneejerk way and return to disproportionate stop-and-search policies that end up turning communities, particularly the black and minority community, against the police. The use of stop-and-search must remain proportionate and safe, people must be protected, and innocent people must not be caught up in it. We have to make sure that we invest in police services, and in our young people through youth services, Sure Start centres, children’s centres, holiday projects, boxing clubs and other sports facilities, on the scale that is required. We need to invest in drugs action teams, which have lost funding. In constituencies such as mine, they have been doing incredible work to prevent young people from returning to gangs. We also need to deal with addiction issues and mental health projects, because funding for child mental health programmes has been cut. All these are interconnected issues. The joint approach—the public health model—is important, but it has to mean something. Just calling it the public health approach without backing it with resources is not going to work.

There is rightly general consensus that we absolutely have to deal with the terrible issue of serious violence, which is affecting our constituents and the whole of society. I am sure we all now have a greater fear of violent crime than we ever did, because this is happening in our communities. It is happening to people we know, their family members or their relatives. I know that through my work in my constituency: murders have taken place in our borough and there are reports of knife crime almost on a weekly basis. We need the Government to put in the investment and act, and we need to ensure that we do everything possible to prevent further deaths.

Overseas Students: English Language Tests

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I certainly would not draw a parallel. This was criminal behaviour and there have been significant sentences imposed on those who were perpetrating the fraud. Indeed, there are ongoing criminal investigations whereby we may yet see more convictions. It is important that we take stock of this and that we reflect on the NAO report when it is published and made available to us. As I have said, the Home Secretary will come to the House and make a full statement when we have the NAO findings. He continues, and indeed I continue, to review this situation and work out what is the best way forward.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

There is no doubt that we are concerned not about those who have committed crimes but about the innocent people who have been caught up in this. If the Government were so confident in ETS, they would not have stopped using ETS. In that context, what financial settlement was reached between the Home Office and ETS after its licence was revoked?

[Caroline Nokes]

As I mentioned earlier, the licence was revoked in July 2014, and the Home Office moved swiftly to revoke that licence. Action was taken against ETS but, because of the commercial sensitivities, I am afraid I cannot divulge details. However, I will ascertain from Home Office lawyers whether I can write to the hon. Lady and let her have that information.

Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

First, a good economy is certainly one of the ways we can try to make sure that people feel more empowered. We will differ about how to go about that between both sides of the House, but employment is a very good start point. When we mix and engage with people in our workplaces, we learn about people’s differences and, I hope, become stronger together. The Government have also funded—with £63 million, through the Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary—the Building a Stronger Britain Together fund, which is working with 230 community groups up and down the country to make sure that we work together better, integrate better and understand each other better.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Last Friday, the Mayor of London and I attended the East London mosque for a vigil in solidarity with the victims of the terror attack in New Zealand. As we left, an anti-Muslim hate crime attack took place in my constituency, despite what had happened. Will the Minister look at how to take far-right activism, far-right groups and the threat more seriously? For years, we have campaigned for some of those groups to be proscribed, and the Government have fallen short. I ask him to take that much more seriously, to look at making online platforms responsible for the content of what they provide and to consider the German approach of fining online companies when hate crime material—online hate propaganda—is on those sites. Without making them responsible and making them pay for what they host, we are not going to be able to tackle this appalling level of hatred against Muslims and also against other minorities.

[Mr Wallace]

I do not, and neither do the police or the intelligence services I work with, in any way miss or fail to recognise the threat from the far right. It was this Government who first proscribed a far-right, neo-Nazi group—National Action—over 18 months ago. We did that, and we have subsequently taken action against a number of people and organisers. On hate crime, which is also one of the planks we need to take away from extremists, we have funded a £1.5 million action plan. We have asked the Law Commission to review the hate crime legislation to make sure it is fit for purpose. No doubt, the Law Commission will look at hate crime in the online space as well, and I hope it can feed into the online harms White Paper that is coming soon.

Shamima Begum and Other Cases

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend. Much work has been done when the UK has suffered some terrible terrorist attacks, and the Government have been required to consider sensibly what more can be done to help us to understand what motivates individuals either to commit acts of terrorism here or to go and join foreign groups abroad.

My right hon. Friend rightly talked about communities and community relations. It should be borne in mind that many members of the British Muslim community do not want foreign terrorist fighters to return to this country, because they fear both the precedent that that will set for future potential foreign fighters and the radicalism of vulnerable young British Muslims by those returning foreign fighters.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Shamima Begum was my constituent. She fled to Syria in 2015, along with two other girls, after being groomed and radicalised—mainly online—and influenced by a former classmate who had left earlier. As the Home Secretary will know, the police were working in enormously difficult circumstances, but one of the errors made was their sending letters about interviewing the girls to the girls themselves instead of their parents. The police subsequently apologised for the error. The girls were minors then, and they had not committed crimes at the time when Shamima Begum fled.

I recognise, especially given what she has said in the media, the abhorrent views that Shamima Begum now holds and the fact that she has been radicalised, but, that said, no child should face punishment for the sins of its parent, and in this case that child is the child that died. I disagree with the Home Secretary’s decision to rescind her citizenship, because doing so makes her stateless, given that the Bangladeshi authorities do not recognise that she has citizenship of their country.

That said, national security and the protection of our communities are paramount. I want to flag up some of the issues that my constituents have raised, because we need to think deeply about how we deal with them. My constituents are concerned about the fact that the case has gained the oxygen of publicity, and about the abhorrent views that have been allowed to be peddled in our media day in, day out. My constituents are worried about the repercussions and the possibility of a backlash from far-right groups. I have already had cases of innocent people, who happen to be Muslim, being attacked. Those are the issues that we have to reckon with and deal with.

My constituents are concerned to ensure that if people are returned—as they should be, given the debates about nationality—they should be prosecuted and face the full force of the law. If those people are returned into their communities, we face the massive challenge of dealing with backlashes in those returnees’ localities. Our constituents become vulnerable to attacks from the far right and other religious extremists, and they may face unhelpful media attention while they are trying to get on with their lives.

I ask the Home Secretary this, once again: will he please work with the Foreign Secretary and our allies in other countries to come up with a long-term solution? We must address the problem of people who go to conflict regions, to ensure that they do not find clandestine ways to return to our country, create more insecurity and pose a greater danger to people’s lives.

[Sajid Javid]

I listened carefully to what the hon. Lady said. As she said, sadly, a number of her constituents are known to have gone to Syria to join Daesh and other terrorist groups. I understand the concerns that have been raised in the community, and she touched on some of them. She might be interested to know that I recently visited a Prevent panel in Tower Hamlets to see some of its excellent work with many members of the community. It safeguards vulnerable young people not only against groups such as Daesh but against far-right extremism, which she mentioned.

The hon. Lady has said a lot, and I have listened carefully. If it would help, I would be very happy to meet her later and discuss some of those issues in more detail.

Knife Crime

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Last week, a knife attack led to the death of one of my constituents, and before Christmas three people were attacked outside a GP surgery. People are living in absolute terror. Although this is affecting young people in particular, it is affecting all communities up and down the country. Since 2010, 21,000 police officers have been taken out of our system. If the Home Secretary wants our support, he absolutely has it in lobbying the Prime Minister and the Chancellor so that we can have those police officers reinstated. The one thing he can do is to shore up our police services, because they are at breaking point and desperately need support to bring an end to knife crime. I cannot, and I know other colleagues cannot, bear the thought of having to return to this House in weeks and months to come having witnessed stories of further fatalities and deaths. That is why the Home Secretary needs to take action. Labour Members will support him to lobby for more funding, but he needs to put pressure on his Prime Minister and his Chancellor to fund our police service urgently and reinstate 21,000 officers in our system.

[Sajid Javid]

First, the hon. Lady rightly reminds us that these tragic crimes are of course affecting all communities—not just young people but communities of all ages. She talks about the importance of police resources. I hope that she will welcome the increase in police funding, which is the largest increase since 2010 and will help to make a big difference on the ground, including to policing in London. But I hope that she also recognises that this cannot just be all about resources. There is a need to look at police powers as well, and that is why the Offensive Weapons Bill is very important. It is also about resources in other areas such as early intervention.

Antisocial Behaviour

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend’s intervention sets out very clearly the difference and how the role of PCSOs is valued in Wales.

There are some good initiatives happening in Humberside to tackle antisocial behaviour, particularly where the police are working alongside active Labour councillors such as Rosie Nicola, Gary Wareing, Steve Wilson, Gwen Lunn, Marjorie Brabazon and Anita Harrison, who are all determined to tackle antisocial behaviour in their areas—for example, by using a mobile cop shop to move to areas where problems develop. With the current problems with attacks on buses, there are also plans to use a Trojan bus with police aboard who can take action if stones and other items are thrown at the bus. They can stop the bus, get off and deal with it.

The police are showing a video in local schools demonstrating the effects of antisocial behaviour. I think the video came from Dundee and contains the example of a child throwing a stone at a driver who then swerved, hit a pram and killed a baby. That kind of video is useful in educating children and young people about the effects of what they think might be a prank. Humberside has also pioneered Operation Yellowfin to combat crime with motorbikes—another big problem in my area—and has received national recognition for its work with local petrol stations to prevent people who commit antisocial behaviour on motorbikes and mopeds from being able to buy petrol. That said, we need a routine long-term police presence to deter and detect antisocial behaviour, not just special one-off operations when things get really bad.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fundamental problem is that, with 21,000 police officers having been taken out of the system, along with PCSOs and others, it is an uphill struggle and that the Government must take seriously the need to put in significant resources if we are to tackle antisocial behaviour? At the moment, the police are having to deal with violent crime, which has gone up by 19% in the last year, and so of necessity are deprioritising antisocial behaviour, which is making people’s lives a misery and terrorising our constituents.

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I could not agree more.

We should recognise the important work that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) has been doing in identifying the off-rolling of school pupils. Owing to changes in the education landscape and the academisation of schools, there has been an increase in the number of children who are being home-educated. They disappear from the school system, and many then become part of the antisocial behaviour problem. I should be interested to know the Minister’s view. I should also like to know whether she is willing to speak to her colleagues in the Department for Education, and whether she thinks that including education representatives in the community safety partnerships might be a way of dealing with the problem.

We also need to do much more in relation to mental health. We need to understand what antisocial behaviour does to people’s health and wellbeing, to understand that mental health issues can be one of the reasons why perpetrators become involved in antisocial behaviour, and to understand the help that they require.

One idea that could be rolled out nationally came from New York in the 1990s, when the mayor adopted a zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour, fly-tipping, rubbish-dumping and graffiti. The outcomes were very positive. If a window was broken it was fixed, if rubbish piled up it was moved, and if people behaved in an antisocial way they were dealt with. If that is to work here, however, it will need stable funding, and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), the money must come from central Government. It will also need a multi-agency approach, and strong political leadership both nationally and locally. I understand that there is a plan to adopt this approach in Beverley Road in my constituency, where there are multiple issues connected with antisocial behaviour, but sadly, although it has been much talked about, not much progress has been made so far, and communities are still suffering from the blight of antisocial behaviour.

I should also like the Minister to consider the effects of supported housing for those who have drug and alcohol problems or mental health issues, or have recently left prison. In Hull there are many projects in Victorian terraced housing in tightly packed neighbourhoods, with limited support. I often receive complaints about shouting, swearing, drinking, drug-taking and threats of violence in those properties. There is also a large hostel, Westbourne House, in a residential area. Along with the police and crime commissioner, we believe that the hostel is in the wrong location and causes antisocial behaviour problems in the neighbourhood. Establishing such hostels and supported housing in settled communities can cause real problems. I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about better guidance on where they should be located, better monitoring and better enforcement of contracts, and will also consider whether the Care Quality Commission needs more powers.

A report by the National Audit Office shows the scale of the funding reductions in my city since 2010. There has been a 37% decrease in Government funding for the council. Early intervention schemes have been cut back, and now focus only on those who are most desperately in need and in crisis. Children’s centres no longer have their original purpose of providing a universal service for all families, and voluntary and youth groups have been cut. Those cuts, along with all the others, are creating a perfect storm in our most disadvantaged communities. Cuts in services are often a false economy, because they will cost taxpayers much more in the longer term.

Another aspect of antisocial behaviour involves neighbour disputes. Constituents tell me that they have to fill in numerous diary sheets, and nothing ever happens. Hull City Council has told me that it has to demonstrate a “pattern of behaviour”, and needs the sheets in order to do so, but even then the behaviour may not be serious enough to lead to enforcement action, namely eviction. I am also told that owing to the current pressure on the courts, when the council does go for eviction and has all the evidence to hand, it can take as long as eight months—or more—for that to happen. Even when dates are given for hearings, they are often adjourned. Antisocial behaviour of that kind causes real upset and distress, and I should like to hear from the Minister what more she thinks she could do to tackle it.

When the coalition Government took office in 2010, they changed antisocial behaviour legislation. I believe that that action was led by the Liberal Democrats, who thought that Labour’s legislation was too draconian, and obviously felt that they should be more on the side of the perpetrators than on that of the victims. Community protection notices can work quite well, but they cannot be issued to those under 16. In the case of under-16s, the only option is the use of injunctions. The council tells me that the problem with injunctions is that they are very hard to enforce. Hull City Council has to get good evidence and signed affidavits and it has to apply to the court and pay fees. It has to bear the burden of getting the injunctions, but if they are breached, very little happens.

This is linked to my concern about criminal behaviour orders, which are available only when a conviction has been achieved. I recently came across a young man who had been given a CBO and who had breached it multiple times. He went to court, but no action was taken even though he was terrorising the local community. I have written to Justice Ministers about this several times, but I have not had a satisfactory response, so I hope that the Minister will be able to help me to get one. I suggest that it is time for a review of the legislation and of the training of the judiciary and their understanding of the effects of antisocial behaviour.

In conclusion, I want to remind Members of a story that my friend, the former right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras, Frank Dobson, used to tell about Lena Jeger when she was campaigning as the Labour candidate in the 1953 by-election. Canvassing a woman in a block of flats in a Camden Town, Lena launched into the great left-wing issue of the day: German re-armament and the threat that it posed to international peace and security. When Lena paused for breath, the constituent asked: “Did you come up in the lift?” “Yes dear,” replied Lena. “Stinks of piss, doesn’t it?” said the woman. “Yes dear,” said Lena. “Can’t you stop ’em pissing in the lift?” asked the woman. “I don’t think I can,” said Lena. “Well,” said the woman, “if you can’t stop them pissing in our lift, how can you expect me to believe that you can stop the Germans re-arming?” In 2019, if we cannot get all our agencies working together to stop youths throwing stones at buses in Orchard Park or to tackle aggressive begging in Newland Avenue on my patch, how will voters believe that we can sort out the big challenge of Brexit?

Windrush Scheme

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend about the tone of the debate on immigration—on anyone who has settled in our great country, regardless of where they came from, why they came here and how long they have been here—and with her point about our taking more opportunity, across the House, to highlight the benefits of immigration, whether from the Commonwealth or elsewhere, and how those people have helped to make this country great.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The Macpherson definition of institutional racism is:

“The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racial stereotyping.”

There is no doubt that that—and much worse—has been the experience of the Windrush generation. Is not it time that the Home Secretary learned lessons and took action to prevent further institutional racism from continuing against the Windrush generation and others?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady chose not to listen to the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) made about the tone of the debate. If she is trying to suggest that there is institutional racism, she must accept that that was what existed under the previous Labour Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising this point, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, for whom this Bill and helping victims of domestic abuse are a personal priority. I would be delighted to meet my right hon. Friend, not least because we share the same ambulance service, and I would like it to be doing right by victims of domestic abuse.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

T9. The Government have cut 21,000 police officers, which is the cause of violent crime doubling. Knife crime and antisocial behaviour have brought misery and terror to our communities. Is it not time the Home Secretary got a grip on law and order and invested in our police service before he fast becomes known as the Home Secretary for crime and disorder?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady will know that action is required on many fronts to fight the rise in serious violence, and that is why we have our serious violence strategy, which includes more than 60 different measures. On resources, if that is what she really believes, the best thing is for her to support the Government’s police settlement.