Offensive Weapons Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Stephen Timms and Paul Scully

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Timms]

Thank you very much.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Q I have four questions, so perhaps I can aim one at each person rather than going through everyone. Mr Owen, you are absolutely right to say that education is key to stopping knives. Clearly, by the time someone has a knife, it is too late. Stop-and-search and sentencing are important, but they are part of a whole, as you say. Notwithstanding what Mr Poynton said about custodial sentences and people knowing people who did not go to prison after committing two offences, what is people’s awareness of custodial sentencing? You said it is not really a deterrent. Is that just because they think they can get away with it, so they are going to do it anyway? What is the level of awareness that they might get caught?

Rob Owen: I think there is generally a very low level of awareness. If we twist this slightly, to stop this happening and effectively break the cycle of offending, in our view, you need to inject into that person’s life a credible caseworker who they can relate to and who will go that extra mile to start sorting out pragmatic issues. Often they revolve around the family situation. We are not talking about nuclear families here; we are talking about multiple siblings—many of them failing at school and being failed by school—who are very well known to social services and to nine-plus Government agencies, but there is no one in that person’s life who they actually want to engage with.

I suppose the great trick with these individuals is to put someone into their very complicated lives who they actually believe in and can see is on their side, and who is enabled to do something about it. We always talk about going the extra mile, but if you are trying to help someone with a housing situation and you go down to the homeless persons unit, it will take you five or six hours to advocate through that glass. Several times you will get back a piece of paper saying, “You brought the wrong form. Come back again tomorrow.” If you leave that to the client, it is never going to happen. You often need someone there with the right skills and the right determination, and who that client believes in, to start changing their attitude from, “I’m not going to engage in school.”

You need to get in place someone who is the right role model who will actually start changing their perceptions. The point about aspirations is interesting. Lots of young people who are very vulnerable want the trainers and so on, and they think the easy way to get them is by dealing drugs. The reality is that they earn less than they would do at McDonald’s, and they have a threat to their life. Education is about having someone in their life who they believe in and can engage with. A lot of people are put into their life but they do not want to engage with them, so it is a complete waste of time and makes things worse. That is the reality.