Gangs and Serious Youth Violence

Debate between Vicky Foxcroft and David Lammy

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

As a new MP, nothing can prepare you for receiving the call from the police telling you that a teenager has been murdered in your constituency. Once was hard enough, but within weeks of each other, it happened twice on exactly the same estate. In fact, since becoming an MP last year, four young people from my constituency have lost their lives due to the needless violence on our streets: Shaquan, Naseem, Kabba and Jamar. I have sat down with many of the family and friends left behind. Many of them are here today. Losing loved ones is hard enough. For them to have been murdered, and to not be able to understand what has happened, is even harder.

I have been calling for a debate on this subject since October last year. I am therefore grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) for securing the debate, and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting it time.

There is so much we could talk about; there is so much that needs to be said—but we also need to listen. We can all stand here and give passionate speeches about gangs and youth violence, but the truth is that nothing will change. There is no speech that any one of us could give today that will stop our young people killing each other. That is the harsh reality, so what do we do? Do we accept that it happens and simply move on? No. Each one of us has an obligation to find solutions. I believe that they will come from building a stronger, more resilient community base for our country—one where we look out for each other.

Do we write another report, pull some words together and call it a policy? No. The Government need to realise that writing down 2,500 words, giving it the grand title of “Ending Gang Violence and Exploitation” and then calling it a policy simply will not work. There can be no more top-down solutions. Things have changed and we must listen and respond. There are some huge Departments looking at this: the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in London. None of them can possibly understand the issues being faced by young people on a daily basis. They all engage with young people, but they do so in a tokenistic way. They do so to tick the box that says, “Must engage with young people.” They do not engage in a youth-led way; no, they do so in a “led youth” way. This whole approach needs to change.

Young people and our communities have the solutions, because they are the ones facing the problems. We need a far-reaching, youth-led consultation to really get to grips with the core issues that underpin the reasons for and the impact of the violence that is present in young people’s lives. This is not just about gangs. If we ask 10 people what a gang is, we will get 10 different answers. It is not just about youth violence, either. We need to drop the negative language. Young people are fed up with constantly being portrayed negatively by politicians and the media.

[Mr Lammy]

On the point about what is a gang, is my hon. Friend surprised that in the Government’s document they have not even sought to define what they interpret to be a gang? Does she not think that that would help the conversation?

[Vicky Foxcroft]

I agree with everything my right hon. Friend says. As he said in his speech, the document is so brief that it barely defines anything or suggests what any of the solutions should be. We need to transform the debate fundamentally.