Major Incident in Essex

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I thank her for highlighting the wide range of local organisations across the county of Essex, in her constituency and neighbouring constituencies, that have been involved in this terrible, appalling tragedy, including those in the NHS and the coroner. We have discussed on several occasions since last Wednesday, including with the Prime Minister this morning, the type of support that will be put in place, because it is not just short-term support for the individuals who have been affected, the individuals who are now part of the investigation, and the inquiries and the post mortem that is taking place. It ranges from the TRiM—trauma risk management—process with the police and the ambulance service to the welfare service provision that will be put in place not just for today, but for the long term for everyone who has been involved in providing vital support to the police for this investigation.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary will be aware of the disturbing news that children were found in another refrigerated lorry yesterday, this time at Calais. They were reportedly already suffering from mild hypothermia and were, luckily, found before it was too late. The refrigerated lorries are particularly dangerous and make this such an appalling crime. Will the Home Secretary say whether it is correct that hardly any checks of refrigerated lorries are taking place at the moment at Zeebrugge, and that at Purfleet 24/7 checks are still not taking place? She still has not explained what work is being done with Europol’s European Migrant Smuggling Centre. Is she working with that centre, and does she agree that we should continue to participate in it after December 2020?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. Let me be clear to the House: any form of trafficking and smuggling of individuals is completely wrong. She rightly highlights the appalling use of refrigerated lorries, which is effectively what we have seen in the case that she mentions and in what happened in Essex last week. The fact that these containers have been used and are being exploited by criminal gangs is a major issue that affects not just this country but other countries.

The right hon. Lady asks about checks; there are checks, and checks have been made when it comes to refrigerated lorries not just in the UK, but in other ports. She will appreciate, however, that, with the investigation that is taking place and the links with the Belgian authorities, there is much more information to come, specifically on the vehicle and the container that came through that particular port.

There are checks that take place in Zeebrugge as well. I said in my statement that we will escalate our work. There is a plan, working with my Belgian counterpart, to address the specifics of security issues in Zeebrugge and how we can extend more checks if required, although that is an operational decision not just at the port but with the Belgian authorities.

On the right hon. Lady’s question about co-operation, it is right that we co-operate internationally with all partners and all agencies—so, yes, that work is absolutely under way. There must be no doubt that even after we leave the EU, that co-operation will continue. As Home Secretary, I will not move away from high levels of co-operation. We will work day and night to make sure that we have the right processes and structures in place to ensure that that international collaboration continues and grows.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I too am concerned about the situation in Morecambe, not least because, like Birkenhead, it has happy memories for me of my childhood. I am keen to sit down and talk to my hon. Friend about what more we can do in Morecambe, not least because we are in conversation with Merseyside police about the action that we want to take on county lines. Obviously, many of the lines into Morecambe will be run from my home town. It is a town in a particular position, because there are limited points of access, over bridges and by road, which gives the police a significant opportunity to identify and apprehend criminals before they even get there.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Our July Select Committee report warned that county lines were spreading violence and drug networks into not just cities but towns. In Castleford, in my constituency, where I called a meeting with the police, local schools and community representatives, there is a real sense that the problem is getting worse in our towns, with residents reporting overt drug dealing on the streets and in town centres. People are concerned not just about the halving of our neighbourhood police, but about the fact that the youth endowment fund that the Minister has announced is tiny by comparison with the cuts in the youth service. Does he accept that there is a real perception across the country that the Government’s drug strategy simply is not working, and that unless they invest in the youth service as well, they will not turn this problem around?

[Kit Malthouse]

As the right hon. Lady will have heard, I did, in answer to an earlier question, talk about a balanced drugs strategy that takes into account both enforcement and youth intervention. However, there is always more that we can do. Alongside the expansion of the county lines co-ordination centre and the action that we shall be taking over the next few weeks as part of the general uplift relating to the £20 million of funding that we have received, we have established a county lines group at the Home Office which is bringing together all the partners we think can have an impact, not just in policing but beyond. We need a real push, because we are under instruction from the Prime Minister to bring this phenomenon to an end.

Major Incident in Essex

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend raises such an important point, and he speaks with great experience, insight and knowledge on this issue. He is right that as the world has changed and conflict has changed, we are seeing all sorts of desperate situations around the world. There is much more that we can do in leveraging in our own voice and our own influence with the big organisations such as the United Nations. There is no doubt that there is much more that can be done. He will also be familiar with the UN migration compact—I think it came about in 2015—which is doing great work. In fact, the United Kingdom stood up and spoke very convincingly about doing much more in this space. He is absolutely right that there is much more that we can do internationally.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. It is really unbearable to imagine people losing their lives in this awful way. Although we obviously cannot pre-empt the investigation, she is right to say that people trafficking is one of the most vile crimes there is. People are profiting from putting other people’s lives at risk and from other people’s desperation. Will she tell the House what engagement has taken place with the Irish police, the Bulgarian police and the European Migrant Smuggling Centre to make sure that there is full international co-operation on this awful crime and that more lives are not put at risk?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. She will appreciate that this is now a murder investigation. As a result, all avenues of inquiry and collaboration are now under way. I will report back to the House in due course, and directly to the right hon. Lady too, once we are able to share much more specific information. This is of course highly sensitive because this is now a live investigation. As I have said, all collaboration is now taking place.

Public Services

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary will know that the Home Affairs Committee conducted an inquiry into serious and violent crime, looking particularly at knife crime. In Castleford this week, two teenagers have been stabbed, following a pensioner being stabbed to death in Pontefract. Our Committee has warned for some time that serious and violent crime is spreading to towns; it is not just concentrated in cities. We recommended in our report not only a big increase in policing but a big investment in youth services, which have been cut by £1 billion since 2010. What is she doing to urgently invest in youth services, before more lives are lost?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments, and I agree with her in terms of serious and violent crime. Far too much of it is taking place on our streets, across all our constituencies. We have to do more to invest in youth provision and young people. That means not only giving them hope and opportunity, but providing services for them, which is why we have invested more than £200 million in the youth endowment fund. There is much more work coming, but there is more to do to ensure that our statutory services—through safeguarding, Ofsted and public services—support our young people, so that they are not only protected in every single way from criminals, but given opportunities and alternative provision, if they are not in school, to help them to get on in life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I have long said that we need to tackle crime, especially serious violence, on many fronts, and that means making sure that the police are properly resourced so that we have enough police on the streets. That is why this year we had a record settlement of almost £1 billion, which was voted for and supported by Government Members but rejected by Opposition Members.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Often, the focus is on violent crime in cities, but towns such as ours in West Yorkshire have seen an increase in robberies and antisocial behaviour, and the results of county lines and drug violence, too. Our area has lost nearly half its neighbourhood policing, which the Home Secretary will know has been cut throughout the country. The Home Affairs Committee has called for more police on the beat—we need more police back on the beat—and the Home Secretary has recognised that we need 20,000 more police back on the beat. When does he estimate we will get them?

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with the right hon. Lady about the need for more police. That is why we had a record settlement this year, which included, for example, more than £28 million extra for her local police force, which is leading to more police officers and more police staff. I have said that we need to go further, and we are discussing that internally in Government to see what more can be done. I hope the right hon. Lady recognises, though, that it is about more than just police; it is about early intervention and understanding some of the underlying causes of crime. I have always recognised the need for more resources and more police.

Violent Crime

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

There is an understandable tendency to focus on the law enforcement response and on our early prevention strategy, but an important part of this formula is the behaviour of serious organised crime gangs. These are the people who exploit our young people and children, these are the people who try to extend their drug markets across the country, and these are the people whom we absolutely must target if we are to bring an end to this. Along with the Minister for Security and Economic Crime, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), I have emphasised the need to target serious organised crime, including the profits that the criminals make from their disgraceful, disgusting business. I shall be happy to discuss the issue with my hon. Friend in more detail after the urgent question, but I can assure him that tackling serious organised crime is an essential part of our overall efforts to target serious violence.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Yet more lives have been lost, more families are devastated, and there are disturbing reports of older gang members paying young people to stab, maim and kill. However, the letter that the Minister has just sent to the Home Affairs Committee suggests that the surge funding for policing is for only one year, which limits police forces’ ability to recruit the officers they need, and also that the youth endowment fund will support only £6 million-worth of projects this year, which is a drop in the ocean compared with the scale of the cuts in youth services and interventions. Does the Minister not understand the real concern about the lack of grip, the lack of urgency, and the lack of scale in the Government’s response? Can she really put her hand on her heart and say, in the light of this escalating violence, that the Home Office is doing enough?

[Victoria Atkins]

In the letter, we made it clear that while the spring statement included £100 million for police forces, the Home Secretary had committed himself to making resources for them an absolute priority in our spending review. In our conversations with chief constables who are either already setting up violence reduction units locally in, for instance, the west midlands, or are beginning to do so as a result of this announcement, we fully acknowledge that the funds cannot be just for a single year.

As for the youth endowment fund, we have locked in the money over 10 years, precisely because we have listened to local charities and those who work closely with young people. They say that it is often the short-term resourcing that is a problem, so we are investing £200 million, although it is expected to be more over the 10-year period. To demonstrate the urgency that we have ascribed to this issue, we have managed to move £200 million off the Government books in, I think, an almost unprecedentedly short time—a matter of a couple of months—which will seem pretty extraordinary to anyone who has not served in a Government Department. We have put the fund into an independent charitable trust, which is running it. The bids for the first round will close on 23 July, so if there are local charities that Members think should apply, I ask them please to press them into doing so. We expect the trust to make the first announcements of bids in the autumn.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of county lines and his concern. More support is being provided for Hampshire in particular, with Hampshire police receiving £1.2 million from the £100 million extra that I announced a few months ago for the serious violence fund. Hampshire is also benefiting from the early intervention youth fund, through which we have sponsored a number of projects, including a £400,000 project in Hampshire aimed at supporting young people away from future offending.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary referred to youth intervention investment, but that money is spread over several years. As he will know, the Select Committee on Home Affairs asked for the annual breakdown of that money. We are still waiting for that. That matters, because it looks to us as though the additional investment he has proposed adds up to around only 5% annually of the £760 million being cut from youth services.

I know from a meeting in Knottingley in my constituency this morning that antisocial behaviour is rising, and knife crime among young people in west Yorkshire has trebled over the last few years. We need this investment very rapidly and cannot wait. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Select Committee will get those figures, and that he will give oral evidence to the Committee before the summer recess? His office suggested that he would not.

[Sajid Javid]

I do plan to give evidence to the Select Committee before the summer recess. I can confirm also that the right hon. Lady will get the numbers that she has asked for. Perhaps she was referring to the £200 million youth endowment fund, but she will know that there is also the £22 million early intervention fund, which has supported some 29 projects already.

Crime and Antisocial Behaviour: Small Towns

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Tracy Brabin]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting antisocial behaviour, which I will come to. The cuts certainly have an impact on our streets.

The funding cuts to West Yorkshire police would be worse were it not for the action of the Labour police and crime commissioner, Mark Burns-Williamson, who raised the police funding element of council tax to stem the loss of officers and restart recruitment in the face of cuts to the central grant. I am not a spokesperson for the police, and, let us be honest, many people in my constituency are frustrated with police services, but it is important to acknowledge the context of what they have faced in recent years, because it has an impact on their ability to respond to and deter crime.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

As a fellow West Yorkshire MP, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I strongly agree that West Yorkshire police has faced major cuts, which are hitting our towns. Does she agree that towns have often been particularly heavily hit by austerity, because overstretched police forces have been forced to concentrate many of their resources in the bigger cities? In Knottingley, there have been recent reports and challenges regarding antisocial behaviour, and in Normanton, there have been attacks on shopkeepers in the town centre. We need neighbourhood police officers in our towns, as well as the crime prevention work, to keep people safe.

[Tracy Brabin]

My right hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. We need the community presence, as well as the intelligence that comes from relationships with communities. That can stem the flow of antisocial behaviour, because the police know where it is coming from and because they know the families.

Illegal Seaborne Migration

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that question, and I have indeed noticed that there is much interest from Kent MPs this afternoon. He is absolutely right to talk about the levels of investigation and shared intelligence with the French. To date, 14 French investigations have been instigated directly in response to National Crime Agency intelligence, and we have sought to enhance existing French intelligence.

Between them, Immigration Enforcement and the NCA have made 24 arrests in relation to the small boats threat, and there are ongoing inquiries into five persons of interest from the incidents on Saturday. As I mentioned earlier, there was one conviction and imprisonment yesterday in France and we absolutely must make sure we keep up our intelligence-sharing and criminal investigations to see off these crime gangs at the outset.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome what I think the Minister was saying about wanting to continue the resettlement programmes. The Home Office is right to want to prevent dangerous journeys across the channel, where lives can be at risk. The Home Office made a big announcement about the deployment of HMS Mersey and HMS Enterprise to the channel, but can the Minister confirm that neither of those vessels was involved in leading any interceptions while they were deployed? Is it correct that the deployment cost the Home Office nearly £1 million? Does she agree that it is important that these measures should be evidence-based and not simply about being able to make big announcements?

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that we should not seek just to make big announcements, which is why I am not making a big announcement on resettlement today, although I could have been tempted to do so by the previous question. I have always made my position clear, and I have worked closely with non-governmental organisations and Ministers across Government on resettlement. I am conscious that we should be proud of the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, on which we have done, and continue to do, some fantastic work. It is important that we keep our commitment to resettling the most vulnerable individuals from very difficult parts of the world.

On the deployment in the channel, it is a matter of record that we had to bring cutters back from the Aegean. It was important to have a presence in the channel during the intervening period offering coverage in case there was an horrendous incident in which lives were in peril. It was better to have capacity in the shape of a Royal Navy ship than to have nothing. The Home Secretary made it clear that we should make the preservation of life and limb our priority and have the resources in place to rescue people if needed. We should be incredibly thankful that there was no such requirement while the Royal Navy was there in the channel.

Serious Violence

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I understand why the hon. Lady raises this point, but she might be interested to know that the increase in stop-and-search in London in the last year has resulted in very few complaints, and one reason is the increased use of body-worn cameras. Police forces across the country are telling me that thanks to digital technology and evidence gathering they are seeing very few complaints about stop-and-search, especially compared with the levels of the past. She was right to mention innocent young black men—I think that was the phrase she used—but the increase is saving their lives. No innocent young person, no matter who they are or what their colour or background, should be faced with serious violence on our streets. Stop-and-search saves lives. That is why it is being used.

Secondly, we are investing in our young people’s future. Yes, a tough law enforcement response is essential, but by the time the police are called the damage is often already done. To save more lives, we must stop the violence before it starts by helping young people to avoid a life of crime. Giving teenagers more opportunities can transform their lives. I saw that at first hand last week—just a few days ago—when I visited a new OnSide youth zone in Dagenham. That is why we are investing £220 million in early intervention work, the largest investment of this type that we have ever made. Last month I announced that our £200 million youth endowment fund would be run by a charity called Impetus. The 10-year programme will deliver long-term help to those who are most in need, and young people will soon start to benefit, as the first funding round is expected to be launched shortly. The £22 million early youth intervention fund has already supported 29 projects.

I would like to thank the Victims Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). She is unable to join us at the moment, because she is chairing a roundtable on migrant workers and domestic abuse, but she will be here later.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

An analysis of the Government’s funding programmes, produced for the Home Affairs Committee, points out that the programmes for youth investment are spread over 10 years. If the Home Secretary looks at the annual funding and adds together the early intervention fund, the trusted relationships fund, the youth endowment fund and the communities and local government fund, he will see that—according to my calculation—the total is only £35 million a year, and that is set against a £760 million cut in youth services. Can he tell me whether those figures are correct?

[Sajid Javid]

A number of providers of those programmes with whom we have already worked have said that one thing they value deeply is certainty of funding. If the funding is not confirmed and people have to wait year by year, an endowment fund that provides security for up to 10 years can make a big difference to the delivery of services.

I have talked about intervention programmes in the Home Office, but cross-Government work, about which I shall say more shortly, means that there are a number of programmes that aim for similar outcomes resulting from early intervention and efforts to prevent young people from turning to a life of crime in the first place. For example, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has a troubled families programme, and has focused on knife-related crime. Work has also been done by, for instance, the Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice.

[Yvette Cooper]

I appreciate what the Home Secretary has said about certainty. However, I included many of those other cross-Government programmes in my calculation, and I came up with the figure of £35 million a year—and that is only 5% of the scale of the cuts in youth services. Can the Home Secretary tell me how many young people will be reached by the programmes that he has announced, and how many placements have been lost as a result of the cuts in the youth service? Knowing those basic facts about how many young people we are reaching and how many we are not reaching is crucial to our ability to assess whether his strategy will work.

[Sajid Javid]

What I am talking about specifically is targeted youth intervention to stop young people turning to crime, in this instance serious violence. The right hon. Lady was, I think, referring to youth services more broadly, perhaps those provided by local councils, which are more universal in nature. My focus is much more targeted. As I said a moment ago, I went to see the OnSide youth zone project in Dagenham, which is supported by the local authority and others. That is a much more universal project. I welcome that kind of work as well, but I am not sure that we are comparing like with like when we talk about universal versus targeted services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

Yes, it has been ruled out.

The Home Office is looking at how data can help us understand some of the pathways into crime. We will develop proposals for a new crime prevention data lab to bring together information and enhance our ability to make more targeted interventions.

The Government are all too aware of the devastating impact—

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Home Secretary give way on the data point?

[Sajid Javid]

I will.

[Yvette Cooper]

I may have missed it, but I do not think I have heard the Home Secretary refer to the public health approach. Will he confirm whether that is still the approach of the Home Office, because it is welcome? The definition of a public health approach states that it should be focused on a “defined population”. He will be aware that when the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), was before the Select Committee she was not able to tell us what the Home Office’s assessment was of the number of young people at risk of being drawn into crime. Does he now have that assessment, and can he tell us how many people live in the high-risk areas—the hotspots—he has identified?

[Sajid Javid]

I can absolutely give the right hon. Lady a sense of that. I did mention the public health approach, but I am happy to confirm again that the Government are absolutely going ahead with it. The consultation is going on at the moment, and I hope that when the proposals come to the Floor of the House they will get cross-party support.

The right hon. Lady asked how many people might be at risk. Our serious violence strategy has already set out the risk and protective factors that can increase the likelihood of a young person becoming a victim or perpetrator of serious violence.

There is a range of numbers, depending on where someone comes from and what risk factors we are looking at. For example, the Children’s Commissioner estimates that 27,000 children are at risk of gang involvement, and 7,720 pupils were permanently excluded from school in 2016-17. It is estimated that almost 500,000 children live in low-income households.

It is important not to oversimplify this when we look at the risk group. Evidence suggests that those with multiple risk factors are most at risk. Equally, young people with certain risk factors never commit or become a victim of any crime at all. This is a complex area, and the right hon. Lady is right to ask about it. I would be happy to write to her with a bit more information, but I hope that what I have shared with her has been helpful.

I want to refer briefly to the Prime Minister’s serious youth violence summit, which she set up to explore the public health approach further. I joined her at the opening session, which brought experts, politicians, young people and community workers together to tackle the issue. The four-day summit saw real results, including the creation of a new PM-chaired ministerial taskforce, which met for the first time last Wednesday. This will drive forward work across Government, supported by a new Cabinet Office team to help to deliver key actions. Alongside this, I will continue to chair our serious violence taskforce, which has met nine times over the past year, with members including the Met Commissioner and the Mayor of London. The taskforce will complement the work of the PM-led group, providing fresh ideas and external challenge as we unite against serious violence.

We are acting on every level to try to stop the senseless violence. It is my duty as Home Secretary to keep our streets safe, and serious violence is a threat that I refuse to ignore. Much has already been done, but we cannot fix this problem overnight. It is vital that we remain united against this deadly threat. Every child deserves a better future and the freedom to live without fear, and we must deliver. I commend this motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), a fellow member of the Home Affairs Committee. I apologise to the House that he and I will probably have to leave shortly, as we have an evidence session with young people this afternoon. He rightly says that we should do more to make sure young people’s voices are heard, not just in our Committee but in all Committee inquiries and in all the work we do across the House.

This is a deeply serious issue. Lives are being lost and families devastated. Too often, parents end up fearful and children at risk. In West Yorkshire, knife crime has doubled since 2010. It has gone up by 20% in the past year alone. Across the country, we see a similar picture. It is not just in our biggest cities but in our towns, often spread by county lines. The most disturbing figures are those showing that since 2012 the number of children and young people under 16 admitted to hospital for knife wounds has doubled. One of the NHS consultants we heard from said that the peak time was between 4 and 6 in the afternoon—after school, when children have just finished a French, history or maths lesson and should just be going home, but find themselves caught up in violence instead, and do not make it home.

The Home Affairs Committee launched its inquiry into serious violence before Christmas. We will draw our conclusions together shortly. I will not pre-empt the conclusions, but I will reflect on some of the evidence we have heard. I start with evidence from young people and youth workers, who told us how many young people do not feel safe on the streets after school and think the only way to feel safe is to carry a knife. They do not see the police as people they can turn to. They do not have police officers that they know in schools. They do not have outreach workers, youth services or safe spaces to go to. The greater risks are for those young people who have been excluded or who might be vulnerable in different ways; those who get caught up in drug networks, county lines or gangs.

We were struck by the evidence from the police, who evidently are working immensely hard to tackle the problem but are undoubtedly overstretched. They can operate targeted, intelligence-led policing, but they find it much harder to provide and resource the neighbourhood police officers or school-based officers who might help to prevent some of the violence in the first place. Having seen their work over the years, I find it particularly troubling that we have lost so many school-based police officers, because they can often build up trust and relationships, gather intelligence, and simply work on prevention and practical messages for young people about how they can stay safe and build their confidence in their lives and not fall into patterns of violence or become vulnerable. I was struck, too, that although the Met has had big reductions in its number of school-based officers, it is now trying to increase the number of officers based in schools because it sees their value. In the west midlands, they told us that they did not have any police officers based in schools and had no prospect of being able to provide them.

There is undoubtedly an issue about whether the resources going into tackling serious violence match the scale and urgency of the problem, and whether the scale and pace of the early interventions the Government have talked about match in any way the scale of the violence and the number of lives being lost. We have seen many worthwhile targeted projects, but they have simply too narrow a reach; they do not reach enough young people or communities, so they cannot tackle enough of the problem. Equally, although the police do some excellent work in tackling some county lines networks and drug networks, that is not able to match the scale of the problem.

I want to talk in particular about co-ordination and leadership concerns. Whatever the level of resources, there are key challenges around co-ordination, drive, urgency and leadership. We heard considerable evidence from a range of witnesses who believed that the Home Office should do more. When the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), gave evidence, I asked questions about how many young people the Government were trying to reach. The Government have rightly talked about a public health strategy, and the definition of such a strategy is that there is a defined population and an intelligence and data-based approach. I therefore welcome the points the Home Secretary made about increasing the level of evidence and data we have, but I was concerned that, in that evidence session, neither the Minister nor the officials gave us a clear sense of how many young people the Home Office is trying to reach with its strategy and what scale of intervention we should expect to see over the next three months, the next six months and the next 12 months. This problem is acute—lives are at risk—so we need clear objectives, a clear sense of progress, a clear sense of direction, and action to make sure things are happening and being delivered.

We were concerned to discover that there was no clear sense of who would be responsible in each area. Who in the west midlands, in West Yorkshire, in Bedfordshire will be driving the action to tackle serious and violent crime in their area? Will it be the police and crime commissioner? The chief constable? The Mayor? The leader of the local council? The chair of the safeguarding board? There is a clear need for co-ordination in every area if we are to bring all these different organisations together.

I welcome the Government’s talk about a duty on public sector institutions to have regard to the risk of serious violence and the impact of knife crime, but simply having a duty when there is no framework to co-operate and co-ordinate is not enough; there mustbe practical mechanisms to make sure things change. There has to be someone the Minister can ring up to say, “We’ve seen your figures are going in the wrong direction. There is a growing problem in your part of the country. What are you doing to sort it out?” The Minister needs to be able to ring someone up, ask what is happening, get the feedback and make sure action is being taken to protect young people.

I know the Minister was going to a meeting after the evidence session, so she may well have made further progress. I hope so. If the violence reduction units—in those areas where they are to be introduced—are not to be in place for another six months, I would like to know who will be leading the work in the next six months to make sure young people are protected and that action is being taken in a co-ordinated way between the police and other organisations to tackle some of these awful crimes?

Let me quote some of the witness evidence to the inquiry. Sara Thornton said:

“I think that where we have so many young people dying in our streets, we need a much more concerted response from Government.”

Sir Denis O’Connor, who is a former chief inspector of constabulary and was involved in previous programmes to tackle knife crime and street crime, thought that the strategy was

“much more concerned with its narrative and less with action”.

The Met Commissioner told us that

“we are not yet seeing real cross-Government action being delivered in a meaningful way on the ground and in our communities.”

Dame Louise Casey, who was also involved in previous Government programmes, described the Government’s strategy as “woefully inadequate”.

The Government have some very good intentions on this—they have set out a strong sense of concern and commitment to tackling knife crime—but the challenge for the Home Office is to make sure it has enough urgency, that its sense of determination matches the scale of the problem and that the partnership between all Departments is tight enough and strong enough and has enough follow-up to deliver action on, for example, the number of young people being excluded from school—some of whom are very vulnerable—and to take action in hospitals. The Redthread programme is extremely good, but are enough hospitals involved in such early intervention programmes? We need partnership working in communities and investment in wider universal youth services, as well as some of the targeted work.

In the end, we will save lives only if organisations work together, but for them, working together, to have an impact there also needs to be strong leadership from the Government and the Home Office. I hope we will see that leadership over the next few months. The Select Committee looks forward to scrutinising this work further as part of its work.

[Several hon. Members rose—]