Knife Crime

Debate between Andrew Rosindell and Ruth Cadbury

Monday 25th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Rosindell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment, because we all have a duty to our communities—we are community leaders. I am working with local groups to fight crime. We do not have a magic wand or a direct solution, but we can play a part. I commend the youth organisations, church groups and faith organisations that are taking a lead, including the Street Pastors and Scouts. Jodie herself was an Explorer Scout—something that has been highlighted about what was a tragic, terrible crime. Community and MPs have a leadership role and it is not just down to the police and social and youth workers. We all have a part to play.

The crime prevention orders were requested directly by the police. They favour a dual approach of tough measures and positive early interventions. I often stress the importance of community policing, with police based in communities, which they know and understand like the back of their hand, as I am sure we know from our constituencies. More importantly, with that kind of policing, the community get to know the police and become familiar with them. With familiar faces of policemen in the community every day of the week, trust and recognition are built, which grow in the locality. That brings people together, with trust in their local police, and it helps to halt or at least curtail crime.

I want to make a serious point that is particularly relevant to Greater London: neighbourhood police are the ones best placed to make interventions to protect residents, when the issue is community-based. I have attempted over and over to make that point in my 18 years as Member of Parliament for Romford, yet models of policing and resources are still outdated. Instead of being based around real communities as they should be, they are based around bureaucratic electoral ward boundaries on a map that bear no relation to actual communities. They are based on electoral numbers, which is crazy and does not make sense. Communities are divided up between police teams. Instead of policing based on true, natural communities, there are lines in a road, and one police team goes to one side but not the other because it is in a different ward. Wards are not the way to fight crime. Criminals do not base their crimes on ward boundaries. They can act anywhere, and the police should police communities on that basis.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about the rigidity of ward boundaries, which is why, certainly in west London, we welcome the fact that the new basic command unit set-up has grouped the neighbourhood teams into a town base, bringing several wards together in a more logical way under a single sergeant. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance and value of neighbourhood teams. Does he agree that the number of people in them is important? In Hounslow, their strength has been roughly halved, from five per ward to three and a bit per ward. Is not that regrettable, and a result of the cuts imposed by the Government on the Metropolitan police?

[Andrew Rosindell]

I agree. I made it clear a moment ago that I do not agree with what the Prime Minister said about cuts in police having no link to crime. However, I do not want to get into a battle today about resources from Government, or whether Sadiq Khan has not allocated as much as he should and the rest of it. We can argue about that but today is not the day. I hope we can agree that both the Government and the Mayor have a duty to allocate as many resources as they can to fighting crime, particularly in inner city areas, but also in outer London areas where crime has recently been rising. We should work together, because the public are losing patience. If we turn the matter into a political football they will not thank us. They want all of us to work together.

The week before last I raised with Sophie Linden my idea of getting rid of bureaucratic, inflexible ward boundaries and creating proper community police, with understanding. Unfortunately she did not say she would go down that route. I said, “Well, can Havering be an experiment, at least?” She did not agree, so I am disappointed, but we need to look at ways to channel resources to the best possible effect.