Public Disorder

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

The rioting that affected Clapham Junction, which is in the heart of Battersea—to make a boring geographical point, it is not in Clapham, but in Battersea, as Clapham is several miles away, a point that causes great confusion—affected many businesses, leaving some of them very damaged, and left the community badly shaken. I live very close to Clapham Junction and once the police made it clear that serious trouble was expected, from about 8 o’clock, I spent an hour or so visiting businesses that were still open, particularly takeaways and restaurants, to advise them of what was going on and to urge them to take precautions. Many of them felt that they had not been given sufficient warning by the authorities and felt rather let down, and that has resulted in a loss of confidence in the authorities.

I am also glad that, although we all acknowledge the bravery of the police and what they did, the Prime Minister said in his statement that senior police offices have acknowledged that some of the tactics need to be reviewed. In truth, parts of my constituency were a free-for-all for hours, with scenes broadcast on rolling news of people helping themselves that made it far harder to restore order. The numbers piling in were increasing as that carried on. Many people were appalled to see open criminality being tolerated on the streets.

I do not know what shocked me more: passing the giggling groups of teenagers phoning their friends to check on their trainer size, the van that parked opposite my house with eight or nine balaclavaed youths piling out of it who went up to Clapham Junction, gathered up armfuls of stuff, got back in the van and drove off—obviously I have given the registration number to the police—or the fact that the first person convicted lives in Battersea and is a 31-year-old school worker in a south London primary school. We have to be very careful about reaching for easy solutions about social exclusion when we look at some of the people who have been convicted.

[Andrew Selous]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if that school worker is convicted—I say this in the presence of the Secretary of State for Education—it would perhaps be a good move for the school to consider dismissing them from its employment as a poor role model to the children?

[Jane Ellison]

In truth, I cannot see how someone convicted of that offence could possibly be a role model. I am sure that the authorities will take the right action.

I want to say a word about the mix of police skills, and about numbers. A lot of points have been made—some of them a bit party political—about numbers, but in my conversations with my area commander, the emphasis has been on having the right skills mix available to the police. The skills that a safer neighbourhoods team constable has are quite different from those of a trained public order officer, and the two cannot easily be substituted for each other, so it is not purely a police numbers issue; it is about those on the ground having the right skills mix to deploy, and being able to react to a very fast-moving new challenge.

On the effect on retailers, I think people have been shocked to realise that loss of livelihood does not feature as high in the priorities as many feel it should when it comes to public order. It is a very serious thing for people to lose their business or their job, particularly in retail; the ultimate irony is that retail is an area of the economy that provides entry-level jobs to young people straight from school. It is the most stupid area of all to attack, and to deprive people of jobs in. If JD Sports pulls out of some of the areas that have been badly affected, the people affected would have a very similar demographic profile to those who attacked it. That is absolutely crazy and self-defeating, so I very much welcome the measures that the Prime Minister announced on business rates holidays and so on.

I should like to make a plea, and I am sure that hon. Members will take this up with their councils. As we know, many small businesses do not apply for the relief that they are due. I have said to my council, which has been very responsive to the idea, that it should provide a form-filling service to very small businesses, to make sure that they hit their deadlines and that nothing is rejected because the forms are not in order. Wandsworth has been very responsive to that idea, and I very much hope that other councils will do the same. We do not want to hear of people missing out because they missed the deadline.

There will be a lot of focus in the coming months on the causes of the problems. Essentially, there will be a focus on the gulf between the values of the young people who marched towards Clapham Junction on Monday night, armed with a brick, and the many more young people who descended on Clapham Junction the next morning, armed only with a broom, to help with the clear-up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

When I was asked this morning why I had made a 2,000 mile round trip, leaving my family to be here, even though my constituency is not affected, my answer was very simple. It is because I care for this country, like every Member here, and I am deeply upset and angry at what has happened.

My constituents have said to me clearly that they want to see the rioters made to clear up and pay for the damage that they have caused, as well as being punished. They want to see the police move more swiftly, being deployed when needed and acting more robustly when necessary. I have a concrete proposal to make tonight. I do not want us to use the term “shoplifting” any more; I think that we should rename it “shop theft”. Let us call it what it is. At the same time, an £80 fine for stealing up to £200 worth of goods is simply inadequate. We need tougher sentences for shop theft, as I believe we should call it. Many of my shopkeepers in Leighton Buzzard and elsewhere have talked to me about the problems of shop theft—indeed, it is a problem for us all—so I would ask the Government to act on that.

I praise the broom armies that we have seen in Battersea, Hackney, Liverpool and other areas. There is good in this country. Many people have praised Tariq Jahan from Birmingham, and I join them. I also wish to praise Pauline Pearce from Hackney, who told a mob of youngsters that they were doing wrong and that they should not riot. Good on her! Let us have more decent British citizens like her standing up and doing the right thing, because then we will have less trouble. We all have a stake in this, not just the forces of law and order. Every one of us—Members of Parliament and members of the public—can play our part in stopping these rioters getting their way.

Of course our young people need hope for the future and a stake in our society, a home of their own, a job, support when they get married and help with saving and loans to start up a business. The Prime Minister said that he hoped this debate would look at changing the culture in our country. In my own small way, I want to play a little part in doing that this afternoon.

Where do we learn right from wrong? We learn it from teachers and from the police, but above all we learn it from our parents. Being a parent is a really tough job if there are two of you, but it is particularly tough if there is only one of you. I salute single parents, many of whom do a fantastic job, but if there were more fathers around fewer people would join gangs. I salute Tony Wright, a former Labour Member, who said a few years ago:

“When some other hon. Members and I were children, the cry would sometimes go up, ‘Wait until your father comes home.’ For many children in this country, there is no father to come home.”—[Official Report, 24 May 2005; Vol. 434, c. 650.]

He was right. Let us unite around the need for more fathers to help bring up our children and teach them right from wrong. That is what the Prime Minister called on us to do when he spoke earlier today.

There are things that we can do to strengthen families, such as community family trusts—there is one in my constituency. The “Let’s Stick Together” course is being piloted by the Department for Education in an excellent initiative. It started in Bristol and is spreading around the country. It is a small start, but let it spring up in every constituency. We can also reduce the couple penalty in the benefits system, and the Work programme will be a big help in that area too. We all have a part to play by acting responsibly. Being a parent is the most important thing that any of us will do, and that is part of the solution.