Baroness Manzoor
Main Page: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Manzoor
That this House takes note of Her Majesty’s Government’s Serious Violence Strategy.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, I am very pleased that we are having this debate in the House today and that there is a strong willingness, across both Houses, to tackle this most challenging issue of serious violence.
We have been extremely concerned about the increase in the rates of knife crime, gun crime and homicide, and the horrendous attacks involving acids and corrosives. Since the beginning of the year, there have been—sadly and tragically—74 reported homicides on London’s streets alone, and many of these have been stabbings. It is, however, not a London issue alone. Tragically, for example, we have also seen fatal stabbings in Wolverhampton, Ipswich and Sheffield in recent days. The Office for National Statistics has reported that, from December 2016 to December 2017, police-recorded knife crime increased by 22%, the possession of knives increased by 33%, offences involving firearms increased by 11%, and homicides increased by 9%.
Too many young people have, sadly, lost their lives in needless violence, and it simply has to stop. This is clearly unacceptable. We are determined to end this deadly cycle of violence, and that is why the Government published the Serious Violence Strategy in April this year. Anyone committing these acts of violence must feel the full force of the law. Our absolute priority is the safety and security of our citizens, and my heart goes out to the victims and their family members and friends who have been affected by this senseless violence. It is incumbent on all of us to do whatever we can to help tackle it in every way possible.
On 9 April this year, as I said, the Government published their Serious Violence Strategy, which set out the action we are taking to address serious violence and, in particular, the recent increases in knife crime, gun crime and homicide. The strategy sets out an ambitious programme involving over 60 commitments and actions, supported by £40 million over two years to back the initiatives in the Serious Violence Strategy.
It is very important to stress that the approach to tackling serious violence set out in the strategy is a multiple-strand approach. Law enforcement remains very important, but the strategy is not solely focused on law enforcement, as it depends also on partnerships across a number of different sectors such as education, health and the voluntary sector. In particular, the strategy stresses the importance of early intervention to tackle the root causes of serious violence and to provide young people with the skills and resilience to lead productive lives free from violence.
The scope of the strategy is concerned with specific types of crime such as homicide, knife crime and gun crime, and the use of acids and corrosives as weapons. It also covers areas of criminality where serious violence is inherent such as gangs and county lines drugs dealing. Serious violence extends to other forms of serious assault, of course. We know that a significant proportion of violence is linked to either domestic abuse or alcohol, but these two important elements are not driving the increases we are seeing in violent crime. The strategy does not address specifically sexual abuse, modern slavery or violence against women and girls. They may all involve forms of serious violence but there are already specific strategies that address those important issues, and so they are not included within the scope of the strategy.
What is behind the recent increase in serious violence? Our analysis shows that about half the rise in knife and gun crime is likely to be due to improvements in police recording of crime, but for the remainder a major factor behind the increase is changes in the drugs market. Crack-cocaine markets have strong links to serious violence, and the latest evidence suggests that crack use is rising in England and Wales due to a mix of supply and demand factors, such as increased supply of cocaine from overseas and the spread of county lines drugs dealing which is associated with hard class A drugs.
In addition, drugs-market violence and gang-related violence is facilitated and spread by social media, which has become more and more accessible and part of everyday life through the widespread adoption of smartphones over the past decade. Social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram are used to glamorise the gang or drug-dealing life, to taunt rivals and to normalise weapons carrying. Sadly, it leads to tit for tat.
Through our analysis in the strategy, we have also identified that the increases in violence have been accompanied by a shift towards younger victims and perpetrators than earlier in this decade. We have also identified that we are not alone in seeing recent increases in serious violence. The US, Canada and a number of other European countries have seen similar long-term trends. This suggests that there is a global component to the trend and so our strategy includes a commitment to hold an international violent crime symposium in autumn 2018. This will bring together academics and experts to explore the trends in serious violence in different parts of the world.
Our analysis points to a range of factors driving increases in serious violence. The issue is complex, but our analysis is that changes in the drugs market are a major factor behind the recent increases. While there is good evidence that enforcement can play a vital role in tackling these offences, most academics agree that big shifts in crime trends tend to be driven by factors outside of the police’s control—such as drugs trends and markets, changes in housing, vehicle security and so on. Available evidence suggests this latest shift in serious violence is no exception. We are aware of, and have noted, though, what the Metropolitan Police Commissioner said recently about police resources, and the Home Secretary has committed to making police funding a priority at the next spending review, which will set budgets for the longer term.
As I have said, the Serious Violence Strategy puts a greater emphasis than previously on early intervention and prevention. It is at the heart of the approach in the strategy and has been informed by our analysis of the evidence of what works and is most effective with young people. The work on early intervention and prevention focuses on steering young people away from crime and tackling root causes. As we all know and accept, we cannot arrest our way out of the issue, so we are clear that we must prevent young people from committing serious violence by developing their resilience and supporting positive alternatives to a life of crime, with timely interventions.
The Serious Violence Strategy sets out a range of universal and targeted interventions, including the early intervention youth fund, which will be launched this summer, to which police and crime commissioners can apply. The fund is designed to help local partnerships support early intervention and prevention activity with young people. It has £11 million available over two years to support such local activity and will link up with existing programmes.
We will also provide support additional support for organisations such as Redthread to expand and pilot its youth violence intervention programme outside London in Nottingham and Birmingham and continue to develop its service in London hospitals. The Redthread programme is based on the concept of the “teachable moment”. This means that hospital emergency department staff will ask a youth worker to speak to a young person who has been admitted with violent injuries caused by stabbing, for example. If they need help, the youth worker will help identify and refer them to where they can get help to leave a gang for example.
I now move on to how the strategy will tackle specific areas of violence, beginning with county lines, because drugs are a major factor behind the recent increases in violence. What are county lines? Gangs and organised criminal networks involved in exporting illegal drugs into one or more importing areas in the UK, use dedicated mobile phone lines or other form of “deal line”. They are likely to exploit children and vulnerable adults to move and store the drugs and money and they will often use violence. This is a major cross-cutting issue involving drugs, violence, gangs, safeguarding, child criminal exploitation, modern slavery and missing persons, and it involves the police, a wide range of government departments, local government agencies and voluntary sector organisations.
We are particularly concerned about the county lines issue because of the violence and exploitation of children and vulnerable people that it involves. That is why we are supporting the establishment of a new £3.6 million national county lines co-ordination centre to help bring together the law enforcement effort. The links behind county lines are complicated, and the threat crosses police force boundaries. The centre will support the police operationally, help build the intelligence picture and support police forces to close down mobile phone numbers used for county lines drug dealing.
The strategy also sets out how we will work with the Department for Education on the support and advice offered to children educated in alternative provision, including those who have been excluded, to reduce the risk of them becoming victims of county lines exploitation and being drawn into crime.
We are taking a range of actions to tackle knife crime focused on operational enforcement, work with retailers, legislation and early intervention and prevention. In March, we launched a major media advertising campaign, #knifefree, which is aimed at raising awareness among young people and young adults about the risks of carrying knives. This was chiefly delivered through social media targeted at young people. We are currently evaluating the campaign, but it has had a very positive response from our partners.
We are also providing up to £1 million for each of the next two years for our anti-knife crime community fund. This fund, which was launched on 18 May, provides support for local initiatives which work with young people to tackle knife crime. It includes early intervention and education, as well as mentoring and outreach work. Last year, we supported 47 projects across England and Wales through the community fund.
We are also taking action to improve legislation and practice in relation to the ownership and licensing of firearms. We are actively strengthening controls on legally owned firearms to mitigate the risk of them coming into someone’s possession illegally and being used for criminal purposes. It is clearly important that the controls are as robust as possible to prevent firearms getting into the hands of criminals, and we are taking action including the greater regulation of antique firearms, statutory guidance to be issued to the police on firearms and shotgun licensing, and improving the arrangements for the use of medical information in licensing decisions.
Attacks on people involving acids or other corrosives are a serious matter that can result in huge distress and life-changing injuries. We are taking action, with proposed new legislation to make it an offence to sell the most harmful corrosive substances to someone under 18 years of age. Although the strategy places a new emphasis on early intervention, we are clear that, where individuals commit serious violent offences, they must be met with a robust law enforcement response.
Taking effective action means that the issue needs to be understood and owned locally. Communities and the relevant partners must also see tackling serious violence as their problem. Police and crime commissioners have a vital leadership role to play through working with and across community safety partnerships. Other local partnerships can also play an important role.
Our strategy also sets out how we will continue to support communities to build local resilience and awareness by continuing to match-fund local area reviews. The reviews help to identify the resilience and capability of local areas in responding to gang-related threats, with follow-on support to help partners. To date, we have funded 28 local reviews across England and Wales and two strategic reviews in Bedfordshire and Thames Valley. In turn, MOPAC has to date supported 16 reviews since 2016. We are increasing our offer of support to local areas this year with further local and strategic reviews, with follow-on operational support available.
Finally, to support delivery of the strategy, the Home Secretary has established a serious violence task force to drive implementation of the strategy and support delivery of its key objectives. This task force brings together Ministers, Members of Parliament, the Mayor of London, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, the Director-General of the National Crime Agency, other senior police leaders and the public and voluntary sectors’ chief executives. The task force met for the first time on 26 April and discussed the issue of county lines and what more could be done to tackle this issue. The task force also met again this morning to discuss the challenge of serious violence material on social media and again considered what further it could do to support action on this issue.
The multi-strand approach set out in the strategy, with a greater emphasis on early intervention, will address the increases in serious violence and help young people to deliver the skills and resilience to live happy and productive lives away from violence, as well as ensuring that people feel safe in their communities and their homes. I beg to move.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
Does the Minister appreciate that in her remarks she has not mentioned either the role of the family or the importance of parental responsibility? Many people feel that those are at the heart of the matter of youth crime.
Baroness Manzoor
I thank my noble friend for his statement. I recognise that both those factors are an important part. I alluded in my opening speech to the importance of support. However, I recognise that other noble Lords will be speaking today and, in order to keep my speech short, I thought I would include those issues in my concluding remarks.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken in the debate this afternoon, and what an interesting, wide-ranging and informative debate it has been. We can all agree that there is a real willingness across the House to work together to tackle this serious issue and to see an end to the tragic loss of lives in all our communities.
I start with the issue raised by Lord Southwark, which is how to move on from here and how we do not want to be here in a few years’ time again addressing the Serious Violence Strategy. I entirely concur with him. I have been pressing the department and officials very hard on this issue, and I can give a categorical assurance here that we are taking it very seriously. It is a complex issue with complex solutions, but it is something that we want to tackle together through partnerships, working with a whole range of partners for the first time, and breaking down those barriers that have previously existed.
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this very important debate. I particularly pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Newlove, who gave a very moving account of the effects of serious violence on families. I am very sad about the tragic incident that happened in her life. I know she is using her experience, and we are grateful for the significant work she is doing to help support other victims.
I have been asked a lot of very serious questions, and I have made copious notes. If I do not answer all questions today, I will endeavour to write to noble Lords and place a record in the Library for their reference.
Almost all noble Lords, in one form or another, raised the issue of funding for the strategy, including my noble friend Lady Newlove, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and Lord Southwark. I agree that the strategy will see only £40 million of Home Office money invested, but this is to support new and specific additional initiatives to tackle serious violence. It is not the only bit of money; it is in addition to the significant funding already provided to police for law enforcement and to local authorities for youth services.
The strategy includes the £11 million early intervention youth fund, as I mentioned in my opening speech, and £3.6 million over two years for the new national county lines co-ordination centre. The idea behind this centre is to work closely across all police forces, so that we have information and an evidenced approach, learning from what is happening across the country.
The noble Lords, Lord Farmer, Lord Bird, Lord Balfe and Lord Cormack, Lord Southwark and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, gave an excellent account of the importance of family support and issues around lone parenting. This strategy recognises that family environment is important for its impact on a child’s upbringing and the risk of them being drawn into crime. That is why the Government stress the importance of early intervention, and this includes supporting families and supportive trusted relationships. The troubled families support programme provides whole-family support including a designated key worker to families with complex needs, which could include families where there is the risk of serious violence or of offending. The Government have committed £920 million to the troubled families programme from 2015 to 2020, which aims to achieve significant and sustained improvements for up to 400,000 families by 2020.
I also recognise the importance of the Sure Start programmes mentioned by Lord Southwark and others. I cannot give a categorical answer to the question he raised with me, but I recognise the importance they have had to play in the lives of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We have also recently launched the trusted relationships fund. The Home Office is providing £13 million over the next four years to support young people at risk of child sexual exploitation, gang exploitation and peer abuse. The fund aims to support interventions which will help young people to build positive and trusted relationships with adults who are there to support them, and will reduce the risk of them becoming victims or perpetrators of crime.
I was interested when my noble friend Lord Farmer said “be in that crew and have a family”. I recognise that term, and it is really important and absolutely essential that we address that issue so that young people do not feel that they have to be part of a particular gang or part of a crew. I hope that what I have identified stresses clearly the importance that the Government place on family and family life and parenting.
Additionally, the Home Office is supporting police forces to develop new models of preventive policing. Around £7 million has been awarded to the four police forces in Wales which, in collaboration with Public Health Wales, will test a new approach to policing which prevents and mitigates against adverse childhood experiences. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, mentioned social workers and the impact of adverse childhood experiences, which need to be addressed. That work is based on research; it is going to be evidence-based and about the impact of childhood trauma and environment on the future risk of being a victim or offender. We will monitor and evaluate that work very closely.
The noble Lord, Lord Bird, raised the importance of good schools and resources, as did other noble Lords. Once again, I was struck by the noble Lord’s phrase when he asked, “Who is this person?” He said that it came from a sense of need and raised the issues of disadvantage. Once again, those issues are recognised in the strategy, and we will look at implementing proposals as we gain more information on how we can tackle this complex issue.
A number of noble Lords referred to police numbers and resources. Police and law enforcement play a vital role in tackling these offences. However, as I have already said, big shifts in crime records tend to be driven by factors outside of the police’s control, such as drug rends and markets. Overall, public investment is growing, from £11.9 billion in 2015-16 to just over £13 billion in 2018-19. However, the Home Secretary has made it clear that he will work with the police to assess and put forward the evidence to ensure that the police receive the resources they need to do their vital work.
I am conscious that I still have pertinent questions to answer. One other area that most noble Lords mentioned was to do with youth services. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, my noble friends Lady Eaton and Lady Newlove, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and others were all concerned about reductions in youth services funding. Of course, we all recognise the importance of activities and services that help young people to develop their skills, but we must remember that local authorities are responsible for allocating funding to youth services, in line with local needs. The Government have made more than £200 billion available to councils for spending on local services up to 2019-20.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked whether I would be happy to meet him to talk about youth services. Of course, Ministers, such as my noble friend Lady Williams, and I are always very happy to discuss with anyone any issues outlined.
Stop and search was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. Stop and search remains a key priority for the Home Office. The best use of the stop and search scheme is a powerful vehicle for driving improvement. Of course, police use of stop and search must be done proportionately and fairly, and member forces are held to high standards to ensure that that is done.
The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, also talked about the importance of new technology. I agree with him that there are a number of benefits that come with the use of body-worn cameras in stop and search. These include the protection of both the officer and the public. These cameras have been used to record stop-and-search encounters and we support their use for this purpose by forces across the country.
Lord Southwark, my noble friend Lord Balfe and others raised issues—
Noble Lords
Baroness Manzoor
I am so sorry. I have to stop referring to “Lord Southwark”. There is no such person: it is the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark. I sincerely apologise to the House and to the noble Lord. Ever since I came to your Lordships’ House, I have thought of the noble Lord as “Lord Southwark” —I bet that people were wondering who on earth this person was, so I again offer my sincere apologies.
As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, social media itself has nothing to do with serious violence, but he is right that there is strong evidence that rival gangs are using social media to promote gang culture, taunt each other and incite violence, and this must stop. The Home Secretary and other Ministers are meeting with various media platforms to ensure that we can get them to take off any material very quickly and to go faster to tackle illegal content online.
I turn now to specific questions that were raised. They are not in any order, but I thought they were very important. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and others have said, it is important that we have a multistrand approach; this is essential to tackling serious violence. It involves a range of partners across different sectors. We cannot do this on our own, and therefore, while the amount of money—£40 million—seems small, there is already a significant amount of funding in place. This will pump-prime better co-ordination.
My noble friend Lady Newlove raised the importance of positive alternatives for young people. We recognise this, and that is why we are addressing the image issue and are looking at positive role models, as well as addressing county lines and looking at exploitation of young people. We will be providing £11 million over the next two years to support early intervention and prevention through the early intervention youth fund. We are pleased to have Kathryn Morley, chief executive of OnSide, on the serious violence task group.
On the tackling of county lines, we are providing £3.6 million, as I said, to support the new national county lines co-ordination centre. My noble friend Lady Eaton raised this issue. The centre will also help the National Crime Agency and the police to improve their understanding of county lines. It will also support operation policing. We need to do this because, if we do not, the evaluation that we talked about before and the improvements that we want to bring about will not happen. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, also talked about county lines and the exploitation of young people, and asked what works. I have already addressed that; the strategy places a strong emphasis on building on evidence of what works, and the College of Policing is looking at this.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, also spoke about evidence that class A drugs are driving serious violence. The strategy sets out clearly some of the issues and does the analysis of what is driving serious violence, and, as we have mentioned, drugs are an important factor. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, also mentioned the importance of social workers, and it is key that we ensure that they are engaged early. Through this, the co-ordinating centre will ensure that this is taken forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, asked what action we are taking to disrupt supply of firearms at the border. As the noble Lord will know, we have been applying the lessons learned from Operation Dragon Root, which was a multiagency operation undertaken in autumn 2016 that involved the NCA, counterterrorism policing, regional organised crime units, border forces and others. That includes a new joint firearms unit, funded by the Police Transformation Fund, and we will give money to have more effective responses to illicit firearm supply. I will not say too much more about the Police Transformation Fund, because I addressed that in my opening speech. However, it is a police-led and police-driven fund, and people are bidding into it; the Home Office will look at how they deliver those services and evaluate them.
My noble friend Lady Eaton spoke about children’s services and the funding gap. Over £200 billion has been made available to councils to deliver local services, including children’s services, up to 2020, and of course we will concentrate on spending about £1 billion on the most vulnerable.
The noble Lord, Lord Bird, talked passionately about the root causes of crime and the issues of education and poverty, and I agree entirely with him. My father, who died when I was in my 20s, advocated the importance of education—I do not come from a privileged background. We recognise that the root causes of violence are complex, which is why the strategy places a new emphasis on early intervention and prevention. In January 2018 it was announced that £90 million of dormant accounts money will go to supporting disadvantaged and disengaged young people with their transition to work.
My noble friend Lord Balfe talked about the sale of knives online. A new offensive weapons Bill, which will be introduced within weeks, will include a new offence preventing knives being sent to people’s homes when bought online.
A number of questions were asked by the noble Lords, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Paddick, and my noble friend Lord Suri. I have already said that I will write to reply to all the questions that have been asked. As I have run out of time, I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for not answering their questions, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, who asked a number of key questions about YPAs; I will of course write to him.
In conclusion, I thank all noble Lords for taking part in this debate. I very much look forward to working with them closely on this important strategy, because we all want to make a real difference to young people’s lives.