Serious Violence Strategy

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, for introducing this debate. I shall begin by quoting some stark facts from Barnardo’s, which works directly with young people. Barnardo’s is increasingly concerned about the worrying trend of children and young people becoming victims of criminal exploitation. They can be controlled by criminal gangs and forced to carry weapons, carry and trade in drugs, go missing from home and be victims of sexual abuse and exploitation. In a recent survey, almost 60% of Barnardo’s children’s service managers said they believed that they had supported a young person involved in criminal activity over the past year. Approximately 75% of them said they thought the young person had been coerced, deceived or manipulated, and thought they were into criminal activity because of those reasons. We have to remember that most of these young people are already vulnerable. In her excellent speech the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, mentioned finding creative and positive solutions, and I entirely agree with her. The Barnardo’s figures are shocking and point to the need to examine locally and nationally how we are dealing with and supporting young people and their families, and what we can do better. Therefore the strategy is welcome, with its broad perspective on what might be done and what the solutions might be.

I feel that the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, with all her experience of local authorities, might agree with me on the next points that I make. We need to examine the functioning and funding of local safeguarding boards and to ask why schools are not involved in them. We need to look at why there are discrepancies in the quality of authorities’ activities nationally. We need to ensure that social services work well and positively with young people and their families. We need to look at why children are sometimes shunted between care homes, foster care and adoption agencies. We need to look at the influence of social media; this is perhaps a long way from the full force of the law, but I think it needs looking at.

Last November I was involved in a Council of Europe/UK Parliament seminar on child mental health and child-friendly justice with representatives from the police, academics, parents, European MPs and the voluntary sector. I declare an interest here as chair of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly sub-committee on children. Half the participants were young people aged up to 24. One young woman described children and young people as “experts by experience”. These young people have been involved in mental health initiatives and with the law. Their insights were extraordinary, and I hope that in considering any strategy affecting young people the Government will note the importance of involving those young people in proposed interventions. Their voices are important. The concern of the seminar was that mental health was a driver in motivations for many young people. Mental health is the key to self-esteem and resilience—the ability to reject negative influences.

I hope the Government are taking note of the implications of the Green Paper on mental health. I hope there will be genuine dialogue between government departments to tackle both mental health and crime. Such dialogue is of course mentioned in the strategy. I would be interested to know from the Minister if any evaluation of what works has been incorporated into the Serious Violence Strategy. A lot of money is being spent so we should know, eventually, what the outcomes are.

In the European seminar that has also been mentioned today, issues such as counselling in schools, the need for early intervention with children and families, safe houses for children and the training of those dealing with children and young people were considered vital. A report on the seminar has been launched in Strasbourg and will be launched in London in July. I am delighted that the Minister for Public Health and the Minister for Youth Justice will both be attending and speaking. The launch will be led by young people from NGOs committed to listening to young people’s views, and noble Lords are of course invited to attend. I am delighted to see that in the strategy the Government emphasised the importance of,

“partnerships across a number of sectors such as education, health, social services, housing, youth services, and victim services”,

and that,

“tackling serious violence is not a law enforcement issue alone”.

The Government have announced new initiatives such as an early intervention youth fund, a new county lines co-ordination centre and a new round of heroin and crack action areas. Of course any enthusiasm for reducing violent crime is welcome, but I wish that local authorities were not being weakened by a lack of funding and that police services were not being eroded. My brother was in the police force for 33 years, ending up as chief superintendent in Manchester. He always emphasised the importance of having police on the beat, of making local connections and of recruiting and enabling women and men from black and minority-ethnic communities to join the police force. I think he was right.

I wish there were more counsellors and programmes of personal, social and health education in schools. Such programmes encourage communication skills, self-esteem and teamwork among young people. I salute the Government for at last making such programmes mandatory, although there is a long way to go in implementing the initiative successfully. I wish there was not a threat to community services such as libraries. All community initiatives help people bind together and encourage concern about young people in communities. Youth services are desperately needed in communities.

I know that the strategy places drugs as central to serious crime. I ask the Government to look at this very carefully and perhaps do more analysis. Public Health England and the national drug treatment monitoring system have useful figures on this. My impression is that the use of hard drugs such as crack cocaine by young people is actually going down, with a rise in drugs such as cannabis. I should like a dialogue on this. It is very important. We need to know exactly what we are tackling. There are many splendid initiatives which help develop strong individuals and strong communities, such as those from the voluntary sector. Sports groups, such as the Chance to Shine and the Wicketz initiative, funded by the Lord’s Taverners, enable young people in disadvantaged areas to play sport, to work as teams and to develop communication and leadership skills. Sport is a great unifier and can develop self-esteem, involvement and co-operation. Present schemes deserve more attention and guaranteed funding. The police are encouraging groups of young people who have been in trouble with the law to set up initiatives of their own to engage young people in danger of becoming involved in crime and in gangs to think again. I have talked to lots of young people who are doing this good work. They all report excellent results. This is an example of creative thinking. I do not know if there is a list of such initiatives nationally. Is there? If so, there could be a survey of what works in engaging positively with young people.

I look forward to the Minister’s reply and to the rest of the debate, and in particular to comments on the involvement of young people, and on gathering information on what works to enable learning and the sharing of good practice in this important area of addressing serious violence.