Riots Communities and Victims Panel Final Report

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Monday 28th May 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I was in Northumberland when last summer’s riots started in the London Borough of Haringey, where I live; and it was with incredulity that I heard that the main street of my home town of Enfield, where I grew up and went to school, had turned into a near-war zone. As so many commentators and politicians said at the time, much of the rioting, looting and arson attacks were no more than mindless criminality and delinquency. There was a complete breakdown in social order, in a sense of personal responsibility, and in the mutual bonds of trust and reciprocity on which communities are built. Of course, there are no excuses for this sort of behaviour but that does not mean that we should not look long and hard at some of the underlying factors that may explain what happened.

I said at the time that it was important to embark on a thoughtful and thorough public policy response to the riots, and recognise that simplistic solutions to deep-seated social problems do not exist. That is what this excellent report has done, and I pay tribute to everyone involved in it, particularly the outstanding work of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. I also found the reports produced by NatCen and the LSE/Guardian insightful. The reports made it clear that we are looking at deep-seated problems in our society—a complicated mix of failure within families, the community, the economy and politics. Poverty and deprivation clearly have a role to play but are by no means the whole story. Just look at the background of people going through the courts in such large numbers. While some were clearly from deprived backgrounds, others had good jobs and came from stable families. While some were young, many were from older age groups. Reactions of those being charged and sentenced also varied wildly. Some were quite unrepentant while others were guilt stricken. Some parents were appalled at the behaviour of their children, while others were unprepared to accept any responsibility or were absent altogether.

There is so much that I should like to say about the contents of the report but I do not have time. However, I shall pick out a couple of key themes that are important to me relating to the values that we espouse as a society—so much of it consumption-led and dominated by self interest. The size of the gap between rich and poor does matter and has a real impact on social cohesion. This is about how everyone must feel they have a stake in society. Turning to the good, let us not forget those young people who came out on the streets the next day to help shopkeepers and others affected to clear up and rebuild their lives. I strongly support the recommendation to honour the riot heroes, and I would like more to be done on that. I am fascinated by the focus on resilience and character—an issue that came out strongly in a recent report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility, in which I was involved. It found that resilience and character are central to this issue, and I hope that we can work jointly as we further develop our understanding in this area.