Serious Violence Strategy

Ben Wallace Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Serious Violence Strategy.

A year ago today, 22 innocent people, including many children, lost their lives in an appalling and cowardly attack on the Manchester Arena. Today, we remember their lives and share a thought for all the families who were affected on that tragic day.

We are reminded today of the devastating consequences that hatred and violence can have for ordinary lives. This Government’s absolute priority is the safety and security of their citizens. No one should feel unsafe on our streets and in our communities. That is why I am here today to talk about another issue affecting the lives of ordinary citizens and to lay out the Government’s strategy for tackling violent crime.

This Government are determined to end the deadly cycle of violence we see on our streets today. We are clear that these crimes are unacceptable, that there is no place in society for these horrendous crimes and that anyone committing these acts of violence must feel the full force of the law.

The recent increase in serious violence is of deep concern to us all in both Houses, and I assure Members that the Government take this very seriously. That is why on 9 April we published our “Serious violence strategy”, which sets out the action we are taking to address serious violence and in particular the recent increase in knife crime, gun crime and homicide.

The Government have also made a commitment to bring forward legislation in the coming weeks. Our strategy represents a step change in the way we think about and respond to serious violence, establishing a new balance between prevention and the rigorous law enforcement activity that is already happening up and down the country.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that recorded incidents of violent crime have risen from 700,000 in 2009 to over 1.3 million in 2018. Does he think in any way, shape or form that the 20,000-plus reduction in the number of police officers in that time has any connection to that rise in crime?

[Mr Wallace]

I hear the right hon. Gentleman’s observation. What I do know is that, during the last spike in knife crime, in 2009-10, there were more knife crime offences than there are now and police numbers were at much higher levels, so it is not entirely connected, as he will know. If it were, his logic would have said that there would have been fewer knife crime incidents, when the police numbers were much higher, than there are today. Perhaps he can answer this question: in 2009-10, why was there a spike in knife crime given that there were such high police numbers then?

[David Hanson]

The figures are clear: there were 700,000 violent incidents in 2009 and 1.3 million now. I was the Minister dealing with knife crime then and there was a spike. We put investment into early prevention, after-school activities, higher policing visibility at the school gates, visibility at night and alternative activities for people in the streets and we reduced knife crime incidents; they were recorded at hospitals and at accident and emergency. In his violent crime strategy, the Minister is now reinventing those measures, having cut them in 2010.

[Mr Wallace]

I note the right hon. Gentleman’s examples, but none of them—hospitals, local schools, local government—was about police numbers; they were about similar things to the things we are talking about today in the strategy and the broader response by society to tackling why violence is being embedded in communities. So it is not purely about the police numbers debate.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I reject utterly that connection. We would have to swamp the streets with policemen; there would have to be policemen available at every violent incident for it to make that form of difference. We would be back to Cromwell saying, “If I arm one in 10 will that be enough?” Of much more significance in terms of the propensity to violence is the lack of attention to the question of young people—particularly very young people—and parenting. That is where the Government’s efforts must be directed.

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s point. It is certainly the case with any type of crime, whether violent crime, serious crime, organised crime or terrorism, that it has to be dealt with not purely by arresting our way out of the problem.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Wallace]

I am going to press on.

We can debate police numbers all we like in the House, but the simple fact of the matter is that, unless we get involved in prevention and share the burden more broadly in society—[Interruption.] As important, because it often slips the mind of the Opposition, is the fact that if we do not live within our means we will not be able to sustain the spending on our communities and public sector. I regularly have to remind the Opposition that in 2010 the deficit in this country was £150 billion. We were spending more than we got in tax receipts. Unless we start to live within our means we cannot sustain the investment in our communities. We can live with the Opposition’s fantasy politics of nationalising everything on a Monday, funding everything on a Tuesday and borrowing all year round, but we will pay for that in the end. That is why we have set about balancing the economy and taking a strong and stable determination in how we invest in our policemen.

Our approach is not solely focused on law enforcement, important though that is, but depends also on a range of partnerships across many sectors such as education, health, social services, housing, youth services and victim services. It requires a multiple-strand approach, involving a range of partners across different sectors, such as those framed in our four pillars: early intervention and prevention; tackling county lines and misuse of drugs; supporting communities and partnerships; and an effective law enforcement and criminal justice response.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I am encouraged by what the Minister says about partnership models. Can he set out some localised examples of best practice at work, so we can get away from this artificial debate around police numbers and look at what actually works on the ground and how to put these solutions into practice?

[Mr Wallace]

Here is a good example. I visited Merseyside recently to see the work it has done on organised crime groups and county lines. A particularly nasty organised crime group was operating from one part of Merseyside and sending people up into Lancashire; a 15-year-old was sent into Lancashire to deal drugs in the Rossendale valley.

We decided to take action against that organised crime group. The local police, alongside some first-rate leadership from Merseyside council and officials in the council, set about dismantling that group. They dismantled, effectively, the café where it met; they co-ordinated with Lancashire police so they could deal with the 15-year-old who was in Rossendale; through the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 they targeted the huge amounts of cash being used by that organised crime group; and they dismantled the whole group. We used the local authorities in both Merseyside and Lancashire and both police forces, and we used imaginative methods and the powers that POCA and other legislation have given these people to make sure we took apart the money that enabled them to operate. That crime group is no longer active, and that community has taken back control and managed to deliver a successful response.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

The Minister knows that there are difficulties in London at the moment. He is also aware that Cressida Dick has requested additional resources to deal with them. I came here today in the hope that we would have a fair and balanced debate about what we need on our streets, rather than this Punch and Judy nonsense. What he has suggested is that it is okay for nine children to have died in my local authority area because we do not have the money for the police force. May I ask him to be a bit more sensitive in the way he is dealing with this debate?

[Mr Wallace]

Is the hon. Lady suggesting that I said it was okay for nine people in her constituency to die? That is the worst example of Punch and Judy and immature politics I have heard in this House for a very long time. It is fine for her to ask about resources, and it is fine for her to say that she does not think the response is correct, but she seems to suggest that a Government Minister is saying it is okay for nine people to die. Is that the measure of the debate we are going to have today from the Opposition? She insults the police, the local authority and her own constituents. The reality is that people are dying on the streets because of a whole range of issues. Tragically, people were dying on the streets long before the Tory Government or the Labour Government were here. I remember patrolling the streets where people had died, and people were not going round half the time saying that it was purely the Government’s fault. There are lots of factors involved.

One of the factors behind the rise in violent crime is the use of smartphones and encryption, where we have seen a big shift. Those networks empower people to trade drugs and to communicate in a safe space. They allow connections between groups in a way that never happened before and that makes those groups much less vulnerable to the work of the law enforcement agencies.

In the old days, if anyone wanted to import huge amounts of cocaine to this country, somebody had to go to Colombia and meet people there. They had to physically go there and order the drugs. Then they had to take the cash and launder it. In the space of about eight years, these changes have meant that no one has to do that anymore. People can sit at home and order and deal drugs, and they can launder the money almost instantaneously through Bitcoin and elsewhere. That is a real challenge for the police, and it will not be fixed purely by putting more patrols into communities. It is also about changing how policing is done and investing in upstream National Crime Agency issues—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) is right to say that there are issues of resource, and that is why we have increased some of the resource. I am informed that £49 million more is going into the Met, and the violent crime strategy comes with some new money.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I really want us to get back to a serious tone. I am grateful to the Minister for specifically mentioning the cocaine market. Will he say something about our Border Force? Will he also say something about resources for the National Crime Agency? He will understand that the average black teenager in Tottenham barely knows where Colombia is and certainly does not have the means to organise trans-shipment routes. Will he also say something about eastern European gangs?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a clear point. In the past, there were plenty of middlemen between the local gangs and the big serious organised criminals running out of Colombia or the Balkans. That has now reduced. Through safe and secure encryption, young people have the ability to order drugs and gangs have the ability to have delivered to their door large packets of drugs from Albanian or Serbian drug gangs, or indeed from local drug gangs: United Kingdom citizens—it is not the copyright of the western Balkans. That has put real power into the system.

At the same time, the United Kingdom is fast becoming the biggest consumer of cocaine in Europe. There is high demand from the consumer, and cocaine is no longer the preserve of the yuppie or the rich. We are seeing cocaine in my villages, in rural communities and in communities in London that would not previously have used it. It is a high-margin, high-supply drug at the moment, and that is fuelling the increase in violence.

With those Albanians or those serious organised criminals comes the enforcement of the county lines. They do not just put a 15-year-old into a house or “cuckoo” the house; they provide a weapon to enforce the drug line. Sometimes, if the 15-year-old is not a willing participant, the gangs will ruthlessly enforce that county line with violence. They will kill those people and they will kill the local drug dealers if they get in their way.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and I, through the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime, recently met some girls who had been involved in county lines. They had become involved because of boyfriends, because of money and because it was a solution to the problems they faced in their lives. They said that nobody had ever told them not to do it. No one at school or earlier on in their lives had explained that these things might be offered to them and that there were choices to be made. There was no one in their school telling them about that. Does the Minister agree that schools have a duty to keep our children safe, and that they need more resources to ensure that children know what good choices to make?

[Mr Wallace]

I totally agree that we have to educate children about the dangers that they are exposed to.

I go back to the point about modern communications and smartphones. In the past there was often a gulf between streetwise communities where young people grew up exposed to crime and were sometimes exploited by it, and other areas where people would say, “I never see gun crime in my village”. In the past, there was no connection between the two, but now it is all joined up. Now, young people can be exploited wherever they are, and whatever their background, by being able to access drugs using their smartphones. That is why we are seeing this problem seeping in, and that is why the first place to go is the schools—as low as the primary schools—to teach children about how vulnerable they can be online and how vulnerable they can be to being approached.

Another part of my portfolio involves child sexual exploitation. People are being exploited, manipulated and organised through those telephones. That is a real challenge, and I am not going to pretend that we have a solution.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I take the Minister’s point about this impacting on young people of all backgrounds, but there is no doubt that there is a clear link between what is going on and deprivation, inequality and poverty. Does he agree that if this issue were affecting a different group—a privileged, more wealthy group of young people—it would be headline news every day of the week? Surely this is why we must think about how we approach our young people, and why we must adopt what many are describing as a public health approach to this issue. We are not looking after the mental health and wellbeing of too many of our young people living in deprived communities, including some of the wards in my constituency.

[Mr Wallace]

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman, who I know is on the violent crime taskforce. I often find that the crimes in my communities do not get reported. As a north-west MP, I sometimes feel that when crimes happen in London they get a higher profile than they would in Lancashire. We have a duty to point out to all our young people where they are vulnerable. I agree that some communities do not get the attention they deserve. Certainly, some of the crime we have seen in London has too quickly been put down to gang crime, rather than to serious organised crime. It is often serious organised crime groups that are exploiting these young people, but because this crime is put down to gang crime, there is a tendency to say, “Well, we have dealt with gangs like that for many years.” Those young people are just as vulnerable and exploited as any other type of child.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Five young men have been stabbed in my constituency in the past month alone. The community is traumatised, and people are worried that things are going to get worse, as they always do, as the long summer nights roll in. I know that lots of London Members here will be wondering what can be done in the immediate term, in addition to the strategy, in terms of extra funding for prevention and diversionary programmes to ensure that we do not have a summer of escalating violence in our capital.

[Mr Wallace]

I understand the fear about the challenges on summer nights. If five people had been killed in my communities, I would feel as horrified as the hon. Gentleman.

First, we are building on the things that have been happening for years. We are getting everyone around the table—the Mayor of London is on the serious violence taskforce—because it is about engaging everyone. I am not deaf to the resource issue, and I do not pretend that the police have not been under stress. We can disagree about why they have not had more money. We also have to recognise that policing has to change as crime changes. We have seen them do some good stuff. We have sometimes seen money spent in the wrong place. We have to work on making sure money is spent in the right places.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

So-called drill music often glamorises violence, stabbings and even murder. When allied with social media, drill music can amplify tensions between gangs and groups. How can we call the social media platforms to account and encourage them to wake up to their responsibilities?

[Mr Wallace]

I welcome the statement over the weekend from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on consulting on measures to remove both illegal and legal harms from the internet, and on the exposure of people, certainly young people, to those harms on the internet. I would welcome any suggestions from either side of the House, and the Home Office, alongside DCMS, will tackle those harms.

I met Google this morning to discuss how it can do more to take down violence-inspiring videos. The level of violence to which my young children are exposed quite early in the day on television, let alone the internet, will come back to haunt us.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

In his answer to the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), the Minister said that he was not blind to the idea of resources, particularly in relation to London and the real crisis that is happening in our city. Will he give us a little more hope because, like the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich and many London Members here, I worry about the trend continuing into the summer months?

[Mr Wallace]

In the Home Office we are always open to listening to more demands. After Manchester last year I, as Security Minister, received a demand from Mark Rowley and the head of MI5, and we worked hard at the Treasury to get £50 million of extra money to respond to the operational pressures.

It is not just London. Merseyside MPs saw a spate of murders and gun crime at the start of last year. There is a real pressure that we have to try to address. Of course the Home Office will work with colleagues to see where we can get more out of the resources we have.

We have found more resources. We have put £49 million into the strategy, and we have put more money into some of the broader responses, including local government and community responses. We will work with the Mayor of London, with whom we will discuss what his priorities may or may not be, on which we may or may not agree.

I wish I had more money. We did not come into Government to cut things. There is sometimes a suggestion that we had a choice and we chose not to spend money. We will try to do our best to meet the resources, but burden share is important, and it is the same in other growing areas of crime. We cannot arrest our way out of some of these things. We have to burden share, and we are doing a whole range of things. A new contest will be launched in the next few weeks and, in order to meet the growing scale of the threat, we have to burden share with both the private sector and the public sector on keeping us safe on the ground. That is the scale we face not just here but internationally.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Wallace]

I will give way, and then I will have to make some progress.

[John Cryer]

The Minister is right to say it is not just about the police, because it is also about the other agencies. The problem is that every agency across the board has faced cuts, certainly in London. My east London constituency covers two boroughs. Waltham Forest has faced cuts of around £100 million, and Redbridge has faced similar cuts. The boroughs cannot mount early intervention and provide greater resources through schools and social services while, at the same time, carrying the burden of £100 million in cuts over seven or eight years.

[Mr Wallace]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. As I have said throughout, where we can find more resource to meet this pressure, we will. We might disagree on the wider economy issue but, nevertheless, we are trying to balance the books. Without doubt, it is important that we have this framework in place, with £49 million of early investment, as well as other sums, to make sure that we start the process of gelling together all the people who can help to deliver on some of these issues.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Wallace]

No, I really have to press on. I have given way quite a lot. I am about to read my speech backwards, and Members will not want to hear it twice.

As I have said, it is vital that we steer young people away from crime in the first place. We have to support positive alternatives and timely interventions to provide them with the skills and resilience to lead productive lives free from violence. In the strategy we propose a range of universal targeted interventions, including the early intervention youth fund, which will be launched this summer and to which police and crime commissioners can apply to support early intervention and prevention activity with young people. We will also provide support to Redthread to expand the pilot and its youth violence intervention programme outside London and to develop its services in London hospitals.

We have reviewed the evidence, and the strategy sets out the trends and drivers of serious violence. The analysis makes it clear that the rise in serious violence is due to a range of factors, but the changes in the drug market are a key driver of recent increases in knife crime, gun crime and homicides, which marks the second element of the strategy.

Crack cocaine markets have strong links to serious violence, and evidence suggests that crack use is rising in England and Wales due to a mix of supply and demand factors. County lines drug dealing is also associated with violence and exploitation, and its spread is also a key factor.

In addition, it is thought that drugs market violence may be facilitated and spread by the social media I talked about earlier. The strategy sets out a range of activity we will undertake to tackle serious violence, including more than 60 specific commitments on action. We are providing £40 million over two years to support the initiatives in the serious violence strategy, including £11 million for the early intervention youth fund and £3.6 million for a new national county lines co-ordination centre that will sit in the National Crime Agency.

We are particularly concerned about county lines because of the violence they are now developing. The links behind the county lines are complicated, and the threat crosses police and local authority boundaries, which is why the national county lines co-ordination centre will be key not only in sharing intelligence but in co-ordinating responses and in making sure that victims are supported or diverted away from the county lines.

We will also work with the Department for Education on the support and advice offered to children who are educated in alternative provision, including those who have been excluded, to reduce their risk of being drawn into crime or on to the pathways into crime. In addition, we will work with the Department for Education and Ofsted to explore what more can be done to support schools in England in responding to potential crime.

However, taking effective action means that the issue needs to be understood and owned locally as much as nationally. Communities and relevant partners must also see tackling serious violence as their problem, which is the third pillar of our approach. We are supporting communities to build local resilience and awareness by continuing to match fund local area reviews, which identify the resilience and capability of local areas to respond to gang-related threats, including county lines. That follows on from our support to help partners.

Police and crime commissioners have a vital role in working with community safety partnerships, or the local equivalent, in providing local leadership to bring communities together. That is why the Government are also committing £1 million to our community fund for each of the next two years. The fund, which was launched last week, provides support for local initiatives that work with young people to tackle knife crime. Those initiatives include early intervention and education, as well as mentoring and outreach work. In March we launched a major new media advertising campaign, #knifefree, aimed at young people and young adults to raise awareness of the risks of carrying knives. That was chiefly delivered through social media targeted at young people and it has had a positive response from our partners. We must pursue, disrupt and prosecute those who commit violent crimes, and a robust response from law enforcement therefore remains critical. As I have said, we will bring forward legislation to strengthen our response to violent crime. That includes the introduction of new measures such as—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Colleagues, we will now hold a one-minute silence to remember all those affected by the terror attack in Manchester a year ago today.

The House observed a one-minute silence.

[Mr Wallace]

A year ago, I was in Manchester, from very early in the morning of the attack, and I wish to take this opportunity to place on the record my appreciation of Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester, of the leader of the council and of chief constable Ian Hopkins for the fantastic and amazing work they have done over the past 12 months in helping to heal Manchester and bring that community together. Having visited the investigation on many occasions, I cannot say just how much regard I have for the police and intelligence services, who are still pursuing leads and still working to keep people safe. I believe we have the best police and intelligence services in the world, which is why Manchester is back on its feet, alongside a great community who are determined to make sure that the spirit of Manchester lives on. Although I am not there with them today, many of us are there in spirit and we stand ready to continue to help that great city.

We must pursue, disrupt and prosecute those who commit violent crimes, and a robust response from law enforcement therefore remains critical. As I have said, we will introduce legislation to strengthen our response to violent crime. That will include the introduction of new measures such as restrictions on buying and carrying knives and corrosive substances; and banning certain firearms. An offensive weapons Bill will be introduced into the Commons or the Lords in the next few weeks. We will also continue to support and facilitate police action such as Operation Sceptre—weeks of action designed to tackle knife crime—and action to prevent violent gang material on social media. The serious violence taskforce has been established to drive the implementation of the strategy and support the delivery of key objectives. The taskforce 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 public sector and voluntary sector chief executives.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned social media. The Met police have reported more than 400 incitement to violence videos on YouTube alone that are still online today. Do the Government support police authorities across the country having the power to compel YouTube and other social media outlets to remove content that is violent or incites people to violence?

[Mr Wallace]

I absolutely support our forcing these outlets to take this material down where we can. I met Google and YouTube this morning to discuss exactly that subject. The challenge around the world on videos and YouTube stuff is not on cases where a clear crime is involved, such as bomb-making manuals or child abuse; it is where companies—often based abroad—decide that our version of incitement or extremism is not their version of it. That is where we have to look at all alternatives. That is what the announcement at the weekend on the consultation by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was about. We have to have a proper collective discussion and ask, “Where do we start and stop? How do we draw a line about what is freedom of speech, what is incitement and what is violent extremism?” That is not as straightforward as people say. However, 98% of violent extremism on those internet platforms is being taken down within 24 hours and some of it is being taken down within two hours. We are pushing for this to happen even quicker, through using artificial intelligence and machine learning to recognise those issues. We want these companies to put more of their resources into that, to make sure these things are taken down. I also want them to report this content when they take it down so that our police and agencies can do something about it.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

The Minister makes the point that it is difficult to tell, but we do not have a problem deciding whether something is incitement to violence offline. I fail to see why we cannot apply that logic to online content and why he cannot work with the internet providers and the platforms to administer online what we have offline.

[Mr Wallace]

When we see these things and we report them, these providers take them down. We are asking them to spot them in advance before they are uploaded. That is what we want. On the plus side, when, through the Met police’s internet referral unit, we report these things, the providers do take them down. The simple scale of the internet means that we want them to do this before or during the uploading. They have made some progress on this matter, although we still think they can do more. I am acutely aware that they have made more effort only when we have talked about regulation, tax and harder things; it is not as though they jumped through the front door offering. However, I think they have had a realisation, through seeing the patience that is being tested internationally.

I was at the G7 recently with people from France and Germany, and they were all saying to the lead four companies, “We have sort of had enough.” Those companies are now starting to move and move rapidly. We have supported the Global Internet Forum, set up and chaired at the moment by both Governments and the big four. We have to make sure that they do more about the small providers, because as they are taking more stuff down, small providers and platforms, based in jurisdictions we cannot get at, are popping up and handling most of that content. We have to do more on that. We have to put more pressure on the United States about some of the far right websites. As the Select Committee on Home Affairs rightly pointed out, we will proscribe National Action yet it will still be running a website—or it has in the past—in the US. However, we are working hard with the Americans and they have said they will do more, as will the internet companies. They are now moving, although they could have moved a bit faster—that is how I would probably say it.

[Gareth Thomas]

Nigh on three weeks ago, two teenagers in my constituency were shot at and seriously injured. I do not doubt the commitment of Cressida Dick and the Metropolitan police to finding the perpetrators of that shocking incident, but my constituents and I worry about the decline in the visibility of the police presence on our streets in Harrow. I therefore take this opportunity to underline to the Minister the profound concern, particularly from London MPs, across party, as well as from others, about the lack of sufficient resources for the Metropolitan police. I urge him to do whatever he can to lobby the Chancellor for further funding for the Met.

[Mr Wallace]

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point on the funding. I also say that it is important to work with Cressida Dick and to ask about policing priorities and how she chooses to deploy her force. All police forces do things differently. Members may recall significant gun violence in Nottingham a few years ago, when the city went through a patch that included the murder of a jeweller’s wife. Interestingly, Nottingham got a bad reputation in the early-90s or mid-90s, but that was driven by two people and when they were taken out it had a profound effect on that community. There are definitely operational decisions here as to how police forces spend their resources, but I also hear the point about resources.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Wallace]

I really have to move on. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will respond to the debate and can certainly answer more questions on those points.

I believe that the approach set out in the strategy—a multi-strand approach with a greater emphasis on early intervention—will address the increase in serious violence and help young people to develop the skills and resilience to live happy and productive lives away from violence, and it will also ensure that people feel safe in their communities and homes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

I have heard of that initiative, and it is certainly worth trying. Dealing with violent crime is not just a question of policing and arresting. The initiatives used in Glasgow are well worth looking at. Anybody who thinks that we can simply arrest or stop-and-search our way out of this crisis is deluding themselves.

A senior commander at the Met told me recently that an entire gang operating in one part of London was put away for lengthy sentences for drug crime. The result was not that the level of drug crime and the level of violence dropped, but that violent crime in the area actually surged, as competing gangs moved into the vacant territory. We need an integrated, joined-up approach. Seizures, arrests and sentencing will all play a part, but we also need the right level of resources, and those can only ever be a part of a much broader strategy involving schools, hospitals, local communities, social workers, resources for youth centres and recreation and much more. Of course, all those things have been cut as a result of this Government’s austerity, and we are now living with the consequences. We cannot keep people, and our young people, safe on the cheap.

I try to visit the families of every young person who is stabbed or a victim of homicide in my constituency. I remember visiting a family recently. They were broken, and the mother could not stop crying. In my closing remarks, I want to say to the House as a whole that we need to remember that, whatever the circumstances, violent crime is a tragedy for the protagonist, a tragedy for the family, and traumatising for entire communities. That is why the Opposition believe that the Government must give the issue their continued attention and the right level of resources. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), the Minister said that if five people in his constituency died, he, too, would be very upset. Communities want Ministers to behave as though five people in their constituencies had died. Our constituents want the Government to pay more than lip service to the issue and to learn from strategies that have succeeded, whether in America or in Glasgow.

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Lady can question our policies or our funding, but to question our motives or suggest that we do not care is just insulting. Glasgow has done a fantastic job in reducing knife crime to zero—[Interruption.] Police Scotland has done that; it is a devolved matter. According to Police Scotland, the number of police in Glasgow in 2015 was 5,544. In 2017, when knife crime had been reduced to zero, the number was 5,530. Therefore, on the numbers, police in Glasgow managed a reduction, but they used broader shoulders to solve the crimes and the problem, and they should be rewarded for that. If there is an example to show that it is not all about police numbers, that is it.

[Ms Abbott]

I said earlier that I am not arguing that this is all about police numbers, and I touched on some of the other issues, such as education, youth services and community services, that are also part of the answer.

I have always believed that part of my role in this Parliament is to be a voice for the people who would not otherwise have one. In my community and in others that I have visited, there is serious concern about how much the Government are prepared to do about this issue. We want Ministers to act as though they believe that every young person’s life has a value. We want Ministers not just to talk the talk, but to put resources, police officers and support into strategies that can relieve our communities of the burden of constant reports of death and killing.