Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is quite right that that is the unfortunate effect of some of those protests. As I said earlier, the Metropolitan police has made over 600 arrests now, with dozens made over the weekend. Hopefully that is having an impact on the numbers, but we all want XR to think about the practical consequences of their protests, in terms of not just what we in this House think, but the impact on their fellow citizens.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Policing and police resourcing is one part of the picture of reducing knife crime. Another part, of course, is preventive work. Youth services in England have seen a cut of £1 billion, or 73%, since 2010. Youth work can provide a really good preventive strategy when it comes to knife crime. What discussions is the Minister having with his colleagues to reverse the cuts to youth services?

[Kit Malthouse]

We are obviously going into a spending round and giving consideration, through the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my Department and the Ministry of Justice, to what funding and capability we can point towards diverting young people away from crime. The hon. Lady will know that, happily, I am also in the middle of a process of engaging with the violence reduction units that we have funded across the country, to learn from them and understand what is working, so that we can promulgate that across the rest of the country.