Business of the House

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

Of all people, my hon. Friend should recognise that student finance is not like a normal commercial loan. The taxpayer still contributes significantly to the cost of higher education for university students, and it is right that those who will benefit from the higher earnings attracted by graduates should contribute to that cost. However, the mood of many colleagues has been heard, and I am quite sure that the Department for Education is considering this matter.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Gun and knife crime is up across London, and this month marks the two-year anniversary of a high-profile drive-by mistaken identity shooting in Wood Green. Despite a number of representations, this homicide remains unsolved. May we have a debate in Government time on resources, particularly for London boroughs that are experiencing an increase in gun and knife crime? In the light of the fact that 230 officers have been moved over to do important work following Grenfell, we need to be able to rely on there being enough detectives working to solve that two-year-old crime.

[Andrea Leadsom]

It is important to be clear that, although there are pockets in which terrible incidents take place—it sounds like a really awful experience in the hon. Lady’s constituency—there have nevertheless been 370,000 fewer violent crimes since 2010. It is important that we speak in measured terms, because it is easy to scare people into thinking that things are getting worse when in fact they are getting better. It has been made very clear that police funding has been protected, but the police themselves are changing the way in which they manage things operationally and putting more money into cyber-policing, into dealing with online crime and into counter-intelligence. None the less, the hon. Lady might wish to raise the specific issues in her constituency via an Adjournment debate.