Violent Crime

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the work of Redthread. The Home Office is investing in Redthread’s projects in Nottingham, Birmingham and London hospitals, and I have seen its work at close hand. I am very impressed by what Redthread does.

We will, of course, look at rolling out the project further, but I hesitate because some A&E departments thankfully do not see the levels of knife crime that perhaps London, Nottingham and Birmingham do. We have invested in those hospitals because we are targeting funding at hotspot areas, but we will look at where the project could assist by being rolled out further.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Minister should not selectively use statistics. Violent crime is significantly up, and we warned the Government when they were cutting police numbers that it would have an impact on crime. We were told that it is not about numbers but about the effective use of our police forces. She must now regret cutting 20,000 police officers, which must have an impact on what we are discussing today. What we want to hear from the Government is not about projects but about how much they will put into the police and how many of the police officers we have lost will be replaced.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am not selectively using statistics. I referred the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) to the Metropolitan police statistics precisely because of the action that the commissioner has taken in London, including setting up the serious violence taskforce, which, as I said earlier, dedicates 300 officers to hotspot policing across the capital. The commissioner has said that the recent figures show a decline in the increase, which is what I was talking about. It was not selective at all. I am just looking at the most recent evidence we have.

Arrest of Julian Assange

Clive Efford Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend, a distinguished former journalist himself, is right in what he says. Press freedom in this country is sacrosanct, but by and large people who work in the press in this country are responsible.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I find it extraordinary that someone so rich and powerful—or powerful, anyway—can avoid an allegation of rape in the way that Julian Assange has for so many years, costing so much taxpayers’ money. Who is paying the £13.2 million bill that Julian Assange has cost us? Is it the people of London in cuts to their police service, or does it come from a central budget?

[Sajid Javid]

I understand very much the hon. Gentleman’s sentiment; he speaks for many people across the House. He asks who has paid the bill. I referred earlier to the £13.2 million up to 2015. It has come from various sources, but each one is the British taxpayers, and that is why they will welcome the justice that has been done today.

Knife Crime

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the matter of exclusions. As I have said, we are awaiting the report from Ed Timpson. Instinctively, I would want to give headteachers the flexibility to exclude if they feel that a child is a danger to the wider school community, but I accept that this is for headteachers to decide, so we are very much listening to the evidence. The decisions on the borough command unit set-up are taken by the commissioner. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has made representations to the Mayor if he is concerned about this issue, because obviously the Mayor is the police and crime commissioner for London.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Government were warned about cutting police numbers. Had the 20,000 police officers we have lost still been in place and enabled one stop and search per week, there would have been 1 million stop and searches. Had there been one a day, which is not a lot to ask, there would have been over 7 million stop and searches. If we add to that the intelligence-based use of resources, would that not have had a major impact on knife crime?

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman rather highlights the reason we changed the voluntary guidance for police officers, in that we do not believe that a one-size-fits-all approach helps. Listening to communities where young people have been stopped and searched without reason—as they see it—we are very conscious that that can harm relations between the police and the community. That is why we have encouraged the use of intelligence-led, targeted stop and search. I refer to the answer I gave earlier about the huge benefit of body-worn cameras in this space, because the public and the police have that extra reassurance that searches being conducted are in fact lawful.

Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Macpherson Report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry on 24 February 2019; and calls on the Government and all in public life to renew their commitment to fulfilling the recommendations of the Macpherson Report.

Twenty years ago yesterday, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry reported its findings. Last year saw the country mark a more tragic anniversary: it was 25 years since Stephen was killed in a brutal racist attack in Eltham, south London, on 22 April 1993. He was 18 years old. The chair of the inquiry, Sir William Macpherson, and his advisers later concluded:

“Stephen Lawrence’s murder was simply and solely and unequivocally motivated by racism.”

That date also marked the start of a long battle for justice by Stephen’s family. Their courage and dignity in the face of everything that they have faced is extraordinary, and should constitute a call to action for all of us. For the purpose of my speech, I have drawn extensively on Baroness and Dr Lawrence’s work, as well as their contributions to the ongoing Home Affairs Committee inquiry. I have also drawn from the work of—and stood on the shoulders of—my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), who worked so hard to get the inquiry off the ground. I salute his work today.

Looking ahead to this anniversary, the Home Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, began to scope an inquiry last year. We have taken written evidence, and earlier this month we held our first oral evidence session. We heard from Baroness Lawrence, and from representatives of black and minority ethnic policing bodies. We look forward to taking further evidence in the coming months.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I would contribute to it by making a speech, but unfortunately it clashes with an event that I planned several months ago, which I am chairing and to which I shall return in a second. First, however, let me say this to my hon. Friend.

One of my reflections on the inquiry is that as time has gone by—and it is 20 years into the past—we have lost our focus on the lessons that Macpherson taught us. Some of our public services are not sufficiently aware of the issues surrounding racism and racial tension in some of our communities. I think we need to think again about some of them, and I hope that the Committee will refocus people’s attention on the lessons of Macpherson so that our public services can once again give those issues the priority that they must be given.

[Alex Norris]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I was about to come to exactly that point.

The Macpherson report presented 70 recommendations to the Home Office, police forces and other public bodies. Baroness Lawrence told us that she had tried to find out how many had been implemented before coming to see our Committee, but had struggled to find the information that she needed. She said:

“It seems as if things have become really stagnant and nothing seems to have moved”.

So are we really learning the lessons?

Knife Crime

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I know that if you were not chairing it, you would be contributing to the debate with a great deal of expertise. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) on securing this important debate. In his speech, he talked about the need to deal with the causes and reasons young people become involved in crime.

Those causes are manifold. In London, we live in a city of enormous wealth. In fact, the wealthiest 10% of its population own half of the wealth. The disparity in income and wealth distribution in London is very stark indeed. All of our communities, including in my constituency, have examples of shiny new developments that have received enormous amounts of investment, but precious little is reinvested in the surrounding local communities.

Too often, that investment is done to the community rather than with it. That leads to people feeling that they are not part of the enormous growth in the wealth of our city, but that they are excluded from it. More importantly, they feel that they do not have the same—or, indeed, any—opportunities to engage in and enjoy the distribution and benefits of the wealth that they see all around them. That feeds into people’s lack of aspiration and determination to improve their life prospects through, for example, education. That despair and lack of aspiration feed into sections of our community. Not everyone is affected—we are talking about a minority of people—but none the less, it creates an area where those who want to engage in crime can not only prosper, but entice others to join them.

What do we see? Increasingly, in parts of our communities working-class kids are attacking—and, too often, killing—one another. If we pour into that the now nine years of austerity—which means that the services supporting those communities have struggled to cope and keep going—we get a perfect storm in which those sorts of criminal activities can prosper. That is the background that we have to deal with.

We must recognise that those communities are being left behind. A lot of research suggests that they voted heavily to leave the European Union. There were many contributing factors. People felt such despair and so disconnected from the economic prosperity around them that they decided to vote that way. We have to address the root causes of why too many of our young people become involved in crime.

I will not make political points, but we have seen a significant reduction in the number of police officers. As those numbers have gone down, particularly in neighbourhood policing, we have seen an increase in knife crime and violent crime in our communities. My own borough has lost 168 officers since 2010, and roughly 70 of those were from our safer neighbourhoods team. Those teams were not just involved in arresting people and investigating crime, but embedded in their local communities and involved in a great deal of diversionary activities that got young people away from crime. It was the policy of those safer neighbourhoods teams not only to know their communities but to own the streets and make them safe for the whole community, including young people who were vulnerable to becoming involved in gangs. Those teams knew the prominent individuals who were likely to be involved in crime, and they would engage with other agencies in their local communities to divert young people away from crime.

When others are in control and people feel safe in their communities, young people in particular do not feel that the only way for them to move safely around the community is to be associated with one gang or another. Too often, the postcode approach to gangs influences young people. We have lost the community engagement, which had local community policing—one of the range of agencies mentioned by other hon. Members—at its heart.

A safer neighbourhoods team in my constituency has, sadly, been decimated and now has only two officers. I went with them to play football in the pouring rain with a gang of kids on an estate. I very much supported what the officers were doing, but I asked the police sergeant, “This is not mainstream policing—why are you doing this?” He said, “Because it’s very important that these young people see the police in a different light from when they are being stopped and searched. It’s important that they feel that we are a part of the community that they can trust and come forward to; otherwise these young people will feel vulnerable and will be more likely to fall prey to those who want them to become involved in criminal activity.”

That sort of policing has been lost. Too many of the cuts to local authorities have fallen on services that, alongside the safer neighbourhoods teams, support young people. We have to address those issues. I commend the Mayor for trying to get safer neighbourhoods teams back—sadly, we are down to two dedicated ward officers per ward in my area, where we used to have six—because that is the right approach. I am sure that that will have an impact on crime in my borough. If there is one message that I would like the Minister to take from this debate, it is this: we need to return to that effective form of community policing that works with other agencies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) spoke about school pupils and exclusions. I absolutely agree that, too often, young people being excluded from school begins a downward spiral of neglect by services that should provide them with support, because they are overwhelmed with demand. Too often, young people who would otherwise be in school are left to their own devices in the community for too many hours.

We must also look at the other side: what is going on in schools and what are we asking teachers to do beyond educating young people? We have to look at why those young people had to be removed from school in the first place, and question whether it is right to ask teachers—including, quite often, women—in classes to deal with extremely violent situations. When violence takes over in a school—I have seen examples of this—young people see that teachers, and perhaps even the police, are unable to deal with the situation, and that it is the troublemakers or those involved in gangs who are in control. That makes them more inclined to become involved in such activity because it makes them feel safer at school, on their way home or when they are out and about in the local community. It is not just a question of children becoming vulnerable because they are excluded; we must address a lot more of what goes on in our schools. We cannot just leave it to the schools.

In conclusion, I say to the Minister that we must start reinvesting in our community policing, because it works. We must also provide organisations in our communities, such as schools, with the support they need to assist young people so that they are not dragged into gangs and criminal activities.

Police Funding Settlement

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I speak not just as the Minister for Policing, but as the Minister for London and a London MP. Certainly, a large part of my ongoing conversations with the Mayor will be on the question, “What are you doing with the money?” The taxpayer has put in an additional £100 million this year. As I have said, there is the potential from this settlement for an additional £172 million of public investment in the Met. It is already a force that has over one and a half times the national average in terms of police officers per head, so the voice from Londoners will get increasingly loud in asking, “What are we getting for the money?”

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Yet another tragic case of knife crime in my constituency led to a death within the last 48 hours. Ten years ago, there were 31,000 police officers in London, and the Mayor of London is now warning that that is going to drop to below 27,000. Back then, I had six police officers per ward in my constituency, and I am now struggling to get two. The Government were warned about the dangers of cutting the police so severely and now we are suffering the consequences. What will this announcement do to address the severe cuts that we have seen over the last eight years?

[Mr Hurd]

As a fellow Londoner, I say to the hon. Gentleman that there is absolutely cross-party consensus on the absolute determination that we need to bear down on this horrific spike in serious violence and knife crime. I am sure that the whole House will want to pass on through him their condolences to the family and friends of the victim of that tragedy. Through the serious violence strategy and the serious violence taskforce, on which the Mayor sits, as do other London Labour MPs, there is an absolute determination to combine robust policing with a big investment in prevention and early intervention to do just that. The Met needs more resources, as I said. An additional £100 million of taxpayers’ money is going into that system this year. This settlement enables additional investment of £172 million, if Sadiq Khan increases precept flexibility. The hon. Gentleman talks about police officer numbers. I am sure that he is aware—and will welcome the fact—that the commissioner is actively recruiting an additional 1,000 officers. We all wait to see what the result of this settlement will be in terms of updating those plans.

Stop and Search

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his work on this ground-breaking reform. It was necessary, and it has had a powerful impact in terms of focusing the minds of the police on the right approach and the best use of stop and search. Almost all the forces are now signed up to the framework. However, he has highlighted the critical issue of confidence to use this tool on the frontline. I have heard, on patrol in Liverpool and elsewhere, that that lack of confidence exists, and that is what we now need to address. The powers are there, and we want the police to use them lawfully.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry to see that the hon. Member for Eltham appears to be experiencing some pain, but he is a brave fellow and I am sure he will bear up stoically and with fortitude. Let us hear what he has to say.

[Clive Efford]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have pulled a muscle in my back.

Intelligence-led policing starts at community level, so is it not therefore a shame that there was no money in the Budget to increase investment in community-led policing? They are the people who know who to stop and search at local level, and we need to see a return to effective local policing and more police in local neighbourhood teams.

[Mr Hurd]

I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s back pain. I fully understand the point he is making and he will have much support for those sentiments on the Benches behind me. There was new money in the Budget for counter-terrorism and for mental health services, which is extremely important for local policing. In terms of budgets for local forces, I ask him to have a little patience and wait for the police funding settlement in early December.

Immigration: Pausing the Hostile Environment

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady raises a really important point. She will be absolutely conscious, as I am, that EU citizens have every right to be here under free movement rules. I am conscious that we need to focus our efforts on those who do not have a legal right to be here and make sure that those who are inadvertently caught up in any policy are given absolutely the right assistance and information that they need. There are particular challenges regarding those who may be homeless. An excellent cross-departmental taskforce, led by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, is currently working on homelessness. It is important that we get our policies right in that respect.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

If the Government are not trying to avoid setting up a hardship fund, why the delay?

[Caroline Nokes]

The Government are setting up a compensation scheme and it is absolutely right that we consult on that before so doing. Martin Forde’s call for evidence received a great deal of information—in excess of 600 pieces of evidence. As I have already said, the DWP is the lead Department for making sure that those who were entitled to benefits and may have been denied them have them not only reinstated immediately but backdated.

G4S: Immigration Removal Centres

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his interest. An action plan was put in place that included appointing a new manager and dismissing nine staff, enhancing staffing levels with recruitment and training plans, introducing body-worn cameras for staff to provide more transparency and assurance, refreshing and promoting whistleblowing procedures, putting in place an improved drugs strategy, and commissioning an independent review led by Kate Lampard to look at the root causes of the issues highlighted that is expected to report this summer. In addition, the Home Office monitors this continuously. Indeed, the Home Office has strengthened its staff numbers at the centres to try to help on a casework basis people who may wish to return voluntarily.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

G4S’s performance in how it delivers public contracts is woefully inadequate, and not only in the Prison Service. G4S runs the transport service for my local hospital. Last week, I had to go to rescue a 94-year-old relative from a discharge area full of patients who had been waiting over five hours for G4S to turn up, and this is a regular occurrence. I am a governor of a school where G4S consistently fails to deliver on the school maintenance contract. When are the Government going to get a grip and deal with G4S, because there is something fundamentally wrong at the heart of this company?

[Victoria Atkins]

G4S is held to account not just by the Home Office but centrally through Cabinet Office reporting requirements. The new procurement process will provide a basis for further progress on all these issues, and the progress of G4S will continue to be monitored very closely.

Windrush

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I am afraid that I need to make progress.

I know that the Home Secretary is going to speak about his proposals for a package of measures to increase transparency.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way on the issue of transparency?

[Ms Abbott]

I give way to my hon. Friend. [Laughter.]

[Clive Efford]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for winding up Government Members even further by giving way to me. If passed, this Humble Address is binding on the Government to publish all the documents relating to this matter and to provide those documents to the Select Committee on Home Affairs. I understand that the Government have issued a three-line Whip to vote against the motion. Can she explain what possible reason they might have for doing so?

[Ms Abbott]

I can only speculate about why the Government would vote against this motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend, as always, makes a very important point. A compliant environment has been put in place, and quite rightly; there should be a compliant environment. That is something that all Governments have supported, including especially the previous Labour Government.

I referred earlier to the motion. This Government recognise the importance of transparency. Members of the Windrush generation and Members of the House need to have confidence that everything possible is being done. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced earlier a package of measures to bring greater transparency to Members of the House and to people in our community who have been affected. Let me set out those measures in a little bit more detail. First, I will be writing—

[Clive Efford]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker—and this is a genuine point of order. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) just asked for the publication of documents that go back before 2010. If you were willing to accept a manuscript amendment to the motion, would the Government then support the motion?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I am not going to accept a manuscript amendment.