Public Disorder

Dan Byles Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly join my hon. Friend in praising Suffolk and other police forces in East Anglia and Essex who got police officers into our capital. The point I made about the deployment of officers is one of the lessons we have to learn about the ability to surge up numbers quickly when circumstances require it.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that no matter how good a job the police do in arresting people, too many thugs simply do not care if they are caught, because they have no respect for or fear of the criminal justice system? Until we resolve that, we will not be able to resolve the wider problem.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There will be people arrested this time who casually entered a broken-down shop and nicked things, thinking it was somehow okay, who will get an almighty shock when they get a criminal record, and potentially go to jail—quite right too. But my hon. Friend is right to say that there is a hard core who are not frightened enough of the criminal justice system, and we need to make sure that they are.