Public Disorder

David Burrowes Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I commend the points that my right hon. Friend has made in opening the debate. Does she share the concern relayed by a number of hon. Members about the soft sentences for such disorder passed in the cases that have already gone through the courts? Does she share my concern that, although we talk about riots, the number of people charged with riot is very small? As these were riots, whoever is charged with an offence during the nights of disorder should punished accordingly.

[Mrs May]

We have been clear in encouraging those who are making decisions about charging and, indeed, those who will make sentencing decisions in the courts to consider these crimes in the context of the circumstances. My hon. Friend refers to the fact that no one has been charged with the very specific offence of riot. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service are making the right charging decisions, in the context of ensuring that they recognise the impact that people being on the streets can have.

No one doubts that the violence that we have seen over the past five days is a symptom of something very deeply wrong with our society. Children celebrated as they smashed their way into shops. Men in sports cars arrived at stores to steal goods. Women tried on trainers before they stole them. A teaching assistant was caught looting. Thugs pretended to help a injured young man but robbed him. They are shocking images, but they are in fact symbols of a deeper malaise in our society.

Almost 2 million children are brought up in households in which no one works. One in three children leaves primary school unable to read, write and add up properly. We have the highest level of drug abuse in Europe. Almost 100 knife crimes are committed every day and nearly 1 million violent crimes every year. Half of all prisoners reoffend within a year of their release from prison. Those are serious social problems, and we cannot go on ignoring them. No one is pretending that there are easy answers to such deep-rooted problems, but they are the reasons why the reform of welfare, schools and the criminal justice system cannot wait.

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[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

We gather today in sober circumstances, when the scenes on the streets of Britain’s cities have disturbed and appalled us all: burning buildings, looting, beatings, smashing windows, setting cars on fire, with shop owners fearful for their livelihoods and residents fearful for their very lives. City dwellers, who have been proud of regeneration and the reclamation of the streets as urban crime fell, suddenly feel afraid to walk outside their doors.

Yesterday, I talked to a woman in West Bromwich outside her shop. It is a small shop, which she staffs alone. Two of her neighbours were also small business women running their own high street shops. On Tuesday afternoon, those women were terrified by gangs who tore down that high street, throwing bricks and setting a van alight outside the sweet shop on the corner. Yesterday, they were back in their shops—they work hard—but they were afraid. The jeweller’s opposite had decided not to open at all. The security and confidence in going about their daily lives that they normally took for granted had been destroyed.

We have all been horrified by the extent of criminality—the opportunistic looting, the aggression, the greed, the lack of respect for people, property, community or the law—that we saw in those involved over a series of nights. However, we must not let that blind us to the heroism, bravery and determination of communities to support law and order and to stand against the violence and the chaos.

In particular, I want to join the Home Secretary in paying tribute to those police officers who have worked so hard to face up to the criminals and restore order. Many have been out on the streets working 17 or 18-hour days, standing up to baying mobs. Officers have come from throughout the country into cities to help, and specials and police community support officers have been doing everything they can. We should pay tribute to their bravery and to that of the fire and other emergency services.

We should also pay tribute to those in our communities who have worked hard to prevent violence from escalating: the thousands who have joined clean-up campaigns; the people who are helping the police now, reporting the neighbour who has suddenly got three new tellies; and those who are reaching out to young people to prevent them from getting drawn into criminal activity. We should recognise that millions of young people across Britain were also deeply appalled by the violence of a minority. They reject the criminal action that we have seen.

All our thoughts will also be with the family and friends of those who have died. I particularly want to send condolences, as the Home Secretary has done, to the families of the three young men in Birmingham who were killed in the early hours of yesterday morning in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood). She has told me how much those young men were loved and how devastating their loss is to their friends, families and communities. Special tribute must go to Tariq Jahan, who stood before the public, just hours after losing his son Haroon, to appeal for calm. He said:

“'Today we stand here to plead with all the youth to remain calm, for our communities to stand united.”

That was the sentiment of a man and a family in their darkest hour, which has resonated—and should—throughout the country.

It was a disgrace to see literally thousands of British citizens, many of them not yet even old enough to vote, ripping through our urban fabric, but standing against them now are not just thousands of British police officers, but millions of British people, who love their cities and towns, and who support their communities and the rule of law. That is what has been so shocking and disturbing for city dwellers over the past few nights: the fear that the rule of law, which we so often take for granted, could suddenly seem to be ripped up. Those women in West Bromwich whom I talked to yesterday need the confidence to keep their businesses open and to be able to lock up at night and walk the streets home to their families in safety. People have a right to feel safe in their homes and safe on their streets. Maintaining respect for the rule of law is a fundamental part of our democracy and why we as democrats in this House all stand to support it now. Ultimately, it is about respect for other people—for their safety and their livelihoods.

That is why we now support the Government and the Home Secretary in their work to restore order to our streets and normality to our communities. I know that the Home Secretary has been deeply worried and concerned about these events from the start. I know that she called my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on Sunday to express her concern and that she returned to the Home Office on Monday. I commend her for doing so, and for her early grasp of the seriousness of the violence. We support her and the Prime Minister in their determination to restore order to Britain’s streets. As other Members have said, it is important that we come together in this House to condemn the criminality that we have seen. There is no excuse for the violence, destruction and theft, putting lives as well as livelihoods at risk. The perpetrators must take responsibility and face the consequences of what they have done.

The Government were right to convene Cobra, were right to recall Parliament and are right to support the police in the action that they need to take. Thankfully, last night was relatively calm, and we have seen progress being made. However, Ministers will also know that it is not sufficient to restore calm for a night or a week. Our cities cannot afford for these problems to simmer and bubble, and then to spill over again in a week or month, or when the next big public event takes place. We need a clear strategy for tackling this violence throughout the summer and beyond. That is the task for Parliament now: not just to condemn, but to debate the action that must be taken.

That means, first, support for strong action through the police and the courts, and considering the powers that the police and the courts have. More than 1,500 people have been arrested so far, and that is rising all the time. Those who committed criminal acts must face the full force of the law. The Home Secretary was right to show her support for robust police action as well. I welcome the all-night sittings of the London courts to ensure that charges can be swiftly brought. I welcome too the use of CCTV, which has played a powerful role in identifying the culprits, and the use of dispersal orders and other powers to intervene fast, rather than waiting for disorder to take hold. We also support looking further at the issues of face coverings and curfews.

However, those now in government have in the past criticised the use and the existence of many of the powers concerned, previously voting against many measures on face coverings and now, in the Protection of Freedoms Bill, making things harder for the police, including on CCTV. I particularly ask the Home Secretary to look again at her proposals to introduce considerable additional layers of new bureaucracy for the police and councils who want to introduce CCTV. I hope that she will think again. As she does so, she may also want to consider looking again at plans to ban antisocial behaviour orders.

[Mr Burrowes]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. I wanted to intervene when she was being particularly measured in her response, which I welcome. Will she dissociate herself from the ill-judged comments by the former London Mayor, who sought to put the blame for what happened on the streets of London on Government actions?

[Yvette Cooper]

No, that is not what Ken Livingstone was saying. He has been very clear that those who have committed criminal acts need to take responsibility and to feel the full force of the law.

Let me add a word of caution to the Government briefing on water cannon and baton rounds. The perception in the newspapers has been that it was only the Prime Minister’s intervention that has made possible the use of water cannon and baton rounds, and the Home Secretary seemed to suggest something similar in her statement today. However, it is important to be clear that the police already had the power to use baton rounds or to ask police in Northern Ireland for the use of their water cannon. That is an operational matter for the police, not a political judgment for Ministers. The Home Secretary will know that the ACPO head, one of the few chief constables to have used water cannon, has made it clear today that those options are open to senior officers but would not have been useful in the particular circumstances that the police faced.

The Home Secretary has rightly backed the police when they need to be able take robust action, but I hope that she will also—as part of that backing—affirm that the police are able to make independent operational decisions based on the individual circumstances that they face and that politicians are not trying to direct the police on issues as important as the use of water cannons and baton rounds. Fundamental to the rule of law that we are now working so hard to sustain is the principle of an impartial, professional police service, involving policing by consent, and that must be preserved.

I would also caution against any consideration of the use of the Army to play a policing role. If we have enough police, we do not need the troops. They have their own important job to do.

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[Nick de Bois]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Indeed, he reflects the views of my constituents in advance of what I was going to say. Of course they were very distressed, and one of the questions—one of the wishes—was, “Why do we not use water cannon or rubber bullets? They have proved effective in other locations.” I accept that they are limited in their effectiveness in some parts—indeed, around London it would be difficult—but this case was a classic example of a wide town centre where dispersal could have been achieved, which might have changed things. Indeed, I believe that the mere threat would also restrict any future activity.

Unfortunately, later in the evening, when the outburst grew more serious and the thugs attacked a police vehicle containing a territorial support group unit, they would disperse and run up nearby residential streets—quiet, detached streets. It was there, at around 9.30, that 30 or 40 of them ran past me, pushing a 70-year-old man out of the way. We were face to face with them in the garden of some neighbours, and as they ran past, with their foul-mouthed abuse—these brave individuals, hidden behind their hoodies across their faces, clutching their expensive mobile phones—they embarked on finding their rather souped-up cars, which were parked in the same residential street. This was no moral crusade. This was not a campaign for social justice; this was simply criminal activity by those determined to profit from it. My constituents are furious at what happened to their town, but what is worrying was the extreme arrogance of the individuals involved. They had no fear of being recognised and no sense of right and wrong. As a country we now have to address this issue, and we will look at how to deal with such issues in the future.

[Mr Burrowes]

My hon. Friend describes the high street that we share as constituency neighbours. On the subject of what we will do about it, he will go home on the tube with me and we will see the headlines about the fury at the soft sentences being handed down to the latest offenders. Does he share my concern that the punishment must fit the crime? If it is not to be prison, it must be proper restitution, paying for their plunder and repairing the damage that they have done to our communities.

[Nick de Bois]

My hon. Friend and neighbour, who suffered similar problems, identifies a key point. One of the other wishes of my constituents was that justice should be seen to be served. It is not unreasonable to expect that the thugs involved should receive custodial sentences and be put to good use in repairing some of the damage that they have done. We must take them out of this cycle of crime and make efforts to reform them.

I have three questions and I would be grateful for answers. The railway line ends at Enfield Town station. During the course of the day, the trains were packed with people coming to cause mayhem. A request was made to Transport for London to stop some of those trains, and the buses that were coming from other parts of London. It never happened, and my constituents would like to know why.

Secondly, we believe that the vast majority of these criminals were not from Enfield, as I saw first hand myself. If we share information from CCTV and YouTube with the education authorities and the police, they can work together to identify more of them. Thirdly, why were we not able to disperse the more than 100 people who were there in the early hours?

Let me pay tribute to the borough commander, Dave Tucker, and his team, and to Enfield council, who are now working together. Enfield is open for business. It has recovered well.