Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government’s clear ambition and purpose is to ensure that our school system works for every child in every community in this country. Our reforms have already raised school standards. Nearly 2 million more children are attending good and outstanding schools, and since 2011 the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has shrunk by 10% at GCSE and by 10.5% at key stage 2. I know that Education Ministers will be happy to talk to my hon. Friend about their plans to further improve standards in schools.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Q4. Last Sunday in my constituency, Reece Oduleye-Waters, who was just 17, was stabbed, with life-changing results. The knife crime that is happening across our country is not being driven by minors and young people; it is being driven by gangsters, organised criminals, and dirty money. Cocaine alone is worth £12 billion to the market in this country, with 100 tonnes of it crossing our borders. So I ask the Minister this: why are we cutting our border force, why are we cutting our police, and why has London been offered, in the violence reduction strategy, a community fund of only half a million pounds? No one could buy a house for half a million in London.

[Mr Lidington]

I, like every other Member of this House, have nothing but the most heartfelt sympathy for Reece and his family and friends for the most appalling experience that they have endured and are still living through. The right hon. Gentleman rightly says that there are complex causes of the knife crime we are seeing. I agree that there is no doubt that organised crime is contributing to this, and is exploiting young people; organised criminals try to groom young people and attract them into criminal gangs. The Government will publish later this year a violent crime strategy looking not just at the criminal justice system, but at how we can work effectively with all other agencies to ensure that young people are diverted away from that sort of activity in the first place. But it is also true that those carrying a knife can now expect to end up in jail; we have toughened the sentences. And despite what the right hon. Gentleman said, we have also protected police budgets; a quarter of all police are in London.