Aggressive Antisocial Behaviour

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I commend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for securing this debate. I am pleased to see him in the Chamber leading on this issue after the incident that happened to him this summer; I am sure that all colleagues wish him well.

The debate so far has been good. We have heard contributions from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson), giving us a UK-wide picture. I am conscious that this matter is devolved in Scotland, but I will offer a couple of thoughts through a Scottish prism, as well as from a constituency point of view.

The backdrop to this debate is police cuts in England; when I saw it on the Order Paper, I thought it an excellent opportunity to talk about some of the things that we are doing north of the border, particularly on policing. The Scottish Government went into the 2007 elections with the commitment to put 1,000 extra police officers on Scotland’s streets. I am glad that 10 years on, we have managed to maintain that; the number of police officers in Scotland has gone from about 16,000 to 17,249 in June. As a result of ensuring that there are police officers on the streets, we now have the lowest levels of recorded crime since 1974, which was 42 years ago. That is welcome, but it is important that we do not rest on our laurels. Although there has been a reduction in the number of many crimes, I am disappointed to say that there has been an increase in the number of sex-related crimes, as there has across the board.

From my casework in surgeries and from going out door-knocking, I know that antisocial behaviour involves many issues. I will refer particularly to some antisocial behaviour issues in the Cranhill area, where I come from originally. Antisocial behaviour there comes from a group of young boys who think that it is absolutely acceptable to throw stones at both windows and people. I was disappointed to see a couple of weeks ago that a young girl in my constituency was injured when they threw a brick at a passing car. That is totally unacceptable, and we need to nip it in the bud straight away. There are also antisocial behaviour issues in the Baillieston and Garrowhill areas in my constituency, and I am working hard with Police Scotland and Community Safety Glasgow to address them. I pay tribute to Community Safety Glasgow, a joint initiative of Glasgow City Council and Police Scotland, led by Eileen Marshall, to tackle antisocial behaviour and crime. Since it was set up in 2006, there has been a remarkable transformation in our communities.

I also want to mention some of the local voluntary groups working to provide diversionary activities for young people. The first is Urban Fox, led by Michael McCourt and Debbie McGowan. It is a voluntary project based in Lilybank in my constituency that delivers a range of educational and diversionary activities including supervised sport, leisure programmes and health and social guidance. It promotes self-development and provides young people with skills, confidence and opportunities to develop self-esteem. I commend the work of Urban Fox to the House.

Andy Gilbert is a passionate community activist in my constituency who does a lot of work in the Glenburn centre. One issue that I plan to raise with the Employment Minister on Thursday involves the proposal to close three out of four of our local jobcentres, which is ridiculous given that territorialism and gang culture are still issues in my area. One example that I mention here regularly is Wellhouse and Easthall, which are literally separated by a road into two communities, both of which are small but have their own community centres and housing associations. The work that Andy Gilbert is doing in Easthall is to be commended; he is reaching out to attract young people to the Glenburn centre who might otherwise be at risk of offending.

I was delighted last week to meet Young Movers, also based in Easthall. The organisation does a lot of work on youth empowerment, and I was pleased to hear about its recent efforts in the park at Sandyhills, where about 20 young folk had been hanging about causing trouble and engaging in antisocial behaviour. Through youth empowerment, Young Movers has managed to get them to set up a youth club, which has removed the antisocial behaviour in that part of Sandyhills.

Another organisation is Street League, which is UK-wide; it has operations in 14 cities around the UK and is led in my constituency by Brian Lennox. It has had good outcomes in terms of reducing antisocial behaviour in Glasgow, particularly in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). It ran a programme that cut antisocial behaviour in the Carlton area by 80% through street football, which is to be commended. Another organisation, which the hon. Member for Strangford already discussed, is Street Pastors. It does excellent work, particularly in Glasgow city centre at chucking-out time for the nightclubs; he mentioned initiatives to hand out flip-flops and similar things. I commend Stuart Crawford, a good personal friend of mine, who leads that organisation.

To return to the point about police budgets, we in Scotland have committed to protecting revenue budgets in real terms for the entirety of the next Parliament, delivering £100 million in investment over the next five years. I would like to ask the Minister about VAT. Police Scotland is the only force in the UK subject to VAT; it has cost the Scottish Government £140 million since 2013. I hope that in the Budget next month, the UK Government will do the right thing and ensure that Police Scotland is not subject to VAT. Once we can release that money back into the police force, we can reduce antisocial behaviour in our constituencies.