Gangs

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Mark Field

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on opening the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) on initiating it. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) would also like to take part, but she cannot be here today.

Lewisham is by and large a safe place to live. People generally get on with one another. Children play in our parks, and I shall walk home from the station tonight without fear. I mention that because my experience of Lewisham is probably different from that of some of my younger constituents, who have seen the lives of friends and family devastated by serious youth violence. My perception of Lewisham is probably different from that of local parents who are worried about the safety of their children. In the past four years, there have been 67 incidents of known gang-related crime in the borough, four of which resulted in someone dying. In the same period, there were 673 instances of gun and knife crime, and 17 people were killed. I do not quote those figures to sensationalise; I do it so that everyone will be clear about the scale of the problem.

In the past few months, since the riots, gangs seem to be back on the Government’s agenda. Whether the subject is a cross-departmental taskforce to look at ways to deal with gang culture, or extensions to gang injunctions, Ministers want to talk about gangs. It is all very well to be interested in gangs now, but with the exception of Brooke Kinsella’s report last year and the announcement in February of some ring-fenced funding to tackle gang, gun and knife crime, the Government have been dangerously slow off the mark in addressing the challenges posed by gangs and gang violence.

Last September, in an Opposition-day debate, I urged the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice to look at ways of tackling material that appears on the internet glorifying gang membership and the carrying of knives. Video after video, filmed in a car park in Catford in the heart of my constituency, is put on YouTube. They are often viewed as many as 16,000 times. Young men, or perhaps I should say boys, brandish knives in front of the camera as if they were cigarettes. I wrote to the Minister two days after the debate, providing him with an example of the footage and asking what action the Home Office would take. In November I wrote again, chasing a reply. In January I spoke to him after he appeared before the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, but to date I have not had any response to my inquiries; so when the Government talk tough on gangs and want to find someone and something to blame for the riots, I cannot help but wonder why they did not do more to address the sort of problems that many of us were bringing to their attention long before the riots.

If I am honest, I do not know what the Government can do to tackle the problem of online material such as the videos that I have described, but I fear that, if thousands of young people have viewed that footage and think that it is in some way cool, it would not be at all surprising if some of them also got caught up in thinking that some of the agitators in the riots were pretty cool, too.

[Mr Mark Field]

The hon. Lady complains that the Government and perhaps the current Mayor of London have not produced the goods, as she would have liked, but it is only fair to mention that, in the past few years, 10,000 knives and guns have been taken off the street, in a widespread amnesty, and we have also ensured that there are an additional 1 million police patrols per year on the streets of London. It is also fair to say that that builds on what happened under Mayor Livingstone, but the trajectory has been in that direction: we have continued some of the important work done in our capital city in the past decade.

[Heidi Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman acknowledged in his speech that in recent years there has also been an upward trajectory. He urged patience, and I am not sure that patience is possible in this situation, because young people are being killed and maimed on our streets. We need to tackle the situation urgently.

I have spoken about my frustration in trying to get the Government to examine the big issues, and I urge the Minister to update us on the conversations that he has had with companies such as YouTube about how, when the police know such videos are out there, they may perhaps be enabled to get that material taken down.

Having spoken about online manifestations of gangs, I want to turn to some of the wider action that is needed if we are to deal with a problem that blights the lives of too many young people in big cities. Yesterday, I visited XLP, a youth work charity based in my constituency. Its founder, Patrick Regan, is the author of “Fighting Chance: Tackling Britain’s Gang Culture”. I urge the Minister and all hon. Members who are present to read it. It is a powerful and enlightening contribution to the debate about why young people are involved in gangs, what solutions are needed and, indeed, what solutions work. Anyone who reads the book will realise that there is no magic wand to be waved to tackle the problem of gang violence. What is clear is the fact that any gang strategy must address all aspects of the problem. We must seek to understand the reasons behind gang involvement and, equally, why most kids do not get involved. Let us be clear: the vast majority of kids, even on some of the most challenging estates, are not involved.

To put it simply, if we are to tackle the problem of gangs, we must find a way to get those who are now in gangs out of them; we need to help those who are in prison as a result of being in gangs not to return to gangs when they come out; and we must help those who are caught up in gang violence to deal with their anger in different ways. Often, retaliation and reprisals lead to an escalation of violence. How do we stop things getting worse at that stage? Most importantly, we must prevent people from getting involved in the first place.

What should we do? My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham is completely right to talk about jobs. I have said before that young people in my constituency stop me in the street and say, “What are you going to do to help me get a job?” If young people do not have real opportunities, we will not reach a situation where they do not see involvement in gangs as the easy, quick-win solution. However, we need to do other things, such as getting youth-led projects into schools when young people are at the right age, so we can make it clear to them that, if they carry a knife, it could end up injuring them. We need to provide young people with accessible role models, who are in it for the long haul, giving the support and encouragement that may be missing in other parts of a young person’s life. We need to ensure that the one-to-one mentoring and encouragement that a young person in a pupil referral unit might need are available, and can be funded. We need to give confidential support to young people who present themselves at an A and E department with a stab wound, so that they can find a way out of some of the problems. As I have said before, we need to work with those who are in prison to give them a fulfilling life to get away from gangs on their release.

When I spoke to staff at XLP yesterday, I asked them what the Government should do to tackle the problem of gangs. They were clear in their response: jobs, a better balance between enforcement and engagement, and funding of initiatives that have been proven to work. XLP gets £10,000 a year from the Home Office. It has a track record in delivery, going into schools and doing the things that I have talked about. It is changing young people’s lives; it is probably saving their lives.

I say this to the Government: take the millions of pounds that they plan to spend on police and crime commissioners and invest the money in community-led projects that are already tackling gang and knife crime. Young lives are being lost in some of our big cities because of the violence associated with gangs. That has to stop. Talking tough is not going to solve the problem. A proper, thought-out and credible strategy, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham said, might give us a fighting chance of tackling some of the problems, and I implore the Minister to set out what the Government are going to do.

English for Speakers of Other Languages

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Mark Field

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Later in my speech, I have some testimony from Lewisham college students who make precisely that point—that to improve and, indeed, to make the best progress possible, there needs to be continuity of learning.

I was talking about the latest guidance note from the Skills Funding Agency. While I am on that subject, I would like to ask the Minister a few more questions. In particular, why is the Department treating ESOL differently from other basic skills training and foundation learning? In paragraph 47 of the latest Skills Funding Agency note, the Government state that where a learner has an entitlement to a level 2 qualification, entry or level 1 aims will be fully funded to facilitate progression. However, the note also states that skills for life, including ESOL, are exempt from that provision. Will the Minister tell me why? Simply saying, as guidance note 7 does, that guidance note 6 deals with that is not an answer to my question.

It is remarkable that colleges and training providers may not be able to spend money that has been allocated to address basic skills because of the new co-financing requirements that the Government are introducing. That just does not make sense.

I will turn now to some of the wider arguments about why investment in ESOL courses is so important. In the last few days, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has estimated that eastern European immigration has added £4.9 billon to the UK’s gross domestic product. Surely having more people able to speak the language and able to work is a good thing. The alternative is more dependence on the state and a greater outlay on benefits. That is before we start to think about the knock-on effects of poor language ability on the public purse.

In April, a series of freedom of information requests to London hospitals showed that in the three years from 2007 to 2010, £15 million was spent by seven different hospitals on interpreters and translators. We know that other parts of the public sector, whether councils or the Courts Service, have similarly high bills. Again, I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with a Minister. This time, it is the Minister for Immigration, who is quoted in connection with that story as saying:

“This illustrates very starkly why we need to do more to ensure that those people who are settled in this country can speak basic English.”

Will the Minister responsible for skills tell me what discussions he has had with the Minister for Immigration about the impact of his changes to ESOL? Has he told the Minister for Immigration that his Department’s changes will result in fewer people being able to speak basic English? It is not just the NHS that is affected.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a very powerful case with which most of us would agree. Given the financial constraints that the Government find themselves under because of the general economic situation, will she accept that for every pound that she would like to be restored to the budget for ESOL, a pound should be taken away from translation along the lines that she has suggested?

[Heidi Alexander]

This issue is so important and has such knock-on effects that investment in English language courses is fundamental. That is why I have called for the debate today.

I was making some points about the wider societal importance of English language skills and had spoken about the NHS. Let us think now about schools and what happens to many children who grow up without English as their mother tongue. They go to primary schools and hundreds of teachers throughout the country do a sterling job in improving their language skills and helping them to integrate with their classmates. Then they go home, where perhaps they revert to speaking the language of their mother and father. Is it not much better for those children to be able to hear both their parents speaking English—perhaps not all the time, but at least so that they can see and hear that their parents can speak the language? Is it not much better for their parents to be able to understand the letter from school, to be able to speak to the teachers and to be able to contribute to the wider school community?