Serious Violence Strategy

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow two deeply moving and powerful contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). They are absolutely right to be angry.

Last weekend, a 16-year-old boy from my constituency, Ozell Pemberton, bled to death on the streets of Sutton Coldfield after he was stabbed. His mother is absolutely distraught. He is the latest casualty of the rise in violent crime, which has doubled since 2013, with knife crime up by 36%.

In my constituency and in many parts of Birmingham, fear stalks the streets. It has been said many times in this debate that this not just about police numbers—I will come to that later—but I say in all earnestness to the Minister that she cannot cut 21,000 police officers nationwide, including 2,100 in the west midlands, and expect there to be no consequences. Cressida Dick was absolutely right when she made the link between reduced police numbers and rising crime. To be absolutely frank, the Government are in denial. There is a simple, blunt reality: more people will die who might otherwise have lived if we do not reverse this deeply damaging policy of the biggest cuts to any police service in western Europe.

What is happening on our streets is truly frightening, affecting young people but not only young people. We recently had a public meeting in my constituency, following a litany of stabbings and shootings in the preceding three months: two men stabbed in Tyburn Road; guns going off in Gravelly Lane; a robbery in the Greggs store on Kingsbury road involving a two-foot-long machete; shootings in Dovedale Road; two men stabbed on Edgware Road; and a gang of 30 men with machetes attacking a local shop on Witton Lodge Road. Only last month, three sixth-formers from St Edmund Campion School were standing at the bus stop outside their school, when they were attacked by two men with machetes. One boy had his armed chopped from his shoulder down to his wrist.

It is not just about the young people who are directly affected. Fear is being generated by growing gang crime and gangs on the streets. A 60-year-old woman in Slade Road said, “I’ve lived here for 55 years, but I’m now afraid to leave my home.” A woman who has lived on the Perry Common estate for 48 years said, “I don’t go out after dark.” Young men are saying to me, “We are afraid to go outside of our estates.” One young man is even afraid to go to school unless he is escorted, because of the risk of becoming a victim of gang crime.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) and other speakers have catalogued why this is happening. It is despair; there is often no hope of getting a decent job. It is deprivation. It is mental ill health; my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham was absolutely right about access to CAMHS for those struggling with forms of mental ill health. It is family breakdown and, sometimes, housing problems. It is also the pernicious influence of the internet providers, which in my view are literally getting away with murder. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham was absolutely right that it is the fear that can drive young people into gangs so that they feel protected against gang violence. Of course, there is also the rapid growth in drug crime and the pernicious county lines strategies of drug dealers. All those issues need to be tackled, and not just by way of additional police numbers.

Let me give an example of what is happening in the west midlands. The police and crime commissioner, David Jamieson, has established a commission on gangs and violence, injecting £2 million into a very welcome initiative that includes: a team of expert negotiators set up to difuse violence between gangs and to help individuals escape gangs; a mentoring scheme to help young people at risk of offending; a package of support measures to rehabilitate ex-offenders; and a set of programmes designed to provide alternatives activities for young people at risk of school exclusion and offending. That is all deeply welcome. We need an integrated, public health approach, as several hon. Members in today’s debate have mentioned. But, crucially, such an approach will be limited in its impact without the necessary resources. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling and my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) were absolutely right that it is crucial to provide adequate resources at the next stages.

Police numbers matter, particularly in the role of neighbourhood policing—the building of relationships with communities. I can give an example of that from my own constituency. Sergeant Simon Hensley set up a canoeing club on Brookvale Park lake, and 200 young people joined it. He helped some of them by way of signposting the various forms of assistance they needed in their lives. When there was an outbreak of burglaries in Stockland Green, young people with whom relationships had been formed came forward and said, “Simon, we think we know who the burglars are.” Some might say, “What are the police doing setting up a canoeing club?”, but it was an excellent way of reaching out to and involving local young people. Sadly, though, such initiatives are becoming ever more difficult because neighbourhood policing has been hollowed out as the numbers of police officers have fallen.

On resources, the Government talk in their strategy about the role of council youth services, family support, mental health services, and schools. In Birmingham, the problem with that is that the council’s budget has been cut in half. We have seen the biggest cuts in local government history—£700 million. Youth services have been decimated, family support has been cut back and mental health facilities likewise, and schools are struggling with their budgets. All those things are absolutely vital to underpin a policing response, and the social fabric of the city is increasingly under strain. All the services that are vital in terms of effective early intervention are under pressure.

Of course there are some welcome steps identified in the strategy, but I ask the Minister to listen to the wise words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, who said that they are wholly inadequate to rise to the challenge of what is confronting us now in this country, and the wise words of my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling, who said that this is a national emergency. These are young people—the best of our country who are being cut down in their prime. It is fundamentally wrong, and the Government have to rise to that challenge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I can certainly help the hon. Lady with the “Ending gang violence and exploitation” strategy. It is one of the strategies on which the serious violence strategy has been built. I do not pretend that we are inventing the wheel for the first time here; we are building on work that has been done over the years, and “Ending gang violence and exploitation” is one of those strands of work. We have an inter-ministerial group, and I am delighted to see my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, sitting here next to me tonight, because he is one of the Ministers in that group, which I chair. It brings all the relevant Ministers into the room and challenges them to deliver for their Departments in terms of tackling these types of crime. We are now refocusing the group to deal with serious violence, because county lines and other factors have developed. I am hoping that I might get a little assistance specifically about Grimsby, but if I do not, I will write to the hon. Lady about that. I am afraid that I cannot flick through my file and find the answer in time now.

I am delighted—“delighted” is the wrong word; I am pleased—that Members across the House have understood the terrible impact that county lines is having on criminal statistics and on people living day to day in our constituencies. I hope that those who attended the debate on county lines in Westminster Hall several months ago will forgive me for repeating this powerful line from a police officer who has done a lot of work on county lines gangs. She said:

“They are stealing our children.”

That sums it up for me.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham, who I look forward to working with on the serious violence strategy, spoke powerfully about the role of serious organised crime, and I agree with him. I used to prosecute serious organised crime, and I am very alert to it. We would say that county lines is serious organised crime. That is our mindset. It is at the heart of the serious violence document. He made a point about wider serious organised crime groups, and various nationalities have been mentioned today. The National Crime Agency leads on those crime groups and on county lines investigations, because county lines is a national crime. We will also be producing the serious organised crime strategy in due course, in which—believe you me—this will be looked at. Please do not think for a moment that we have ignored serious organised crime; we have not. We have put it at the heart of the strategy, because we consider it to be part of it.

[Jack Dromey]

There is common ground in the House that this is not just an issue of police numbers, but does the Minister agree with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, that there is a link between falling numbers of police officers and rising violent crime?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am constantly asked that question, as the hon. Gentleman will imagine, and I challenge my officials to tell me the answer, because I want to get to the truth and I want to ensure that we are tackling this as effectively as possible.

During the previous spikes in knife crime in the late 2000s and mid-1990s, there were many, many more officers on the street. In addition, there does not appear to be a relationship between the numbers of police officers and the national rise in serious violence. I absolutely understand why hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised this issue.