Knife Crime in London

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Luke Taylor]

I fully agree. The community-based approaches that I will come to later in my speech recognise that point.

I intend today to state the case that a false premise has been advanced; that successive Governments have failed to invest enough in a whole-of-society approach to reducing knife crime and young people are dying as a result; and that if we are to have any hope of getting a grip on the crisis, we must get serious about a public health approach and the restoration of true, old-fashioned community policing.

The pillars of such an approach are threefold. First, we must reinvigorate visible policing by restoring police budgets and get more beats, not just more bobbies. Secondly, we must rescue the early intervention space, protect it from short-termism and ensure that it has the resource it needs. Thirdly, we must get serious about incorporating a public health approach, with greater cohesion between civil society institutions, and willingness to try community and victim-led solutions such as restorative justice.

Let us start with restoring community policing. The data shows that the number of police community support officers in the Metropolitan police force declined from 4,247 in 2008 to a mere 1,215 in 2023. That failure, which occurred on the watch of consecutive mayors from both main parties, highlights the scale of the crisis.

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate on such an important topic. Everyone deserves to feel safe, yet over the last 14 years we have seen police numbers being decimated. In the borough that encompasses my constituency of Ilford South, we used to have five police stations. Now, there is only one, for four constituencies. What we have tried to do is to bring engagement and enforcement hubs into the community. Does the hon. Member agree with me that bringing police into the communities they serve is a vital part of keeping our communities safe and of restoring pride in the police?

[Luke Taylor]

I could not agree more. I was interested to hear the hon. Member’s speech the other day about including council enforcement officers in these hubs, too. Having them present in the community and accessible to residents is incredibly important. I am keen to have a conversation with him about the measures that he has achieved.

To follow exactly the point the hon. Member just made, at the time when we should be getting more police embedded in communities to halt knife crime, we have instead let numbers crater. We know that research consistently shows violent crime dropping significantly in areas where the police are present, visible and proactive.

In December 2023, when, tragically, a knife cut short the life of a young man in my constituency, Ilyas Habibi, who was just 17, he was just minutes away from a local police station. Just as worrying is that the fact that in my constituency and across London, we see safer neighbourhood officers being abstracted from their beats—a quirk of the Met police set-up that results in vital officers who should be on our streets, making our neighbourhoods safer, being pulled away for major police operational events, typically in central London. It is, in effect, robbing outer London to pay inner London and it has to stop. These officers want to be doing great work in the community, but the failure to recruit across the Met is letting them and, by extension, us down.

There can be no doubt that recruiting into the Met is challenging. The Casey report outlined the scale of the failures that have occurred in recent years far better than any of us can—the failures to get a grip on damaging internal cultures, to protect the victims of crime, and overall to carry the confidence of the very communities they serve. I have met Commissioner Rowley and I acknowledge his undertakings to reform the Met. Nobody in this place can pretend that his role is easy; we must recognise that he needs the full backing of Government to reinvigorate the force and repair its image.

As yesterday’s ruling on vetting clearance and dismissals shows, the hurdles in front of these reforms are immense, and the single greatest tool to smash through those hurdles is the powers that the Secretary of State holds. To bolster a new Met for London and drive knife crime down, it should be a priority of this Government to expedite the reforms we all know the Met needs. Without these reforms, how can we expect recruitment to bounce back? I urge the Minister to today outline what steps the Government are taking to get back to proper community policing, to work with the Metropolitan police to reduce abstraction rates, and to support Commissioner Rowley as he embarks on his package of reforms.

We cannot look to policing alone, though. The whole-of-society approach that is so desperately needed will require an “it takes a village” attitude, and requires a Government committed to supporting early intervention initiatives. A key first step is diversionary programmes, which we know can cut out knife crime before it can metastasise across our streets. The targeted early help and integrated support teams at Sutton borough council do excellent work with young people in my constituency. Their approach is targeted; once a potential young offender reprimanded by the police is brought to their attention, they work tirelessly to build positive relationships with the child to stop the otherwise steady and depressing downward spiral into criminality. It is vital to remember that these schemes offer opportunities to young people who are often not afforded the luxury of such attention elsewhere in their lives.

In London, these intervention programmes rely heavily on grants from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, the Ministry of Justice and the violence reduction unit, but youth services across London often face uncertainty about how and when these grants will be allocated. The team we spoke to at Sutton council is still waiting to see if its grant will be approved for March, which is only a few weeks’ time. In addition, these grants are typically only allocated for 18-month to two-year periods, leaving little space for local authorities to plan ahead.

All the evidence shows that young people susceptible to committing this form of violence require sustained relationships with skilled youth workers to help them to choose safer paths. Such a relationship can take months to form, but it acts as a critical antidote to the peer pressure and social circumstances that are otherwise weighing on the child. It is therefore utterly misguided to continue with this short-termism. Skilled youth workers are deterred from engaging in local authority work due to temporary contract conditions and the lingering threat of grant termination, which could see the shattering of crucial relationships between London’s youth workers and young people at risk of committing knife-related offences. I am therefore keen to hear from the Minister whether she will consider ringfencing funding for local authority early intervention services in London. Without multi-year funding to improve planning and put these services on a more stable footing, this vital first step in preventing knife crime will fall by the wayside.

Backing early intervention is just one of the arrows in the quiver of a wider approach that we must shift to. Young people will continue to die if we do not take heed of our Scottish counterparts and finally embrace a public health approach. Famously, Glasgow took thousands of knives off the streets, and rallied organisations at every level to intervene before a crime was committed. That approach breaks down the silo walls between bodies, putting teachers, A&E doctors, social workers, sports clubs and many more stakeholders in partnership with law enforcement.

Southport Attack

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter. Sir David Amess is a much-missed colleague, and his family continue to be in our thoughts. The Home Secretary met Lady Amess recently, and we are very grateful to the family for the important representations that they have made. Next week, as I have said, we will publish the Prevent learning review of the appalling attack on Sir David. We will never forget him.

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

None of us would wish to pre-empt the public inquiry before it has even started, but based on what the Minister has told us, it seems inevitable that we will face the issue of different state agencies failing to speak to each other about an individual who is coming up on their systems. If they had spoken to each other, they might have realised the serious danger that the Southport attacker posed. My constituent Zara Aleena would have been alive today if agencies had talked to each other two years ago. Will the Minister ensure that inter-agency communication is at the heart of any lessons learnt from this inquiry?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking his question in the way that he has, and I am dreadfully sad about what happened to his constituent. He makes a very important point about inter-agency co-operation and working. That is one of the things that we will look very carefully at, and it is certainly one of the things that the public inquiry will focus on. We have to ensure that there is a joined-up response at local, regional and national levels, and we will do so.

With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will clarify one point that I made to the shadow Home Secretary earlier. He made some good points about transparency, and I want to be clear with him that it is the Law Commission that will review the contempt of court rules.

Police Grant Report

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her speech and for the money that we are going to see. I also associate myself with some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) about community policing and neighbourhood policing being decimated over the last 14 years. With that decimation comes insurance, including motor vehicle insurance, rising through the roof, shoplifters marauding our streets without fear and low-level crime going out of control.

The last time Labour was in government, we were tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. Following 14 years of the Conservatives’ mismanagement, crime and policing have fallen into crisis. Crime has increased, and despite what has been said in this place, police numbers have declined. Prisons have crumbled and victims have been denied justice.

Locally, the borough I led was home to five police stations in 2014. Following a decade of Conservative cuts, only a single police station remained standing. Everyone deserves to feel safe—safe from burglary in our homes, safe from assault on our streets and safe from violence in our daily lives. In Ilford South, we have all felt the consequences of rising crime. Knife crime, in particular, has plagued our streets, claiming the lives of so many young people just starting out—people with their whole futures ahead of them, who are caught up in gangs or victimised. We have seen high-profile cases of domestic abuse where women are murdered and families shattered. Only recently, Jorge Ortega lost his life while working at Ilford train station. He was a victim of violent assault, which deprived his family of a beloved father, grandfather and husband.

It is vital that the police are adequately resourced to act as both deterrent and enforcer. Without fair police funding, we ultimately accept the decriminalisation of low-level crime and the exponential increase of serious crime. We all know that crime can destroy communities, devastate families and degrade the bonds of our society. After 14 years of Conservative cuts to policing, closing police stations and empowering criminals, it is beyond time for a change. I welcome the Home Secretary’s funding report, which addresses the significant issues of police funding cuts and acknowledges the vital importance of having officers back on our streets.

The announcement of a 6.6% cash increase in police funding will mean more uniformed officers patrolling our streets, protecting our communities and responding when we need them most. The funding for the Metropolitan police will support policing across the capital, ultimately making our streets safer. Labour is bringing back community policing, increasing police numbers and beginning the hard work of restoring public trust.

Funding is one part of the solution. To deliver safer streets and improve community confidence, we need a holistic approach, focusing on prevention as well as cure. We need spaces for young people to go to socialise and to be inspired. In Ilford South, I have had the great pleasure of working with Stephen Addison of Box Up Crime—a local organisation that runs boxing clubs, offering young people an escape, an education and a safe space away from crime, antisocial behaviour and gang violence. As council leader, I led investment in youth centres in Loxford, a leisure centre in Goodmayes and libraries across Redbridge, giving young people places to exercise, learn and make friends.

We also brought back community policing locally, as the Labour Government will now do nationally. We delivered enforcement and engagement hubs—bases for police and council enforcement officers to engage with the public and conduct patrols, as an affordable replacement for the police stations that the Conservative Government defunded. The latest one opened last week. I was honoured to invite my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, when she was the shadow Home Secretary, to launch our very first enforcement hub. I am now delighted to support her in government to deliver community policing across the country.

Today’s report on police grants gives us the opportunity and resources to prevent crime, improve community safety and build confidence in the police. Under this Labour Government, the public can rest assured that, once again, we will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, delivering community policing, fair funding and the innovation needed to prevent crime before it happens.

Violence against Women and Girls

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) for securing this important debate.

In my constituency, we know all too well the terrible consequences of the misogyny and rape culture that enables the perpetuation of violence against women and girls. In 2022, our neighbour Zara was walking home from Ilford town centre when she was brutally murdered, just minutes from her front door. Zara was much loved by her friends, her family and the community as a whole. She had a bright future ahead of her, which was so callously stolen from her. Nothing will ease the pain and suffering of all those who loved Zara but, in her memory, her family have fought relentlessly to prevent further violence against women and girls. No one should have to endure what Zara endured.

The stark reality, as has been mentioned, is that one woman is murdered every three days in the UK. Every single day, women and girls are suffering from a systemic rape culture that normalises, overlooks and excuses sexual violence and the abuse of women. Violence against women and girls is a national emergency. We know that violence does not exist in a vacuum. Society tolerates harassment, leering, casual misogyny and sexist jokes, which creates an environment that fosters the hatred of women, normalises abuse and ultimately leads to violence.

Jordan McSweeney, who murdered Zara Aleena, had accrued 28 convictions for 69 separate offences, dating back 17 years. Despite his history of violence, he was categorised as medium risk and allowed to roam the streets seeking another victim. McSweeney’s categorisation as medium risk is a stark reminder of the grave consequences of underplaying this serious crime. Will the Minister please agree that violence against women and girls is a national emergency, and that we must tackle the misogyny and rape culture that leads to abuse?