Serious Violence Strategy

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

It would be myopic—even misguided—to isolate the reality of violent crime, particularly knife and gun crime, from social and civil decline. We have to look at the character of community and the nature of civil society in order to get to the root of why this is happening at the scale and in the way in which it is. If this is the qualitative and quantitative change that I have described, we have to be straightforward, but also thoughtful, about the cause, and I think that part of that cause is the decline of traditional structures.

I spoke at the beginning of this debate about growing up on a council estate in south-east London. I had an idyllic childhood in a stable, loving family in a strong, responsible community in a place that I was proud to call home. Now, I do not for a moment claim that my family or the others that we lived among were wealthy. We certainly were not wealthy. By that stage, of course, people had a reasonable standard of living. We had enough food to eat, a well-furnished home, a seaside holiday for a fortnight a year—usually in Kent—as well as a polished second-hand car outside the door and a clipped privet hedge. This was not like the background that my father endured of abject poverty before the war; my childhood was not wealthy, but neither was it uncomfortable.

The key thing about that time was that the values that prevailed in that community were the kind of values that encouraged a sense of responsibility and purpose, which delivered the pride that I mentioned earlier. When people are purposeful and proud, they are much less likely to behave in a way that is socially unacceptable and they are certainly less likely to get involved in crime and violence. That is not to say that there was not crime then—of course, there has always been crime—but the character of those communities has absolutely changed from the time when I was growing up. I am sure that that is about family breakdown and the values that prevailed then that are no longer routine. It is also about all the civilities and courtesies that once informed daily life. I do think that some of that civil and social decline—that communal deterioration—is associated with the way in which individuals behave, and the way in which that behaviour sometimes spills over into crime and violence.

I agree with the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) that of course it is not all about gangs. The point I was making was that, in the absence of a positive social structure, alternative social structures will sometimes fill the void, and they are not all desirable. Some are fundamentally undesirable—indeed, they are malevolent in both intent and character. In essence, that is a very longhand way of saying that I broadly agree with him.

What are some of these social changes? I have spoken of some of them by way of illustration from my own life. We know from endless research that young people who grow up in broken or disjointed families are much more likely to be involved in antisocial behaviour, crime and drugs. We know that, when some of the other ties of community break down, both individual wellbeing and the common good are detrimentally affected. I spoke of having a loving family. There is no better element of civil society than strong, supportive families.

Our popular culture, however, celebrates success over respect, ego over reflection, opinion over knowledge, and desire and feeling over virtually everything else. Social media’s role in this is that it may have provided a platform to celebrate some of the things that I have described. Social media perpetuates a very egotistical perspective on the world as it celebrates all kinds of characteristics that are not necessarily those which build strong civil society. Knife crime is a devastating consequence of social and cultural malaise. Crime feeds on excess, irresponsibility and selfishness. From the desolation that flows from the kind of doctrine that places individual interest above communal obligations, and individual will above all else, first lawlessness and ultimately violence springs.

It may be convenient for the wealthy white City worker to believe that recreational drugs are his own private business. He may well assume that, as the godfather of liberalism, John Stuart Mill, would put it, his actions are doing no harm. Yet the boom in the middle-class market for cocaine is the root cause of the recent gang wars over county lines that have resulted in so many young lives being lost. Selfish individualism may indeed benefit those who spend their days safely ensconced in guarded office blocks, in the back seat of an Uber, or in gated communities exclusively for the wealthy, but for others it has resulted in desolation and life stripped of meaning and purpose. We cannot hope to find a successful cure for the wave of violence unless we accept the proper diagnosis.

It is not good enough for Governments to say that they can do nothing about drugs and the drug culture. We need a serious clampdown on middle-class drug use and an examination of how that drug use relates to the kind of violence that we are debating, because the lines of supply and demand are closely associated with gangs, with crime, with violence and with murder. I do not say this because they are my Government, or even my Ministers, if I might put it that way; I would say it about any responsible Government. The reasons for society’s failure to do that thus far are ironically, perhaps even paradoxically, the same as the reasons for the growth in the problems we face.

It is a disastrous consequence of the liberal consensus that stop-and-search was seen as part of the problem. I fundamentally disagree with the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) about this. [Interruption.] No, no. Although we are, I hope, having a good-humoured and positive debate, as it should be—there are contributions from all parts of the Chamber that I will hear and certainly value, and I know that that will also add value to the considerations of Government—I do think that there is also a proper place for disagreement. I am going to talk a bit more about this, but I want to start by being very clear: freedom from being searched is really not more important than freedom from knife crime. Where is the freedom in living in fear of gangs, as so many young people in London do? Where is the freedom for young children drawn into a life of violence and crime as the runners for county line drug networks, or increasingly as drug peddlers in small towns and rural communities, as the right hon. Lady described?

The spike in knife crime must be a spur to action, not just for us to toughen our approach, which is urgent and necessary, but also for deeper measures to restore purpose and pride for people in places that are stripped of both. But first, we must restore the safety and security of our communities. That must mean extensive use of stop-and-search. Moreover, the police must be a visible part of those communities. People would be much less antagonistic towards the police—and towards stop-and-search, by the way—if they did not feel that these are the only times that they ever see them. When policemen were a regular feature of local life—when they were seen in circumstances that were not adversarial and were just there as part of the community—they enjoyed a different relationship with those communities. If policemen are seen to be there only when there is trouble, they will be defined by trouble, and that will change the relationship between the law-abiding public and the police.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

On the police’s relationship with the public, about a fortnight ago, on a Saturday morning, hundreds of members of the public turned out in the Willenhall area of Coventry because they were concerned about a lack of police numbers at the same time as an increase in crimes such as burglaries and assaults. That gives an idea of the level of public concern, certainly in Coventry and different parts of the west midlands, regarding the question of policing.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is always a well-informed and intelligent contributor to these debates, and, not for the first time, I both recognise and respect his view, but I suppose that what I am speaking about is the culture of policing rather than just the extent of it. I was describing a kind of policing that was once taken as read—routine. Policemen understood that their role was largely non-adversarial, with the policeman coming to one’s school, popping into the shop to pick up local information, or seen as a friendly face in the town, village, suburb, shopping parade or estate like the one I once lived in.

I am a great supporter of the police, as my local chief constable will testify, and an admirer of all that they do. I do think, however, that a sensible conversation at the Home Office and more widely in Parliament about the kind of police service that we want to grow, and the culture that prevails in it, is timely. People would be much more comfortable with the idea of police engagement if they perceived the police in the way that they once did.

Therefore, I do not think it is entirely about numbers. I am not saying that this is unrelated to them, but I think the Minister was right when he pointed out—as, to be fair, did the shadow Home Secretary—that it is not wholly about numbers. It may be about resources, but it is not wholly and probably not even mainly about them.