Gangs and Serious Youth Violence
Debate between Karen Buck and Dawn Butler(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) on introducing this important debate and on his powerful speech, which set out the challenges that we face. We have heard some extremely strong speeches, in which Members have made the point that this is not year zero. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) said, there is a long tradition of violent groups in this country, going back centuries in different manifestations. However, the nature of the problem is changing. It is growing younger and more female, and it is spreading to other areas. Yet it remains true that the crisis largely, but not exclusively, affects black and minority ethnic populations and is one of deprivation.
It is a great shame that we do not have more Members of Parliament in the Chamber to discuss this subject, and I fear that my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham is right that if the problem were not overlaid with that of deprivation, we would have more. It is critical that we exercise our duty as Members of Parliament to all our constituents, and that we echo the cries of pain that we hear in our communities by addressing the problem.
Because this is not year zero, we know that after a sharp increase in deaths from serious youth violence in London in 2007 and 2008, action was taken and the situation improved in the years to 2011 or 2012. The last debate that I secured on gangs and serious youth violence was in 2011, and after that time—I am not saying that the two facts were connected—there was genuine progress. Steps were taken, and there was a welcome reduction in the number of deaths in London. As my right hon. and hon. Friends have set out, that success is now being reversed, which is extremely worrying. As others have said, by no means all incidents are reported to the police.
Westminster North is not Lambeth, Haringey or one of the other areas usually associated with such pressures. It is certainly not south central Los Angeles. However, I will tell the House about some of the incidents that have happened there over the past couple of months. In January, just after the unfortunate removal of security cameras in Church Street in my constituency, a young man was stabbed in the street in front of witnesses. A constituent emailed me to say:
“This brutal and bloody event was shocking to witness and occurred immediately outside two shops that belong to”
the local trading association.
“I understand…that the victim is in surgery, and was lucky that a deep stab wound just missed his heart.”
Two days before Christmas, a young man I know well who did work experience in my office was surrounded by a group of 20 local young people and stabbed in the chest. The knife entered the fatty tissue of his heart, and he was extremely lucky to survive.
A few weeks earlier, a constituent who lives in my road emailed me to say:
“I was awoken by noises in the street outside and some desperate shouting. I got up and looked out of the window and saw a young lad on the phone, he was saying to someone on the other end; ‘I’ve been stabbed’.
I called 999—it took a long time for me to persuade them it was a real, serious incident. I understand that the boy had 4 stab wounds.”
That boy was 16 years old. In October, constituents reported violent clashes in St Mary’s Paddington Green and in Paddington recreation ground, tweeting at me:
“We desperately need police on patrol. The situation is out of control.”
They said that violence was rampant, with drugs and gangs, and tweeted:
“Huge gang fight behind Little Venice Sports Centre”.
That is a few weeks in Westminster North, which indicates how real the problem is.
It is true that, as my right hon. and hon. Friends have said, people can live in the communities affected and be completely oblivious to the situation. As a middle-aged woman, I can walk the same streets and live in a different world from the one in which our young people live in our cities, but increasingly also in some of our towns. Their experience of it is different, and the adult community needs to wake up to the challenges.
It is important to note that although most adults might be oblivious to every single one of those incidents, they have ripples, which spread out. The 20 young people who stabbed the young man who had done work experience in my office know what happened. Their families and relatives know the risks and dangers, and so do the family of that young man himself.
One of the most distressing things that I encounter is when I go into schools in my constituency and talk to eight or nine-year-old children and ask them how they feel about their community. One point they raise is gang violence. They ask whether it can be stopped, because they fear for their relatives.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. In my constituency, the youngest gang member is eight years old and the oldest is 61. That shows the breadth of the problem in communities such as Brent Central. As she says, many people are oblivious to what happens on the streets.
Ms Buck
My hon. Friend is right. We are in a dangerous situation as the pressure on youth services bites, because early intervention is so important. We often think of early intervention as being for the under-fives, but it is as important in the teenage and adolescent years as it is for under-fives.
Dawn Butler
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. When I was the Minister for young citizens and youth engagement, it was our hope that such provision would be made statutory and that youth services would be ring-fenced in each council. It is disappointing that the Government have scrapped that and that we do not invest in all the youth services that have done an excellent job in communities for many years.
Ms Buck
I agree. However, it is not just youth services; there is also pressure on child and adolescent mental health services. For all the talk about giving mental health services parity, there has been an unprecedented squeeze in modern times on mental health services, particularly on CAMHS. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham made a point about mental health and I want to spend a minute or two on that. Westminster council—again, I praise it when it does good things—commissioned a report on gangs and mental ill health, a vastly unexplored subject that is important in understanding serious youth violence.
The report said:
“Street gangs and associated serious violence have been a growing concern in the UK over the past decade and a specific concern in Westminster. They are concentrated in poor urban areas with high crime and multiple social problems. The mental health needs of young people in gangs have, until recently, been overlooked.”
The report demonstrated extremely high mental health need among those involved in gangs. Compared with non-violent men, gang members had increased rates of antisocial personality disorder—57 times higher than the average. Suicide attempts are 13 times higher, psychosis is four times higher, and anxiety disorder rates are twice the average. Gang members are significantly more likely than non-violent men to have used mental health services, with gang members eight times more likely to have consulted a psychiatrist, eight times more likely to have been admitted as a mental health in-patient and five times more likely to have used psychotropic medication.
We have a mental health crisis that affects the very people that we need to deal with, yet, at the same time, CAMHS are being reduced, and particularly some of the school-based services that can provide early referral. I am especially worried that the mental health intervention in my local authority is half what it was two years ago, and is funded only until next year. Of course, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime—MOPAC—anti-gangs initiative is funded only until next year. There is therefore uncertainty about intervention.
Housing
Debate between Karen Buck and Dawn Butler
Ms Buck
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend that the issue with right to buy is replacement, as has been the case for some years. I will come to that in a moment.
The Government tell us that, in order to fund the cost of the discount for housing association sales, the replacement of properties and the investment in brownfield regeneration, they intend to force local authorities to sell high-value stock. We are not yet clear about whether they propose a regional solution whereby a third of properties would be sold by region, or whether they will require each individual local authority to sell those properties. As my right hon. Friend has said, it will be extremely difficult to replace properties.
What will be the consequences of forcing local authorities to sell off their stock? Put simply, they will not be able to meet their housing obligations, carry out tenant transfers, relieve overcrowding, assist people with high medical priorities or assist homeless households. In London, it is estimated that, in my local authority, which is one of the high-value areas that will be most affected, the proposal will end lettings. We have roughly 400 lettings a year from void stocks—there will be no more. How are such consequences meant to respond to constituents’ housing needs?
Dawn Butler
On housing need, the household benefit cap has affected my constituency of Brent Central more than the whole of Wales put together. It affects 2,252 households and 4,646 children, and the Government’s proposals will just exacerbate that problem.
Ms Buck
That is another London problem and it is also very much a problem for the cash flow of housing providers, including housing associations, about which the Government have no answers.
Forcing London local authorities to sell higher-value properties will reduce our stock by up to two thirds. That means that there will be no provision in those London areas and housing need will be displaced into other local authorities.